Catégorie : World People

Linked with Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control.

Patrick Cockburn (1950) is an Irish journalist who has been a Middle East correspondent since 1979 for the Financial Times and, presently, The Independent. Among the most experienced commentators on Iraq, he was one of the few journalists to remain in Baghdad during the first Gulf War, and has written four books on the country’s recent history. Cockburn’s on-the-ground reporting on the Iraq War won him the Martha Gellhorn Prize in 2005 and the James Cameron Prize in 2006.

He writes: Bush is acting rather like Tory politicians a century ago who played ‘the Orange Card’ over Ulster, 7 February 2007.

Audio on npr: Journalist Patrick Cockburn on Iraq’s Tenuous Calm, 42.35 min, February 21, 2008 (Click on Listen now).

Révélation d’un plan secret pour maintenir l’Irak sous le contrôle des Etats-Unis, The Independent, 7 juin 2008 … and in english: Pat Cockburn writes, that  » … secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November … « , Submitted on world war 4 report, by Bill Weinberg, 06/08/2008.
About same item, read on: WSWS, June 6, 2008; and all Google news-search about.

U.S. negotiators say Iraq must sign a bi-lateral security deal or lose billions in oil revenue, June 6, 2008.

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Patrick Cockburn – Ireland

US Holds $50 Billion of Iraq’s Financial Reserves Hostage, June 6, 2008.

… Cockburn says that the United States is able to use the funds as a bargaining chip because Iraq is still limited by U.N. resolutions enacted when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990 … (full text).

He writes also: … The war in Iraq is now joining the Boer War in 1899 and the Suez crisis in 1956 as ill-considered ventures that have done Britain more harm than good. It has demonstrably strengthened al-Qa’ida by providing it with a large pool of activists and sympathisers across the Muslim world it did not possess before the invasion of 2003. The war, which started out as a demonstration of US strength as the world’s only superpower, has turned into a demonstration of weakness … (full text).

Book Review: Muqtada, from Patrick Cockburn, May 22, 2008.

The last word that Saddam Hussein heard as the executioner’s noose was being tightened around his neck was « Muqtada. » As in Muqtada al-Sadr, the young Shia cleric who had survived his persecutor to lay claim to Iraq. Americans may be tempted to dismiss Muqtada as mainly a nuisance – too young, inexperienced and unstable to thrive in Iraqi politics. But it was Muqtada’s men who executed Saddam, and the movement associated with him has grown enough to threaten U.S. plans for Iraq, most recently by plunging the southern metropolis of Basra into battle and by roiling Baghdad’s Sadr City, the massive Shia district that bears his family name. As veteran British journalist Patrick Cockburn’s authoritative biography should make clear, it is unwise to assume a future for Iraq that does not include Muqtada al-Sadr and his movement … (full text, June 07, 2008).

These Cultures will Become Extinct, Exodus of Iraq’s Ancient Minorities, March 5, 2007.

Continuer la lecture de « Patrick Cockburn – Ireland »

Linked with U.N. Security Council Seat: China Outsmarts India.

Sreeram Chaulia (born November 18, 1978) is an Indian analyst of international affairs for Hong Kong-based Asia Times Online and New Delhi-based Indo-Asian News Service. He is the author of over 205 articles and book reviews in multiple scholarly journals, daily newspapers and magazines, covering topics like diplomacy, national security, war and peace, political economy, human rights, terrorism, literature and arts. He is also Contributing Editor of the book, People Who Influenced the World Over the Past 100 Years b(Murray Books, Adelaide, 2005). As a writer, he presents sharp unconventional insights on burning global issues … (full text).

His full CV on worldpress.org.

He writes: … How prolific does an artiste have to be before being judged a wizard? Jagjit, who is 66 years old today, has been releasing albums practically uninterruptedly for the last 41 years. Productivity knows no bounds for him, with at least two ghazal albums hitting the market in a calendar year. The most amazing part of it is the non-repetition and freshness of every new release. The music world routinely discards burnouts and fizz-outs. Jagjit towers over such temporary pygmies like a giant who reinvents himself with every new offering. There has never been a phase in his career when people felt that his best is past and that he is « living off » his royalties … (full text, June 7, 2008).

His own website.

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Sreeram Chaulia – India

The problem with dictators and disasters, May 13, 2008.

The symphony of South-South cooperation at the recent conclave of foreign ministers of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) in Russia was jarred by China’s refusal to endorse India’s bid for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council … (full text, June 4, 2008).

Sreeram Chaulia – Pakistan terrorism, April 01, 2008.

He writes also: … Bush’s attacks on Obama’s engaged diplomacy doctrine is a detour from the tested « domestic » electoral arena and opens a window to undiluted foreign policy discussion, territory that is unfamiliar to the average American. However, if raking up the controversy over appeasement may be a sideshow for ordinary American voters, it attracts international attention because of the high global stakes of American foreign policy … (full text, May 21, 2008).

Democratisation, Colour Revolutions and the Role of the NGOs: Catalysts or Saboteurs, Dec. 25, 2005?

… Mr. Chaulia has worked for international humanitarian and peace organisations in the United States, Switzerland, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines. He has been a regular writer for Hong Kong-based Asia Times since 2001 and has published widely on global politics, trade, human rights and peace in numerous magazines, journals and newspapers. He also wrote a monthly international current events column, GLOBE SCAN, for the Melbourne-based Bharat Times. He is also contributing editor of Peter Murray’s People Who Influenced the World Over the Past 100 Years (Murray Books, 2005, full text).

Undiplomatically yours, May 9, 2008.

Continuer la lecture de « Sreeram Chaulia – India »

Joseph Ki-Zerbo (June 21, 1922 – December 4, 2006, Burkina Faso) was a Burkinabé politician and writer. He spent his youth in Toma where he grew up in a rural context inside a big family. Ki-Zerbo himself declared that his first 11 years passed in a rural context marked his personality and thoughts. He was recognized as one of Africa’s foremost thinkers. He was educated both in is home country in missionary schools at Toma, and Pabre (around 20 miles from the capital). Also, he studied at Faladie in Mali and after at [Sorbonne University], which is one of the most prestigious schools in France. After getting his aggregation degree in History, he returned to Africa. Once back, he became politically active. From 1972 to 1978 he was Professor of African History at the University of Ouagadougou. But in 1983, he was forced into exile, only being able to return in 1992. 50th anniversary of the intellectual career of professor Joseph Ki-Zerbo, 1922- 2006 (portal UNESCO.org).

Ki-Zerbo founded his own party, the Party for Democracy and Progress/ Socialist Party, which he was chairman until 2005 and represented in the Burkina Faso parliament until 2006. Ki-Zerbo was also the best known opponent of the revolutionary government of the President Thomas Sankara. Ki-Zerbo was socialist and an exponent of an independent development of Africa and of Unity of the continent … (full text).

He said: “The Africa which the world needs is a continent able to stand up, to walk on its own feet … it is an Africa conscious of its own past and able to keep on reinvesting this past into its present and future”.

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Joseph Ki-Zerbo – Burkina Faso (1922 – 2006)

More about him:

• the video: Aminata Traoré et Jacqueline Ki Zerbo à Ciné Droit Libre, 4.17 min, from 27 Dezember 2007;
• the video: in french: GRAND HOMMAGE A L’ AFRIQUE, 5.54 min, May 09, 2008.
• JOSEPH KI-ZERBO, self-made development;
• His political activities;
• His social and political ideas;
• He is also a better world heroe.

He wrote: … « CEDA conducts research which is actually rooted in our land for the purpose of determining one or more global hypotheses of understanding, liable to inspire action by Africans and capable of integrating ecological preservation, the social praxis and cultural identity, key sectors which are almost invariably treated as secondary in development projects » … (full text).

the book: From Chains to Bonds, The Slave Trade, Capter 11 from Joseph Ki-Zerbo, 2001, 470 pages.

the book: Joseph Ki-Zerbo and DjiBril Tamsir Niane, editors: UNESCO General History of Africa,
Vol. IV, Abridged Edition, Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century, UNESCO General History of Africa, IV.

What is the Tonga Definition of Intelligence?

… As a historian, he has published a number of books with endogenous development as the central theme. From 1972 to 1978, Ki-Zerbo was a member of UNESCO’s Executive Council, and was a professor at Burkina Faso’s Universite d’Ouagadougou. In 1980, Ki-Zerbo founded the Centre d’Etudes pour le Developpement Africain (CEDA) … (full text).

Joseph Ki-Zerbo 1922-2006 on Al-Baal Café.

Continuer la lecture de « Joseph Ki-Zerbo – Burkina Faso (1922 – 2006) »

Caroline Moorehead is a human rights journalist and biographer. She has written five biographies, of Bertrand Russell, Heinrich Schliemann, Freya Stark, Iris Origo, and most recently, the life of Martha Gellhorn, the wife of novelist Ernest Hemingway. Besides being the wife of Hemingway, Gellhorn was a famous war reporter – unprecedented for a woman in the 1930s – her job was to travel to the most dangerous hot spots in the world … (full text).

She says: « … One of the most difficult refugee problems at the moment are these long-term camps. When they were originally set up, when civil wars began in that part of West Africa, it was envisaged that they would only be there for the time it took for the civil war to be solved. So they were originally seen as sort of holding places where people could stay and be safe for a while. The problem is the civil wars have gone on, and they’ve ebbed and flowed, and the civil wars move around that area of West Africa. So the camps, instead of emptying, got larger, and they are now these huge, desolate places where there is almost nothing, because, in the early days, the World Food Program was able to give them fairly generous rations, but since funds for this sort of thing have gone down, they now get almost nothing. I mean, they live; that’s what they do, they just live … (full interview text, 02/04/2005).

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Caroline Moorehead – England

Where Are the « Lost Girls »? 3,700 young Sudanese refugees made it to America. Why are only 89 of them female, Oct. 3, 2003.

She writes: … Many of the traffickers are in fact women, and most of the girls trafficked out of Moldova today are reported to be duped, recruited, and groomed by women, some of them former prostitutes, who often accompany them reassuringly on the first leg of their journeys. Most unsettling is the fact that some of the « introducers » are boyfriends, « aunties, » or even parents, willing, for a cut, or out of financial desperation, to traduce those they profess to love … (full long text, Oct. 11, 2007).

The Lost Treasures of Troy.

She (Caroline Moorehead) explained how she had been to Cairo and become involved with Liberian refugees, whom she helped to raise money to begin an educaton in Cairo. As a result of this experience she wanted to find out more about where these refugees came from and why they were in this position … (full text).

Books of the year – Caroline Moorehead.

In the aftermath of the second world war, the world seemed to wake up to the persecution of the Jews and other minorities under the Nazi regime. Reading Caroline Moorehead’s book I kept reaching for the hope that one day, in the same way, the world would wake up to the intolerable suffering of millions today in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. However Human Cargo is not a book which sets out to foster such dreams … (full text).

Review of ‘Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn‘.

Continuer la lecture de « Caroline Moorehead – England »

Linked with the Nepal River Conservation Trust NRCT, and with Borderlands.

Megh Ale is one of Nepal’s leading figures in rafting. Having spent several years working and exploring the rivers and jungles of Nepal, including four years at the Royal Bardiya National Park as a naturalist, Megh is always ready to share his deep understanding of Nepal and its myriad of cultures, plants and animals. He is the founder and president of the NRCT, Nepal River Conservation Trust and the Managing Director of Ultimate Descents Nepal. (borderland resorts).

3rd Specialized Conference, Decentralized Water and Wastewater International Network 9 – 11 February 2009, Kathmandu, Nepal … (full text, 4 pages).

He says: “Building a new nation will require foresight and emphasis on sustainable development, and so does river management, the Bhote Kosi is the Everest of rafting. Just as the mountain, the river deserves protection and honour”. (Liquid Gold).

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Megh Ale – Nepal

He works for the Nepal River Conservation Trust NRCT, and for the Ultimate Descents Nepal.

His doc: The Karnali: Nepal’s sacred gift to the living earth, 2006.

Namaste! Welcome to Ultimate Descents Nepal. Venturing into the unknown is the spirit of exploration and it is not as difficult as first imagined. Established in the year 1987 by Mr. Megh Ale, Ultimate Descents Nepal is the name of the Nepal’s premier rafting organization. With years of experience in hospitality as well as in Nepal’s whitewater, Ultimate Descents is also very proud to claim the Nepal Tourism Award for last five consecutive years … (full text).

REPORT: NATIONAL WORKSHOP ON CONSERVING NEPALESE WETLANDS, SHARING EXPERIENCES AND BUILDING PARTNERSHIP, 2007, 41 pages.

85 percent of Nepal’s population depends on rivers for agriculture or other subsistence activities. Megh educates river communities to become key players in the environmental conservation of the rivers on which their country depends. He organizes river festivals throughout the country and builds coalitions between environmental organizations and the tourism industry. He has created jobs for river communities by expanding river tourism, in the process educating guides about conservation techniques. Finally, Megh works with schools to build a new generation of children more likely to take action and create a healthier environment in the future. He is an ashoka fellow since 2007.

Dams and Development in Nepal, 117 pages.

Continuer la lecture de « Megh Ale – Nepal »

VIENNA, 1 October 2007 – Tim Guldimann from Switzerland took office today as Head of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo … (full text) … {albanian version /serbian version}.

He is Visiting professor, European General Studies Department, former Swiss Ambassador to Teheran, Professor of international relations (particularly on Islamic world) at the University of Frankfurt, Co-author of the Report on the nuclear impasse in Iran, published by the International Crisis Group. (College of Europe).

Tim Guldimann (* 19. September 1950 in Zürich, Schweiz) ist ein Schweizer Diplomat und Politikwissenschaftler … Seit dem 1. Oktober 2007 ist Guldimann Leiter der OSZE-Mission im Kosovo. Eigentlich sollte Guldimann 2007 den Posten des Botschafters in Israel übernehmen, was jedoch nach internen Auseinandersetzungen im Außenministerium der Schweiz (EDA) in letzter Minute verhindert wurde … (full text).

His Videos:

• tim guldimann, 5 min, added February 06, 2007;
• swiss ambassy in teheran, 1.55 min, added March 08, 2007;
• Rebell.tv im gespräch mit tim guldimann, 01.2.2007.

(Mehr auf deutsch siehe ganz unten).

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Tim Guldimann – Switzerland: The Head of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo Tim Guldimann After the Elections: what Prospects for Kosovo gestures while giving a briefing entitled in a hotel in Brussels, Monday Nov. 26, 2007.

He says: « Kosovo is not an island and its future status can be decided only in partnership with the international community » … (full text).

He says also: « Ahmadinejad is not number one in the country, his position is comparable to the prime minister in other countries. The religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is the supreme leader and he has already been critical of his president’s comments on Israel ». (Iran News Blog).

Iranian peace overtures in 2003 and mysterious non-reaction, 05/29/2006.

He writes: Nowadays information and communication runs ever more over modern media. They have a great influence our picture of the world, which we carry in us. Therefore they also play a role in peace processes. Among the different forms of media pictures hold a special role. Most humans feel directly addressed by them, and they convey a wealth of information. However, pictures can enforce our prejudices. For example people from the western countries often react strongly to pictures of women with head scarves, since we associate this directly to suppression of women, independently of whether these women wear the head scarves on their own will or not. The view on the orient conveyed to the west is strongly influenced by our values and dominant prejudices … (full text).

Who Is Tim Guildimann, by ELI LAKE, February 9, 2007, updated 2/11/07.

Continuer la lecture de « Tim Guldimann – Switzerland »

Chris Nineham is a British Trotskyist and a member of the Central Committee of the british Socialist Workers’ Party. He is a member of the Steering Group of Globalise Resistance In 1985 Chris Nineham served as the drummer of indie-pop band The June Brides. (wikipedia).

He says: « We’ve shown the warmongers that far from disappearing, were still growing, and we’ll stay on the streets until we win »; Police estimated the numbers marching at 110,000. But Chris Nineham, a spokesman for the Stop the War Coalition, said that 350,000 had joined the protest … (full text).

4 videos:

• Chris Nineham – Against Islamophobia, 12 min, November 19, 2006;
• Stop the War AGM: Don’t attack Iran – Chris Nineham, 11.26 min. October 28, 2007;
• Chris Nineham – People’s Assembly 20th March 2007, 6.15 min, March 21, 2007;
• Chris Nineham – Make Music Not War, 8.07 min, 21 June 07.

Stop the War Coalition’s public meetings – DEFENDING THE MUSLIM COMMUNITY: Stop the War has organised a series of rallies to defend the Muslim community, starting next week. If one of these rallies is being held in your area, please attend and publicise as widely as you can. PUBLIC MEETINGS (3 to 12 June 2008, Geat Britain): … (full text).

At an impasse? Anti-capitalism and the social forums today, Issue: 115, Alex Callinicos and Chris Nineham, 2 July 2007.

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sorry, no photo of Chris Nineham – England, but you can see him on all the here mentionned videos.

STOP THE WAR COALITION NEWSLETTER No. 1043, 27 May 2008, e-mail, T: England 020 7278 6694, Web: The protest will be in London on Sunday 15 June 2008 and will also call for an end to the British government’s support for these shameful wars … (full text).

Photo Gallery of Globalise Resistance.

He writes: … The narrow focus of Cultural Materialism also begs the crucial question-what exactly are the dynamics of production in society? Without a general theory of how society works, Cultural Materialism can degenerate into empiricism. In the end Cultural Materialism encourages us to analyse culture in isolation from wider society. Williams had some (often vague) notion of capitalist relations and he often talks about class, but other writers in his wake have arbitrarily seen race, gender or sexuality as the key determinants … (full text).

Attempt to hijack Euro demo.

… Little did I know when I resolved on a series of posts about the Socialist Workers’ Party that I would shortly be able to cite a prime and topical instance of what the Observer columnist Nick Cohen has aptly termed that organisation’s parasitism … (full text).

Social Forum, Open up London ESF bid.

Continuer la lecture de « Chris Nineham – England »

Cornel Ronald West (born June 2, 1953) is an American scholar, public intellectual, sociologist, critic, pastor, and civil rights activist. Formerly a professor at Harvard University, currently West is a professor of Religion and director of African American Studies at Princeton. West is known for his combination of political and moral insight and criticism, and his contribution to the post-1960s civil rights movement. The bulk of his work focuses upon the role of race, gender, and class in American society and the means by which people act and react to their “radical conditionedness”. West draws intellectual contributions from such diverse traditions as the African American Baptist Church, Marxism, pragmatism, transcendentalism, and Anton Chekhov … (full text).

His Biography: on wikipedia; on IMDb; on answers.com; on Dictionary of Literary Biography; on Human Archives.org; on Robert S. Boynton.

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Cornel Ronald West – USA

Listen his video: Race Matters, from about 4.50 min to 52 min.

He says: « I begin with the notion that we are all cracked vessels, meaning that as vanishing organisms in space and time, we have fears, insecurities, anxieties, sometimes even inner demons with which we all have to come to terms. And given that humanness of each and every one of us, we’re all part of a certain family, community, society, culture, history, which is shot through with different forms of xenophobia. This is what, in part, human history has been. So the question is going to be: what kind of courage do we have to examine those prejudices that we do have in order to become more decent and compassionate human beings? » … (full interview text).

On Philosophical Literature, May 26, 2008.

Kevin Powell, author, commentator and political activist; the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, President, National Rainbow/Push Coalition; Susan Taylor, former Editorial Director, Essence magazine; the Rev. Al Sharpton, President, National Action Network; Dr. Iva Carruthers, General Secretary, Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference; Kimberly Crenshaw, Columbia and UCLA law professor; Roland Martin, CNN Analyst; Makani Themba-Nixon, Executive Director, Praxis Project; Dr. Cornel West; Bev Smith, National Radio Talk Show Host … have been invited to participate at the recently held Second State of the Black World Conference SOBWC, on May 5, 2008.

Booknotes/the Cornel West Reader.

Continuer la lecture de « Cornel Ronald West – USA »

Linh Đinh (born 1963) is a bilingual poet, fiction writer, essayist and translator, publishing in Vietnamese as Đinh Linh. Born in Saigon, he left Vietnam on April 27, 1975 under the fake name of Lý Ký Kiệt. After living in Washington, Oregon, California and Virginia, he moved to Philadelphia in 1982, where he studied painting at the University of the Arts (at the same time as Phong Bui) … (full long text).

The Video: The Holloway Series in Poetry – also with Linh Dinh, all poets together for 80.41 min, added April 03, 2008 (Linh Dinh from 21.30 – 76.33 min, then answering questions … with a video-patchwork near the end) … Poetry that « raids and reinvents the language with an ardor bordering on delirium » … .

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Linh Dinh – Vietnam and USA

Linh Dinh on PEW, fellowships in the arts.

It is said: Among Asian American poets few have risen to heights of Linh Dinh. His poetry is full of disturbance and grace and the work is worth the sit because of the feeling of unease it causes … follows an interview … (chicago postmodern poetry).

His blog Detainees.

He remembers: When I think about the Vietnam war, I remember Hamburger Hill, so called because American soldiers were ground up there in the late 1960s; the battle for Hamburger Hill was one I watched on television as a child. The American guide to Hamburger Hill was CBS newsman, Ed Bradley, best known these days for his recent interview of Michael Jackson. To think about Hamburger Hill not as a battle or as a place (which doubtless has another, Vietnamese, name), rather as the name for a battle, is to think about how language is often used in contemporary poetry to describe suffering … (full long text).

Eight Postcards from Vietnam, Essay.

… In his poem “Earth Cafeteria,” Linh Dinh writes: “To eat stinky food/ is a sign of savagery, humility, / identification with the earth.” The poem quotes Lin Yutang and Mikhail Bakhtin; it ends with lines that suggest the straddling of customs that recent immigrants confront daily, a reality that beautifully complicates U.S. identity, but one which the likes of Hollander do not regard as desirable DNA for poetry. Dinh’s poem ends: “To eat with a three-pronged spear and a knife./ To eat with two wooden sticks./ To eat with the hands. To snack on a tub of roasted grasshoppers at the movies” … (full text, May 8, 2008).

Description of his book Fake House.

Continuer la lecture de « Linh Dinh – Vietnam and USA »

currently imprisoned by Chinese authorities

BEIJING — The Chinese authorities have detained a prominent Tibetan television broadcaster and intellectual who is also a popular singer, suggesting that the government crackdown after the disturbances in and around Tibet has yet to run its course … There has been no official confirmation of the detention … (full text, April 18, 2008).

Two of her songs in videos: Tibetan Song Phayul Dren lu Singer Jam Yangkyi, 3 min; Tsering gyurmey and jamyang kyi song -Le tro, 4.02 min.

Her blog in Tibetan language … just now not accesssible! Her blog is apparently very popular among young Tibetans, but it has not been updated for some months now (see on free muse.org)

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Jamyang Kyi – China/Tibet

The Window of Jamyang Kyi, created for her on flickr, to give your comments.

Her husband said in a telephone interview: “She is in serious trouble, I’m very worried for her safety. I’m very sorry. I can’t say more” (NY Times, April 18, 2008).

… she composes herself the songs that she interprets, with evocative titles as “Prayer”, “Karma”, “distant Lover” and “Heart Message” (made) in 1997 (that) shows her sensibility. Jamyang Kyi is also a journalist of television, and a writer. She composed essays on the fate of Tibetan women. She published articles including one on the illegal dealings in girls (Qinghai Daily, edition in Tibetan language, 11/30/05) and the statute of women in the Tibetan society … (soc.culture.asean).

Some pictures of her LIVE CONCERT on April 22nd 2006.

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On April 27th, 1998, the patriot Thupten Ngodup set himself on fire in Delhi, and died for the cause of Tibetan independence … (full long text, 13 May 2008).

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Videos with other Tibetan singers and musicians (modern youngsters and traditional):

Continuer la lecture de « Jamyang Kyi – China/Tibet »