Contact is taking a holiday!

Contact is taking a break after 25 years of bringing you news of Tibet and Tibetan issues. We are celebrating our 25 years by bringing you the story of Contact and the people who have made it happen, and our archive is still there for you to access at any time, and below you can read the story of Contact, how it came into being and the wonderful reflections of the people who have made it happen over the years.

When and how Contact will re-emerge and evolve will be determined by those who become involved.

Canada ‘like heaven’ for Tibetan refugee

January 15, 2016

Tsering Yangzom, a graduate of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, is a Tibetan refugee who has made Canada home. By: Debra Black Immigration Reporter, The Sta, Published on Sun Jan 10 2016 Somewhere, the Dalai Lama is smiling. He couldn’t help but be pleased read more →

China income inequality among world’s worst

January 15, 2016

By Gabriel Wildau and Tom Mitchell, Financial Times, 14 January 2016. Communist China has one of the world’s highest levels of income inequality, with the richest 1 per cent of households owning a third of the country’s wealth, a report from Peking University has found. The poorest 25 per cent of Chinese read more →

China’s pursuit of rights lawyers signals aggressive push against ‘subversion’

January 15, 2016

By Tom Phillips, The Guardian, 14 January 2016. Decision to charge human rights advocates with a crime that could lead to life in prison is a major escalation in war on Communist party’s perceived foes. That some of China’s most revered human rights lawyers have spent the last six months read more →

The emperor’s mighty brother

January 14, 2016

Caterpillar fungus The emperor’s mighty brother Demand for an aphrodisiac has brought unprecedented wealth to rural Tibet—and trouble in its wake The Economist / Dec 19th 2015 | YUSHU, QINGHAI PROVINCE | From the print edition BY THE middle of May, the snowline in Yushu prefecture has retreated to the peaks read more →

Connectivity Wars – Weaponising Interdependence

January 14, 2016

by Mark Leonard, ECFR.EU When Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet in November 2015, the image of the falling plane went viral. Calls for revenge exploded across the Russian media and internet. Protesters hurled stones and eggs at the Turkish embassy in Moscow. And the high-profile host of Russia’s read more →

Trouble in Tibet

January 14, 2016

A group of young Tibetan monks huddles on a degraded pasture on the Tibetan Plateau. Kevin Frayer/Getty By Jane Qiu, 13 January 2016, Nature.Com In the northern reaches of the Tibetan Plateau, dozens of yaks graze on grasslands that look like a threadbare carpet. The pasture has been munched down read more →

Why Are Tibetans Setting Themselves on Fire?

January 13, 2016

By Tsering Woeser, NYR Daily, 11 January 2016 February 27, 2009, was the third day of Losar, the Tibetan New Year. It was also the day that self-immolation came to Tibet. The authorities had just cancelled a Great Prayer Festival (Monlam) that was supposed to commemorate the victims of the read more →

Why Are Tibetans Setting Themselves on Fire?

January 13, 2016

Tsering Woeser Liu Yi’s portraits of Tibetans who have self-immolated, Songzhuang art village in Tongzhou, on the outskirt of Beijing, December 25, 2012 February 27, 2009, was the third day of Losar, the Tibetan New Year. It was also the day that self-immolation came to Tibet. The authorities had just read more →

8 reasons China and its president are off to a rocky 2016

January 12, 2016

BEIJING (AP) — Barely more than a week into 2016, Chinese President Xi Jinping is having a rough time of it, with challenges ranging from a plummeting stock market to new provocations from obstreperous ally North Korea. While none pose an existential threat to his administration, the world will be read more →

Son of Chinese Revolutionary to Xi Jinping: Redress Injustices First Step to Democracy

January 11, 2016

By Larry Ong, Epoch Times, January 10, 2016 If Chinese regime leader Xi Jinping wishes to set China on the path of democratic reform while in office, he must earn the support and trust of the Chinese people, urges Xi’s childhood friend. The first step Xi should take on this read more →