Rev. Danny Fisher

Just a Buddhist Minister Trying to Benefit Beings
May 7, 2009

"The Time to Act is Now: A Buddhist Declaration on Climate Change"

I’ve signed the pan-Buddhist declaration on climate change authored by Dr. David Tetsuun Loy and Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi with scientific input from Dr. John Stanley, and I encourage you to do the same here.

This effort was initiated by contributors to the new Wisdom Publications title A Buddhist Response to the Climate Emergency, and the first signer was His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Thanks to Aaron Lackowski at the Tricycle Editors’ Blog for pointing us to this.

May 7, 2009

Tibet News (5.7.09)

[This post has been updated as of 6:15 p.m. EST on 5.7.09.]

Here is some of the latest news about Tibet:

  • The BBC reports that China’s top weather official has said that “rising temperatures in Tibet are threatening droughts and floods, which could endanger millions of people.”
  • Reuters reports that while speaking in Manhattan recently, His Holiness the Dalai Lama “urged Americans to visit his homeland to disprove China’s assertion that people are happy there.”
  • It is being reported that Tibetan monk Jigme, who has been in detention since posting a YouTube about being abused when he was arrested during the Chinese crackdown on Tibetan rioters and demonstrators in March 2008, has been released from prison.
  • The Associated Press reports that the Chinese government has predictably rejected the latest U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom report on their country.
  • The Agence France-Presse reports that “China warned Paris Thursday not to make more ‘errors’ on Tibet amid news the Dalai Lama may be made an honorary citizen of the French capital, just as frosty ties between the two nations had improved.”
  • Albany’s Times Union is the latest publication to mull over the question of who will be the next Dalai Lama.

    • May 7, 2009

    Burma News (5.7.09)

    Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s home on Lake Inya in Burma. Photo by Khin Maung Win for the Associated Press.
    Here’s the latest on Burma:

  • The Associated Press reports that an American man was arrested for trying to swim across Inya Lake to illegally visit with Nobel Peace laureate and Prime Minister-elect Daw Aung San Suu Kyi at her lakeside home, where she has been under house arrest for thirteen of the last nineteen years. Following the man’s detention, twenty police entered Suu Kyi’s home.
  • The Democratic Voice of Burma reports that a recent conference convened by the Thailand-based Burma Lawyers’ Council (BLC) and its umbrella organization, Human Rights for All (FIDH), “discussed the government’s indifference to international pressure on human rights violations…[and] said that the extent and severity of crimes committed by the junta warrant accusations of war crimes and genocide [in the International Criminal Court].”
  • The Irrawaddy reports that both the All Burma Monks Alliance (A.B.M.A.) and the 88 Generation Students have sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asking her to “consider stiffening the sanctions [against the junta] with additional measures, including visa bans and other penalties on the regime’s crony businessmen and political surrogates. They also called for a global arms embargo by the U.N. Security Council if the junta refuses to implement meaningful change.”
  • The Irrawaddy also reports that the junta-designated health minister for Burma failed to attend a meeting this week of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (A.S.E.A.N.) member nations to discuss measures to prevent an outbreak of swine flu and other health issues.
  • The Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict has produced a scathing, disquieting report on how children are being harmed by armed conflict in Burma.

    • May 7, 2009

    Defy Them

    Join Amnesty International at http://www.amnesty.org.

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