51. Dalai Lama launches personal website to spread world peace

DHARAMSALA, India (AFP)

Self-exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama launched a personal website to spread his message of world peace and take questions via email. The website www.dalailama.com was inaugurated on the international Human Rights Day and the 16th anniversary of his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize. "The website is not to promote the Dalai Lama himself. It is to reach out to the world with his message of love, peace and compassion and universal responsibility," a team member, who designed the website, told AFP on Sunday. His messages have been posted both in English and Tibetan and questions can be emailed directly to the Dalai Lama. The Tibetan government-in-exile, based in the Indian hill town of Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh state, had also launched an Arabic version of its official website www.tibet.net, the team member said. The Dalai Lama fled Tibet and crossed over to neighbouring India in 1959 after the collapse of the resistance movement opposed to the 1950 Chinese invasion. China has maintained that Tibet is a province of the country and that the invasion saved people from feudal oppression. Beijing formally established a Tibetan Autonomous Region in 1965, but the Dalai Lama says there is no real autonomy and seeks greater rights for its six million people.