h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Photos of Beijing protest:

http://www.studentsforafreetibet.org/article.php?id=339

Han Shan (31) of Students for a Free Tibet and Liam Phelan (33) of Australia Tibet Council, who were detained by the Public Security Bureau for unfurling a banner in Beijing reading 'No Olympics for China until Tibet is Free' (Aug. 30), have been deported to their respective home countries. Both men are reported to have arrived safely in Hong Kong.

See http://www.2008-freetibet.org/ for more information.

I received this yesterday from my beau in Nepal:
"Today is stopping every thing because the Nepali condition is not good. From yesterday the Nepali Bandha [strike] for three days.

Did you heard? The Irq killed Nepali 12 persons, so, The Nepali people is stopping everything here. Every things is closed"



It wasn't until I got home last night that it became clear that it was about 12 Nepali cooks and domestics, working for a Jordanian company, killed (including 1 beheaded with a knife) in Iraq.

This is an especial outrage, as, not only has Nepal not had any part of the war, the men were driven by poverty to work in the Middle East and exploited by their employers, and that the attacks were, in part, because they are Buddhists (""We have carried out the sentence of God against 12 Nepalese who came from their country to fight the Muslims and to serve the Jews and the Christians... believing in Buddha as their God, "Our brothers, do not feel any mercy or pity for these nasty and spiteful people," the statement said.

"They have left their homes and their countries and crossed thousands of kilometers to work for the American Crusader forces and to support their war against Islam and the Mujahedeen.""

"An anguished father of one of the hostages said his son had been sent abroad by a manpower agency that claimed it would get him a job in Jordan.

"Moonlight Consultants, the Kathmandu-based manpower agency that sent my son abroad, told him he was being sent to Jordan," wept Jeet Bahadur Khadka, a 55-year-old agricultural labourer whose son Ramesh was among the hostages.

"They never said anything about Iraq. My son raised Rs.150,000 [$3,239 USD] to pay the agency for the job. We are so poor that we have not been able to eat rice for an entire month.

"My son worked in a restaurant and earned Rs.2,000-3,000 [$32-45 USD] a month. So when the manpower agency told him he would get Rs.50,000 [$1,800 USD] if he went to Jordan, he couldn't resist."

The workers were shown before their execution reading a statement stating that they had been "misled into working in Iraq by "American lies"".
http://news.google.ca/news?hl=en&ned=ca&q=nepal&btnG=Search+News

It makes me sick at heart to hear such a story. How horrible that the poor Nepali workers didn't even know they were being shipped to Iraq! What a messed up world we live in.

Did you see the recent Gwynne Dyer opinion piece? It appeared in our local paper, The Brantford Expositor, on Monday. Dyer paints a very bleak picture of Nepal indeed. He predicts that the country could fall within 'a year or two' to the Maoists whom he describes as being similar to the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia.

This just in from SFT:

I am writing to thank everyone in SFT's Action Network for the tremendous outpouring of support I received while in Beijing protesting against the 2008 Olympics. I've just returned from China and I'm humbled and inspired by all the words of encouragement and care from people all around the world.
In the end, Liam and I were both treated well while in detention in Beijing. We were interrogated at length by many members of Beijing's Public Security Bureau about our action, our affiliations, and our political beliefs. But we never feared for our safety.

We recognize that we have tremendous privilege to be able to take the action that we did. As an American and an Australian, we were handled carefully and respectfully by Chinese police. They were in the spotlight and they knew it. Tibetans in Tibet and people all across China face a very different reaction when they dare to express their aspirations for freedom and human rights. We were held, questioned, and escorted from the country with marks in our passports. A Tibetan faces imprisonment, torture, even execution, for an act such as ours.

But we must continue to take action, in whatever ways we can. We must let the Chinese authorities know that for the next four years, in the run up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, they will see unprecedented opposition to their occupation of Tibet, even in their own capital. Our actions will be nonviolent, but they will be creative, hard-hitting, well-coordinated, and courageous. The next four years present an incredible opportunity, and history demands that we seize it.

Lastly, as many of you know, I am the Development Director (fundraiser!) here at SFT. Of course, we are all activists fighting for Tibet, and one way I do that is by raising money for SFT's important work. I am proud to ask for your support-- indeed, our worldwide potential is huge. We just need the resources to fulfill our potential as a powerful force for change in Tibet. Please, if you would like to see more actions like the recent Beijing banner-hang, give as generously as you can. We will put your money to work for Tibet right away. To make a donation online, go to: http://www.studentsforafreetibet.org/article.php?id=5

On behalf of the team-- Liam and Paul (Australia Tibet Council) and Ali (Free Tibet Campaign UK)-- and all of us here at SFT, thank you again for the incredible support and encouragement over the last few days.

For freedom and human rights in Tibet and in China,

Han-shan SFT Development Director

A couple of recent WTN stories made me think about the value of junk in the fight against the revision of history. One was about a Korean politician warning against China's habit of rewriting history to justify land grabs; the other was by Jamyang Norbu, about a Tibetan flag appearing in the 1934 issue of National Geographic magazine. The latter ended with an appeal to send him word of anything valuable we might discover.

Well, any of us might have something of the sort, some bit of valuable junk hidden away somewhere, even old newspapers, for example.

So, announcing the Junk Project:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/A2170982?s_fromedit=1#4

What do you think? Can we go somewhere with this?

I heard today from my beau in Nepal. He is weighing the prospect of trying to emigrate. Things are pretty bad there, though for this particular moment in time, stable. I really don't know what to do, as I don't have the kind of money it would take to sponsor him to Canada, and it would be next to impossible for him to get a job in India.

I'm not sure if the Canadian government would accept him as a refugee, as he has been in Nepal for a number of years. The reality is, though, that things just are not peachy-keen for Tibetans in Nepal, less so than they are for Nepalis in Nepal (and THAT is pretty bad).

I just do not know what to do.

Have you been in touch with anyone in the Tibetan community here? They might be able to suggest something. Try contacting someone through Canadian Tibetan Association. They might, at least, be able to give you a clearer idea of what to expect and perhaps provide you with contacts.

http://www.ctao.org/

Canada Tibet Committee (http://www.tibet.ca/en/) might also be able to help you.

I gave him the email address of the most prominent Tibetan in Ottawa, Jurme Wangda. I thought it might be easier for the two of them to communicate with each other. I will also speak to a friend of mine who is a friend of Jurme Wangda and see if he can act as a go-between for me.

I have also asked my beau to speak with my friend who he knows and who knows the ins and outs of many things Nepali. She travels back and forth between Canada, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Tibet every three months. I trust he opinion and advice.

Luckily, I do have some very good contacts within the community here. Rather, I have friends who have good contacts within the community.

Hopefully, we can work something out for him.

I hope it works out for him, and for you. There must be some way to expedite his passage to Canada.

At least 34 Tibetans, including women and children, have been arrested for entering Nepal illegally at Tegari in Northwestern Kailali district Saturday. According to a police spokeman, the Tibetans were heading through Nepal on their way to Dharamsala. Police said the Tibetans would be brought to Kathmandu and handed over to the UNHCR for repatriation.

Hopefully the UNHCR will see them safely to Dharamsala?

Unfortunately, repatriation means sending them back ftom whence they came. However, UNHCR may facilitate their entry into India. It all depends. Sometimes they are sent to India, sometimes returned, and sometimes, if there is money available and the group is not very big, UNHCR will pay the fines which, while meager,are beyond the ability of the majority of refugees to pay. According to one story today, there is one refugee who has been held for a considerable time because he cannot pay the fine.

It seems rather stupid to spend money keeping someone in jail because they can't pay what amounts to a paltry fine..... I suppose, though, the logic is beyond them.

More on Tibet:
"China staged anti-terror maneuvers in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, citing a rise in global terrorism since Sept. 11, state media said on Monday." http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=6213761

"On Day 4 of our state-managed press trip to Tibet, I took time from a busy schedule of official interviews to try to meet some Tibetans. At press events, we were told Tibet is 92 percent Tibetan, but Lhasa did not reflect that figure." http://www.tibetoffice.org/en/index.php?url_channel_id=1&url_publish_channel_id=977&url_subchannel_id=977&well_id=2

Thanks for that.

Language like this in the Reuters report really makes me mad:

'Many Tibetans living abroad and human rights groups have charged that Chinese authorities have a poor rights record in the region, though Beijing denies abuses.'

... and I just wrote to Reuters to say so!

Will it take some poor soul actually being tortured in a Reuters office (sub any Newswire service) before journalists show some guts and acknowledge China's well-documented history of abuse as something more than allegations.

Here are some photos I just came across, of HH's visit to Ottawa: http://community.webshots.com/album/136391124VeESTN

Gosh, that seems a long time ago. At about the time HH was being photographed at the airport, I was pacing around downtown Ottawa frantically looking for the Canadian Club luncheon in His honour, which, to my horror, happened not to be where I imagined it. As it turned out, I'd parked right next to to the hotel where it was to be held, but hadn't realised.

The Chateau Laurier hotel... Our company always sends two employees to the Canadian Club Luncheon. I was sent once. Unfortunately, it wasn't as interesting or exciting as hearing HH.

I guess I didn't read the report by the two employees sent to that one....

I hope they'd earned the right to take your spot.

You could have joined me. Everyone at my table (except me) left right after HH gave His talk. So I ended up having lunch at a table for ten by myself. It would have been uncomfortable if the momos weren't so tasty.

Momos?

I work right near the Chateau Laurier... or rather, one of my offices is right near. The other is a few blocks further south.

Ahhhh... meat dunplings. I have had them, though I would imagine these were made by the Chateau kitchens.