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Exiled Tibetans to elect leader to sustain struggle against China n Reuters, Dharamsala Exiled Tibetans across India and overseas started voting on Sunday to elect a political leader for the next five years, in a bid to help sustain their struggle to secure complete autonomy for Chinese-ruled Tibet. Thousands of monks and nuns in maroon robes, students, and men and women queued to vote outside polling booths in Dharamsala, a town in India’s Himalayan foothills where a community of Tibetans live in exile with the Dalai Lama, hoping for resumption of talks with China. The second such election follows a decision by the charismatic monk, an 80-year-old Nobel Peace Laureate, to relinquish his political authority and vest it in a democratic system that could outlast him. China does not recognise the government that represents nearly 100,000 exiled Tibetans living in around 30 countries including India, Nepal, Canada and the US. Election results will be out between April 27 and 28, with more than half of the 90,377 eligible voters expected to exercise their franchise, according to the election commission. The “Sikyong”, or elected lead-
Nepal PM leaves for China to deepen ties Nepal’s Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli left Sunday for a week-long visit to China aimed at deepening tries following months of frosty relations with neighbouring India. Gopal Khanal, the prime minister’s foreign affairs adviser, said the two sides are considering a transit and trade agreement that would allow Nepal to use of China’s ports for third-country trade. -AFP
PDP, BJP start blame game over condition to form J&K government
Tibetan monks cast their vote during the election for the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala on Sunday REUTERS er, will be solely responsible for political and diplomatic decisions, as the Dalai Lama steps back from the limelight amid uncertainty over how his successor will be chosen. “With regard to dialogue with China, we have been making initiatives, efforts,” Lobsang Sangay, the incumbent Sikyong, said after casting his vote. “It takes two to clap. Our side is willing and ready and as soon as the Chinese give us the positive sign, we will be ready
to take it further.” Concern about the Dalai Lama’s health, after his admission to a US hospital this year for treatment, has reinforced the importance of the vote in keeping the issue of Tibet alive. Tibetan Buddhism holds that the soul of a senior lama is reincarnated in the body of a child after he dies. China says it must sign off on the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in
1959 after a failed uprising. The election will decide who leads the parliament of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) in Dharamsala. Exiled Tibetans consider the CTA to be their legitimate government, but no country recognises it. China has lobbied to sideline the Dalai Lama from the international circuit, although he did address an audience in Geneva last week despite those efforts. l
Eurosceptic minister’s resign sparks civil war within UK government A top British eurosceptic minister who quit over welfare cuts launched a damaging attack on Prime Minister David Cameron Sunday, exposing deep tensions within his government ahead of June’s referendum on EU membership. In his first interview since resigning Friday, Iain Duncan Smith accused Cameron of trying to reduce Britain’s budget deficit through benefit cuts which were unfairly hurting poorer voters while protecting older, often richer ones. Duncan Smith, who last month became one of the most senior of Cameron’s Conservatives to say he would campaign against the premier for Britain to leave the EU on June 23, denied his shock resignation was about Europe. But the man who led the Conservatives from 2001 to 2003 admitted that Cameron and his finance minister and close ally
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George Osborne had stopped listening to him. “This is not some secondary attempt to attack the prime minister or about Europe,” Duncan Smith said in a BBC television interview, adding he quit because he was “losing that ability to influence events from the inside.” Duncan Smith also said that Cameron’s government was “in danger of drifting in a direction that divides society, not unites it”. The resignation of Duncan Smith -- a former army officer who is often referred to by his three initials, IDS -- is perhaps the biggest blow Cameron has suffered since being re-elected last year. It comes just three months ahead of the referendum on EU membership on June 23 which Cameron admitted in an interview published Sunday would be close. “My fear is turnout,” the prime minister told the Independent on Sunday. “For heaven’s sake, get out and vote in,
Ian Duncan Smith
REUTERS
because you might wake up and find you’re out.”
Inflicting ‘maximum damage’?
In his resignation letter Friday, Duncan Smith questioned whether Cameron was honouring his slogan that Britons were “all in this together”, despite deep austerity cuts including £1.3bn axed from annual disability welfare. A furious Cameron called Duncan Smith a four-letter word in a phone call to discuss the resignation, describing him as “dishonourable”, the Mail on Sunday reported. Ministers in Cameron’s government were arguing publicly
Sunday about whether Duncan Smith’s resignation was a principled stand against benefit cuts or a eurosceptic plot to undermine the premier. Pensions Minister Ros Altmann, who served under Duncan Smith, released a statement saying she was baffled by his decision to quit after Downing Street had already said it would rethink the cuts he was objecting to. “He seems to want to do maximum damage to the party leadership in order to further his campaign to try to get Britain to leave the EU,” she added. In response, three other ministers who worked closely with Duncan Smith, including another leading eurosceptic, Priti Patel, issued statements supporting him. David Laws, who served as a Liberal Democrat minister in the last coalition government under Cameron, told the BBC the implications of the current row were “huge.” l
A day after PDP-BJP ties over government formation in Jammu & Kashmir were pushed to the brink, the blame game has begun. The PDP (Peoples Democratic Party) insists that it has come up with no new conditions to form the government and it’s the BJP which is stalling the process. On the other hand, the BJP says it’s the PDP which keeps throwing up new conditions. -TOI
CHINA
Journalist with possible link to Xi petition missing Jia Jia, who has been linked by Hong Kong media reports to an anonymous online petition calling for the resignation of Chinese President Xi Jinping, disappeared Tuesday from the Beijing airport on his way to Hong Kong. According to his lawyer Yan Xin, authorities at the airport, local police, immigration services and the airline have all denied knowledge of his case. -AP
ASIA PACIFIC
Indonesia to summon China ambassador over fishing boat incident Indonesia will summon the Chinese ambassador in Jakarta over an incident involving a Chinese fishing vessel in the Natuna Sea. Indonesia was attempting to detain the Chinese vessel for fishing illegally in waters near the contested South China Sea when a Chinese coast guard vessel intervened, fisheries minister Susi Pudjiastuti said on Sunday. -REUTERS
MIDDLE EAST
Khamenei: All US presidential candidates hostile to Iran US policy is preventing big companies from doing business with Iran, while US presidential candidates are trying to outdo each other in their hostility to the Islamic republic, the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday. The candidates for the American presidency have competed to vilify Iran in their speeches, and this is a sign of hostility, he added. -REUTERS