27/04/2026

MONDAY | APR 27, 2026

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Exiled Tibetans elect government BYLAKUPPE: Tibetans outside China voted yesterday for a government-in exile, an election of heightened significance as they brace for an inevitable, eventual, future without their revered spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. of Karnataka, one of the largest Tibetan communities outside the Himalayan plateau. Polling is due to take place in 27 countries but not China.

The Dalai Lama says only his India based office has that right. The five-year parliament, which sits twice a year, has 45 members from across the world: 30 representing three traditional provinces, 10 representing five religious traditions and five representing the diaspora. Headquartered in Dharamsala in northern India, it functions as a representative body for an estimated 150,000 Tibetans living in exile. Lines of red robed monks and nuns lined up to vote in the Indian hill town yesterday. The government’s “sikyong”, or leader, Penpa Tsering, was elected for a second term on Feb 1, after taking 61% in the preliminary round, a high enough threshold to win outright. – AFP

The 91,000 registered voters include Buddhist monks in the high Himalayas, political exiles in South Asia’s megacities and refugees in Australia, Europe and North America. The 90-year-old Dalai Lama, based in India since fleeing the Tibetan capital Lhasa after Chinese troops crushed an uprising in 1959, insists he has many more years to live. But supporters of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate are acutely aware that self-declared atheist and Communist China said last year that it must approve the Buddhist leader’s eventual successor.

The India-based Central Tibetan Administration, condemned by China as “nothing but a separatist political group”, is a key institution for the exiles, especially after the Dalai Lama handed over political power in 2011. “Our votes matter,” said Tenzin Tsering, 19, a first-time voter waiting to cast his ballot to push for greater youth representation. “We need voices that reflect where our community is going, not just where it has been,” he said, speaking in Bylakuppe in India’s southern state

A monk gets his documents verified before voting in Dharamsala. – AFPPIC

China, Myanmar vow more trade, security cooperation

Indian master photographer Raghu Rai dies, aged 83

NEW DELHI: Indian master photographer Raghu Rai (pic) died yesterday, his family announced. He was 83. A construction engineer by training, Rai, born in a village in Pakistani Punjab before

o Neighbours focus on border region stability

fighting the military to engage in peace negotiations ahead of a late July deadline. The two nations’ diplomats also discussed “combating online scamming and illegal activities in border areas”, Global New Light of Myanmar said. Myanmar has emerged as a regional base for cyberscam operations in recent years, with the military publicising raids on sprawling fraud compounds. Transnational crime groups initially mostly targeted Chinese speakers before widening their reach and stealing tens of billions of dollars annually from victims around the world. Both the United States and China have pressured Myanmar and other nations in the region to crack down on operators of fake romance and cryptocurrency investment cons, perpetrated over the internet by thousands of scammers – some willing participants and others trafficked. China was willing to cooperate with Myanmar to “resolutely and thoroughly eradicate the scourge” of online gambling and telecommunications fraud, Wang said. – AFP

Min Aung Hlaing was sworn in as president this month. The parliamentary ceremony where he was sworn in was attended by more than 20 foreign representatives including from China. Democracy watchdogs have described the tightly controlled election that concluded in January as an effort to rebrand military rule, with voting not taking place in swathes of the country controlled by rebels. In a meeting with Myanmar’s Foreign Minister Tin Maung Swe on Saturday, Wang called for joint efforts to “enhance cooperation” in electricity, oil and gas, expand bilateral trade and investments, and “deepen security collaboration” to maintain stability along their border, according to a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement. Global New Light of Myanmar reported yesterday the meetings emphasised further cooperation in the “stability of border regions, facilitating smooth, swift, and efficient trade flows and the efforts to restore the internal peace process”. Min Aung Hlaing has called on groups

the partition of the Indian subcontinent, went on to become an iconic photographer documenting the complex social and political life of India. Some of his best known works include documenting the 1971 independence war of Bangladesh and India’s

YANGON: China and Myanmar have pledged to expand trade and security ties, especially along their border, during talks in the Southeast Asian nation with its president and both countries’ top diplomats, the two governments said. Foreign Minister Wang Yi has been on a three-country visit to Southeast Asia, travelling to Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar, seeking to strengthen ties and present Beijing as a more stable alternative to Washington. China will “firmly support” Myanmar in safeguarding its national sovereignty and security, Wang told Myanmar leader Min Aung Hlaing in the capital Naypyidaw on Saturday. “As this year marks the first year of the new Myanmar government’s tenure, both sides should seize this opportunity to carry forward and promote their traditional friendship,” Wang said. Japan wildfires threaten scenic town OTSUCHI: Japan has deployed 1,400 firefighters and 100 Self-Defence Force personnel to battle mountain blazes in the northern part of the country, with the fires continuing to threaten a picturesque coastal town. The area consumed by the fires reached 1,373ha yesterday, up 7% from a day earlier. The fires threaten residential districts of Otsuchi on the Pacific Coast – a town that lost nearly a tenth of its population in one of Japan’s worst disasters, the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Evacuation orders are in place for 1,541 households or 3,233 residents, roughly a third of Otsuchi’s population. “Although the Self-Defence Forces are fighting the fires from the sky (with helicopters), the dry weather and winds are helping the fires expand,” Otsuchi Mayor Kozo Hirano told a press conference. One Otsuchi resident said he worried about the damage the wildfire could inflict. “A fire burns everything down. With a tsunami, you might have something left after the destruction,” Yoshinori Komatsu, 74, said as he watched Self-Defence Force helicopters dump water over fires in the distance. – Reuters

worst industrial disaster, a 1984 gas leak in Bhopal that killed an estimated 25,000 people. Rai won the inaugural Academie des Beaux-Arts Photography Award, and in 1972 received the Padma Shri, one of India’s highest civilian honours for his exceptional work. “To the world, he was an incomparable master of photography, the visionary who captured the pulsating heart and soul of India,” lawmaker Shashi Tharoor said in a tribute. “Your vision will forever be the lens through which India is seen.” The photographer’s family announced his death in a statement which paid tribute to “our beloved”. Known for portraits of India’s political and social elite and photographing its culture and masses with equal alacrity, Rai published dozens of photo-books including on the iconic monument to love, the Taj Mahal. Rai was a member of Magnum Photo, nominated to the prestigious New York based cooperative by Henri Cartier Bresson, who is known worldwide for his defining candid photography. According to the Indian Express newspaper, Rai was introduced to photography by his photographer brother six decades ago and published his first picture, a donkey gazing straight into his camera, in The Times of London. Rai later moved to photojournalism, working with some of the nation’s best known media houses of his time through the 1960s and 70s, before going solo in his quest to depict his vast country’s complexity. Rai worked all his life in India, and once said: “I can never be true to my experiences without a camera.” – AFP

A firefighter at the site of a wildfire near Otsuchi. – REUTERSPIC