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Dalai Lama to tour Nigeria, Europe Tuesday, November 25, 2008
The Dalai Lama will be on a two-day day trip to Nigeria, during which he is expected to deliver a keynote address for this year’s Anyiam-Osigwe Lecture Series in Lagos, the country's former capital city and one of the fastest growing cities in Africa. The 1989 Nobel Peace laureate will deliver his keynote address on the topic ‘The Universality of the God Principle, the Sense of Unity in the Teachings of the Great Masters’. The lecture series is held every year by the Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe Foundation in its effort to deepen the Emmanuel Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe’s development philosophy and its universal principles. To share the podium with the Tibetan leader will be the former President of Poland, Mr. Aleksander Kwasniewski. The lecture that will be held at its traditional venue, Nigeria Institute of International Affairs, Victoria Island, Lagos on November 27, 2008, will have as its theme “The Unity of The Absolute, the Oneness of All Religions: Value Guided Conduct as a Universal Tenet and Propriety as a Way of Life for Mankind.” Speaking on this year’s lecture, Coordinator, Anyiam-Osigwe Foundation, Mr. Michael Anyiam-Osigwe said the two speakers have confirmed their attendance and that all preparations are being done to have a great event, according to a report by THISDAY Online. “This year will be the tenth year of the foundation and the lecture series. We are ready to host another great event. The theme for this year was carefully chosen because of place of religion in engendering social harmony and human development,” he said. He also noted that many countries and societies that would have advanced in every indices of human development have remained backward as a result of religious war adding that part of the objectives of the foundation is to promote inter-religion harmony. The underlining principles of Anyiam-Osigwe's Holistic Approach to Human Existence revolve around spiritual upliftment, economic enhancement, social responsibility and political awareness. Many world leaders, including former Israeli Prime Minister, Simon Peres, wife of former British Prime Minister, Mrs. Cherrie Blair, United States former Vice President Al Gore, Former President of South Africa P.W De Klerk, and former British Prime Minister John Major among others have been past keynote address speakers at the Anyiam-Osigwe Foundation lecture series. The two-day visit to Nigeria is the first leg of a trip that will take him to Czech Republic , Belgium and Poland . While in Poland French President Nicolas Sarkozy is expected to meet His Holiness on 6 December. According to the official website of the Tibetan Government-in-exile, the 73-year old revered Tibetan leader will return to his exile hometown on 13 December. Last week at a six-day conclave of the Tibetan people in Dharamsala, called by the Dalai Lama to discuss the course of their political movement, nearly 600 Tibetan delegates, representing Tibetans around the world, while reaffirming their absolute “faith and allegiance” to the Dalai Lama, once again urged him to continue to remain as the supreme spiritual and temporal leader of the Tibetan people. The meeting further urged him not to state "retirement or even semi-retirement" in leading Tibetan people in their struggle for freedom. At a press conference on Sunday, a day after the six-day meeting, the Dalai Lama said his role in Tibetan political leadership was already a “semi-retired" one, but maintained that it was his moral responsibility to remain committed to the Tibetan cause. “There is no question of my retirement. I’m a Tibetan. I’ll stand for the cause till I die,” the Tibetan leader said Responding to media queries about possible policy options on China and the fate of the talks with China over Tibet, the Dalai Lama told reporters to “wait for a month”, suggesting those matters would be considered after a meeting of Tibet’s international supporters to be held later this month. From Dharamsala the Dalai Lama travels extensively around the world promoting human values, teaching Buddhism and, advocating for Tibetan rights and their struggle for greater freedom. He often meets with world leaders to present the case of Tibet . Beijing accuses the Dalai Lama of trying to split Tibet from China , which sent military troops to occupy the predominantly Buddhist Himalayan country in 1949, and has regularly protested against countries that agree to visits by him. The Dalai Lama says he is only seeking a “real and meaningful” autonomy for Tibetan people within China and opposes the use of violence. |
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tibetoday vol. 1 No. 12 |
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