Contact is taking a holiday!

Contact is taking a break after 25 years of bringing you news of Tibet and Tibetan issues. We are celebrating our 25 years by bringing you the story of Contact and the people who have made it happen, and our archive is still there for you to access at any time, and below you can read the story of Contact, how it came into being and the wonderful reflections of the people who have made it happen over the years.

When and how Contact will re-emerge and evolve will be determined by those who become involved.

News From Other Sites

Tibet’s quiet militarization rings a loud bell across Asia

Chinese paramilitary police march during a flag raising ceremony near Potala Palace in Lhasa, capital of Tibet/AP Photo. OMER AZIZThe Globe and Mail (Canada) Thursday, Nov. 28, 2013  For the past two years, the Asia-Pacific region has been central to both the Obama administration and the Harper government’s Asia strategies. The read more →

Tibetan texts in gold, silver ink discovered

[The Times of India]   By Pranava K Chaudhary   PATNA: Rare Tibetan text written in gold and silver ink on black, thick handmade paper was discovered by the experts of Central University of Tibetan Studies, Sarnath, while cataloguing and classifying Tibetan texts kept here at the Bihar Research Society (BRS) a few days back. These Tibetan texts read more →

Desperation in Tibet

2011 file photo released by Boxun website shows lay Tibetans being forcibly taken away by Chinese police in a Tibetan area incorporated into China’s Sichuan Province [The New York Times] By THE EDITORIAL BOARD Published: November 29, 2013 On Nov. 11, Tsering Gyal, a 20-year-old Tibetan Buddhist monk, set himself on read more →

Tuberculosis Award Gets Caught In Politics

By Betsy McKay  (Wall Street Journal) Nov. 26, 2013 There are few prizes or awards in the field of tuberculosis treatment, where doctors can spend years trying to cure patients, only to watch many die. Tsetan Sadutshang appeared to be one of the chosen few when he was told in read more →

Oldest Buddhist shrine holds clues to Buddha’s birth

By Elizabeth Landau, CNN (CNN) — There are about 500 million Buddhists worldwide, but it’s unclear exactly when in history this religion began. The Buddha’s life story spread first through oral tradition, and little physical evidence about Buddhism’s early years has been found. Now, scientists for the first time have read more →

Don’t Forget Tibet

An interview with exiled Prime Minister Lobsang Sangay. By Mary Kissel , The Wall Street Journal China’s Communist Party leadership announced a 60-point reform plan last week which moves the country toward a more open and liberalized economy. But if Beijing’s treatment of Tibet is any indication, constraints on political read more →

Chinese leaders control media, academics to shape the perception of China

(The Washington Post) By Fred Hiatt, Published: November 17, 2013 It’s well known that Chinese censors shape and limit the news and history their people can learn. What may be more surprising is how Chinese officials shape and limit what Americans learn about China. Last month, a cultural attache in read more →

Dalai Lama: China ‘softening’ on Tibet

[Source: Bangkok Post] The new Chinese leadership under President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Li Keqiang and the modern-day Chinese intelligentsia are more receptive to the Tibetan cause and Tibetans’ demand for high-level autonomy, exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama said on Thursday. The Dalai Lama said that lately read more →

Looking at Chen Quanguo’s Article on Tibet, with more than a pinch of salt

[Source: ICT blog] by Bhuchung K. Tsering Chen Quanguo As part of my work I look at the statements by China’s leaders to see if they reveal anything about the current state of affairs in Tibet. This was particularly so after General Secretary Xi Jinping took over the leadership and read more →

New Chinese Panel Said to Oversee Domestic Security and Foreign Policy

A plainclothes security guard outside the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing on Tuesday. China’s new national security committee will deal with cybersecurity as well as the unrest in China’s Tibet and Xinjiang regions, according to one expert/Photo/Associated Press [Source: The New York Times] By JANE PERLEZ Published: November 13, 2013 BEIJING read more →

Chinese Security Agency to Enhance Xi’s Powers

By JEREMY PAGE  (Wall Street Journal)  updated Nov. 12, 2013 2:53 p.m. ET BEIJING—China’s Communist Party plans to establish a new state security committee that analysts say will potentially enhance President Xi Jinping’s powers, cementing his hold on the military, domestic security and foreign policy in ways that eluded his read more →

Xinjiang Dreams: Worrying about ethnicity

By David Tobin [blogs.nottingham.ac.uk] The ethnically targeted violence of July 2009 in Ürümchi overshadowed the lead-up to the 60th anniversary of the founding of the PRC. Uyghurs and Han were both victims and perpetrators and official figures claimed 197 people were killed (See here, here and here). The violence suggested that ethnic relations remain an read more →

An exclusive interview with the Dalai Lama

By Amy Kazmin [Source: Financial Times] ‘I always pray the Chinese leadership should develop more common sense’   His Holiness the Dalai Lama (file photo) I arrive in Dharamsala, the Indian home of Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, groggy after an overnight train journey from New Delhi and a read more →

The Chinese are anxious over the future

By Fred Hiatt, Published: November 3 (Washington Post) BEIJING Traveling here last week after America’s partial government shutdown and near-default, I expected to encounter a surge of confidence in China’s inevitable, eventual emergence as the world’s greatest power. That is not what I found. Some people here do take pleasure read more →

India, China near pact aimed at keeping lid on border tension

By Sanjeev Miglani NEW DELHI | Fri Oct 18, 2013 (Reuters) – India and China are close to an agreement to stop tension on their contested border touching off confrontation while they try to figure out a way to break decades-old stalemate on overlapping claims to long stretches of the read more →