US President Barack Obama warmly acknowledged the Dalai Lama on Thursday, but did not meet him directly at a religious event in Washington closely watched by China, which has warned against any exchange with Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader.
Obama and the Dalai Lama were both at an annual prayer breakfast where Obama spoke about the importance of religious freedom.
Obama greeted the Buddhist monk with a bow-like gesture and called him “a good friend” and “a powerful example of what it means to practice compassion and who inspires us to speak up for the freedom and dignity of all human beings.”
Photo: Reuters
The Dalai Lama was in the audience at a table in the front row across from the president, along with senior Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, a signal of White House support.
Obama nodded and smiled at the Dalai Lama, waving after clasping his hands to greet the spiritual leader as the event began.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, when asked about the event, repeated its opposition to any country “using the Tibet issue to interfere in China’s domestic affairs,” but did not directly condemn Obama, likely because there was no face-to-face meeting.
“The Dalai Lama is a political exile who has long waved the flag of religion to engage in anti-China separatist activities,” ministry spokesman Hong Lei (洪磊) told a daily news briefing.
The Dalai Lama has said he wants autonomy for Tibet and does not advocate violence.
The Chinese state-run Xinhua news agency took a strong line.
“Chumming with a secessionist is playing with fire,” it said.
Obama and the Dalai Lama are both Nobel Peace Prize laureates and have met three times.
At the event, Obama echoed some of the religious leader’s teachings, calling for religious tolerance and noting that too often, faith is twisted to justify violence.
“We see faith driving us to do right, but we also see faith being twisted and distorted, used as a wedge or, worse, sometimes used as a weapon,” he said, citing recent attacks in Pakistan and Paris.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
RSS