In the LonelyPlanet guide this place is reffered to as a citadel. The word used is not "fort" or "fortress" which are more common, it’s specifically citadel, synonymous to a stronghold.
And here I can totally agree with the guide’s editors.
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What does a settlement start from in Ladakh? As it usually is, from a big and beautiful gate.
This gate is almost not decorated, one can spot much more impressive ones which are no inferior to painted entrances to big monasteries. But this one has three stupas on it: blue, white and yellow. This set of three coloured stupas can be seen in Ladakh everywhere, all sizes. The azure ones are especially impressive.
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By Michael Heath, March 13 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama urged China to renew talks with the Dalai Lama’s envoys on Tibet, shortly after Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi asked the U.S. to respect his country’s position on the Himalayan region.
“The president expressed his hope there would be progress in the dialogue between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama’s representatives,” the White House said in a statement after Obama met with Yang. “The promotion of human rights is an essential aspect of U.S. global foreign policy,” it said.
Earlier yesterday, Yang said in a speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies that “Tibet is an inalienable part of China’s territory and Tibetan affairs are exclusively China’s internal affairs.”
The Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader, ended contacts with China last November after eight rounds of talks failed to produce results. China deployed armed police in Tibet, stepped up patrols on the border with India and cut mobile telephone and Internet connections in some areas ahead of the March 10 anniversary of a 1959 uprising that led to the Dalai Lama’s exile, according to Tibetan groups.
Last March, the largest Tibetan uprising in almost two decades broke out after Chinese security forces suppressed a protest by monks in Lhasa. At least 19 people were killed in rioting in the city, most of them ethnic Han Chinese, the government in Beijing said.
In the ensuing crackdown, more than 200 Tibetans were killed, according to Tibet’s government-in-exile, based in northern India.
‘Hell on Earth’
The Dalai Lama said in a speech marking the 50th anniversary that Tibetans have suffered “hell on earth” under Chinese rule. He accuses the government in Beijing of committing “cultural genocide” in the region and says mass migration of ethnic Han Chinese has made Tibetans a minority in their own land.
Tibet is stable and peaceful overall, China’s Premier Wen Jiabao said in a press briefing in Beijing today.
The U.S. Congress passed a resolution two days ago that urged China to “cease its repression of the Tibetan people, and to lift immediately the harsh policies imposed on Tibetans.”
In a statement issued late yesterday, the National Peoples’ Congress Foreign Affairs Committee called the U.S. resolution “a gross interference in China’s domestic affairs,” the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
Tibet, a theocratic state ruled by the Buddhist clergy before Chinese rule, has made “remarkable progress” since the launch of democratic reform 50 years ago, Yang told the CSIS. Tibet’s traditional culture has been “well preserved” and people there enjoy all the rights prescribed by law, he said.
Respect China’s Position
“I hope that people from various sectors of the United States will appreciate these facts, and understand and respect the Chinese people’s position of upholding state sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the foreign minister said.
The Chinese Communist army fought its way onto the 3.2- kilometer (2-mile) high Tibetan Plateau in 1950 and 1951, easily defeating Tibet’s horse-borne troops. The Dalai Lama, then a teenager, accepted Chinese control to save his people from war, he wrote in his 1977 book, “My Land and My People.”
In 1959, with the Chinese troops’ presence straining Tibet’s economy, citizens of Lhasa grew alarmed when a Chinese army commander summoned the Dalai Lama, without his usual bodyguard, to the army’s camp in the city. Tibetans surrounded the Dalai Lama’s palace and forced a standoff with troops.
“A vast multitude of excited, angry people” had “armed themselves with sticks, spades or knives” and a few guns, the Dalai Lama wrote in his memoir. To avoid a battle, he slipped out, disguised as a Tibetan soldier, and fled to India.
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Tags: China, Dalai Lama, News, Politics, Tibet
News, Politics, Tibet | Leo Golan | 
March 18, 2009 3:31 pm | 
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I’ve been travelling constantly since summer 2005. And from that time onwards all my belongings never took much more space than one backpack. Gradually its size became much smaller than in the beginning and contents were tested live: now I’m carrying almost nothing I would not use, and I have most things that are really needed.
Note: Article is dated september 2007, new version would come in april 2009 once I buy new bag as the one pictured is almost broken now.
Some time ago I was astonished by fact that actual buddhist monks could own only 7 things. It’s clear that in less hospitable climate than indian it will be hard to get along with only one piece of cloth as a dress. Also possibility of working and properly keeping in touch with the world would require even more devices with a paper notebook on top of the list and a laptop and mobile phone at its end. It’s also understood that the minimal set for plain survival and minimal set for comfortable life will be dramatically different, and here it’s very important to keep balance between what can really lighten your life on the road and what only makes your bag heavier.
Also, as you can imagine, set of things for Iran can be quite different from Goa’s set. What you possibly could not survive without in Russia would be of no use in Tibet. And some of the necessary things do not have to be carried along all the time as you can buy them upon arrival.
This photograph shows the content of my bag on the way from Europe to Asia: what I would call optimum set of belongings for travelling in all those not quite rich and clean asian countries.
And, of course, boy backpackers can replace some items with whatever would be useful for men.
1.BackpackIt’s extremely important to have a high quality backpack. Its solidity, capaciousness and handiness influences a lot in your travels. Simply imagine how many times during your trip you will have to pack and unpack it and you will understand everything. Clothes and sleeping bag go into lower part, laptop goes into special pocket by back, everything else goes as it fits. After a number of shifts you will most probably develop most convenient order of placing things. But please remember that no matter how few things you have and how big your bag is it will be anyway totally full. Knowing it choose the bag of the size that you can carry easily. The things that would not fit into it will give you one more occasion to review what you really need and what not.
2.Small bagYour backpack stays in the hotel and you go for a walk in the city. Accordingly your second bag should be big enough to accomodate a purse, camera, warm jacket or shawl, possibly a vacuum flask with some tea and sometimes laptop if you still don’t get internet from your mobile phone and have to go for sending mails and uploading pictures into the nearest cyber-cafe. Read more »
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Tags: Travel
Oxanna, Travel | Oxanna | March 14, 2009 6:10 pm | Comments (0)
BEIJING (AFP) — China’s communist government will decide on the reincarnated successor of the Dalai Lama when Tibetan Buddhism’s highest spiritual leader passes away, state press said Thursday.
“Besides religious rites and historical conventions, there is also a very important condition for the reincarnation of the Dalai and that is the approval of the central government,” top Tibetan legislator Legqoq told Xinhua news agency.
Legqoq, who goes by only one name, was speaking on the sidelines of China’s ongoing annual session of parliament which coincided with this month’s 50th anniversary of a Tibetan uprising that led to the exile of the current Dalai Lama.
Legqoq said China’s State Religious Affairs Commission issued regulations in 2007 that mandate government approval for all reincarnated “Living Buddhas,” or lamas.
The rules were widely seen as an effort to bring Tibetan Buddhism more firmly under China’s control, after decades of unrest over religious freedom and the plight of the Dalai Lama.
Living Buddhas are an important element in Tibetan Buddhism, forming a clergy of influential religious figures who are believed to be continuously reincarnated to take up their positions anew.
Often there is more than one candidate competing to be recognised as the actual reincarnation, and the authority to decide who is the true claimant carries significant power.
This is especially true in the case of the Panchen Lama, the second-most influential figure in Tibetan Buddhism behind the Dalai Lama.
Chinese authorities detained the Dalai Lama’s choice of the Panchen Lama in 1995 when the boy was six years old, and he has not been seen in public since.
The Chinese government’s choice as the Panchen Lama has meanwhile been paraded around the country in recent years to promote China’s rule over Tibet.
He will also likely oversee the reincarnation of the next Dalai Lama, after the 73-year-old incumbent passes away.
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Tags: China, Dalai Lama, News, Politics, Tibet
News, Politics, Tibet | Leo Golan | March 13, 2009 10:01 am | Comments (0)
