Dalai Lama

• Organizers of a peace conference in South Africa have canceled the event after the government denied a visa to the Dalai Lama. — New York Times
• Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner is asking Congress today for unprecedented power to seize non-banking financial companies. — AP
• The recent volcano eruption in Alaska has made a case for the volcano monitoring funding included in Obama's stimulus package and criticized by many. — Washington Post
• The crew aboard the Discovery space shuttle has been expecting a call from President Obama before they return home. — AP
• China has blocked YouTube, reportedly because it included video of soldiers beating monks and other Tibetans. — BBC News

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• More than 100 people have surrendered to police following anti-China riots in Tibet's main city of Lhasa, according to Chinese media. China had issued a deadline of midnight on Monday for the protests to stop, though the Dalai Lama refused to issue the order. The authorities threatened great harm to anyone who ignored the deadline. Accounts of the outcomes of the violent protests differ wildly. The Tibetan government in exile in India says 99 people have now died in clashes with security forces. Chinese officials claim only 13 people have died, and that they were killed by mobs during riots by Dalai Lama supporters. Tibet's Communist Secretary said, "we are in the midst of a fierce struggle involving blood and fire, a life and death struggle with the Dalai clique."



• Flood and flash-flood warnings from Texas to Ohio, combined with tornado watches in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee, previewed harsh weather that has flooded homes and roads throughout the central United States. The storms have killed at least two in Missouri and swept a teen down a drainage pipe in Texas. Since Monday, states have seen between six and ten inches of rain. At the Dallas airport, they broke the previous one-day rain record by an inch, coupled with winds up to 100 mph. Hundreds have been evacuated from homes across the Midwest.
• Senator John McCain is in Israel today as part of a tour of the Middle East and Europe. McCain met with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. In a joint news conference, McCain confirmed his commitment to Israel and attacked the Islamist militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah saying, "if Hamas and Hezbollah succeed here, they are going to succeed everywhere."

• Moments ago, the Dalai Lama said he would resign as leader of Tibet’s government-in-exile if his stepping down would help quell the violence erupting in Tibetan protests. Earlier, the Chinese government blamed the Dalai Lama for orchestrating the demonstrations. Saying that he would stand behind only nonviolent quests for greater Tibetan autonomy, the Dalai Lama criticized China pointedly indicating that though they had met three out of four conditions to be a “superpower” — the world’s largest population, military prowess, and a fast-developing economy — he said, "Fourth, moral authority, that’s lacking.”



• The death toll in yesterday's bombing in Karbala has risen to 52. The bomb exploded near the shrine of Imam Hussein, a pilgrimage centre for Shia Muslims, and is thought to have been detonated by a female suicide bomber. Overshadowing Vice President Dick Cheney's visit to Iraq, the incident was the deadliest of a number of recent violent attacks in which at least 78 Iraqis have died. Officials suspect al-Qaeda insurgents were responsible for the the bombing which occurred 50 miles south of Baghdad, but no group has stepped forward.
• Florida has abandoned its plans for a mail-in primary reprise. Florida's Democratic Party said yesterday it would no longer advocate for a rerun of the state's invalid primary election and leave the decision on Florida's delegates up to the national party. Thousands of voters have sent in messages expressing this preference, leading the chairwoman of the Florida Democratic Party to say, "The consensus is clear: Florida doesn't want to vote again. So we won't."

Yesterday the Dalai Lama accused China of waging “cultural genocide” against his followers in Tibet and called for an international investigation into the increasingly violent suppression of protests. It was the Dalai Lama's strongest defense of Tibetan Buddhists staging an uprising against Chinese rule to date. He endorsed the right of his people to protest their grievances peacefully against Chinese authorities, adding that he would not ask Tibetans to surrender to Chinese military police by midnight on Monday, as Beijing has demanded.

Some Tibetans are hoping for outright independence from China and feel that they have the perfect political opportunity to call attention to change as China prepares for the Olympic Games, moving centerstage and sparking intense scrutiny of its human rights record.

In response to the protests, Internet users in China were blocked from accessing YouTube yesterday after dozens of videos about protests in Tibet appeared on the video website. The videos posted Saturday showed foreign news reports about the demonstrations, with photos and scenes from Tibet-related protests abroad. The Chinese government is silent on its move to prevent access to YouTube. Users trying to call up the YouTube were presented with a blank screen.

Do you think the move by China to block access to this information just serves to underscore the Dalai Lama's point?

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This evening, George Clooney and Don Cheadle received the 2007 Peace Summit Award at the Summit of the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates in Rome. It's a big day for George, as he was also nominated for a Best Actor Golden Globe for Michael Clayton, but before getting excited about that there were more somber things on hand. The duo was honored for the work they've done raising awareness and money to aid the situation in Darfur through their organization, Not on Our Watch. At the ceremony, the actors were both given bronze statue by Italian sculptor Oliviero Rainaldi. The usually jokey Clooney was anything but lighthearted during his acceptance speech. He said:

"Don and I . . . stand here before you as failures. . . . The simple truth is that when it comes to the atrocities in Darfur those people are not better off now than they were years ago. The murders continue, the rapes continue and some two and a half million refugees are yet to go home. . . . We have an American election coming so this is the time to put pressure on American candidates, because believe me none of these people want to talk about this issue. . . . None of them want to deal with this issue, so right now is the time to place pressure on the people who can actually affect change because we can't."

He spoke to an audience including some of the biggest political figures of our time (and, of course, Miss Sarah Larson), people I'm sure the actors are honored to just stand next to. Clooney recently said that he is headed back to the Darfur region in January. Congratulations to Don and George for receiving this award, and, of course, bravo to them for all the hard work they've been doing.

To see more from the event including George, Don, Sarah, Mikhail Gorbachev, Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, and others just read more