A delegation of Sri Lankan Buddhists on Thursday presented relics of the Buddha to the Dalai Lama at his home in Dharamsala, India, in a gesture that was celebrated by hundreds of Tibetans who lined the streets with silk scarves and flowers. The relics – fragments of the Buddha’s bones and teeth – have immense
Myanmar junta soldiers killed two local militia members and torched over 20 villages near the Chinese-owned Letpadaung copper mine in northwestern Myanmar’s Sagaing region on Tuesday, forcing more than 10,000 civilians to flee, residents said. About 100 soldiers guarding the Chinese company Wanbao’s mining site fired heavy artillery shells and raided Moe Gyo Pyin village
Hundreds of Laotians are lining up daily outside the Lao Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Vientiane to apply for or renew passports so they can go to neighboring Thailand, where they hope to find better paying jobs and escape crippling inflation at home. Laotians say it has become increasingly difficult to eke out a living
A new Chinese study on the ancient populations of Xinjiang purports to show modern-day residents descend from a mix of ethnicities, but scientists and experts on the region cautioned the findings are being used to support China’s forced assimilation policy toward the predominately Muslim Uyghurs. The study from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology
Members of the European Parliament on Thursday easily passed a resolution calling the Chinese government’s systemic human rights abuses against the mostly Muslim Uyghur minority “crimes against humanity and a serious risk of genocide.” The EU condemned “in the strongest possible terms that the Uyghurs have been systematically oppressed by brutal measures including mass deportation,
The U.N.’s human rights chief on Monday will begin a six-day official visit to China, including to the far-western Xinjiang region where widespread abuses against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities at the hands of Chinese authorities are said to have occurred. The trip is the culmination of years of effort by exiled Uyghurs to draw
Classical performing artist Shohret Tursun said he realized early on that his native Uyghur culture was on the brink of obliteration in Xinjiang, as he watched in horror as fellow musicians and other Uyghur friends were detained or disappeared by Chinese authorities starting in 2017. From exile in Australia, Tursun did his best to counter
A bridge being built by China across Pangong Lake in a disputed section of northwest India could further inflame tensions between the two countries, experts on the border dispute said. The bridge, which spans about 500 meters (1,640 feet), is situated south of a position occupied by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on the north
Qedriye Ghopur, a young Uyghur fashion designer who lives in Norway, is trying to spread Uyghur culture through a fashion brand called Føniks (Phoenix) that features etles-style clothing and jewelry. Etles, a Central Asian fabric and design that is known in English as ikat, became popular globally about a decade ago, but not without criticism
Satellite images provided by PlanetLabs Inc. and analyzed by RFA show the rapid demolition of Kashgar Bazaar between April 4, 2022 (L) and May 4, 2022 (R). The travel guide Lonely Planet advises visitors to Kashgar, China, to fight the crowds that gather at its Sunday Grand Bazaar and let their senses loose to the
