American Buddhist Net

Kazakhstan’s government is mulling a plan that would enable China to lease a large swath of Kazakhstani land for agricultural use. The proposed deal is stirring passionate opposition in the Central Asian state, with critics expressing concern about the country’s sovereignty.

Controversy has been brewing since December, when President Nursultan Nazarbayev announced that China had expressed a desire to lease a million hectares of Kazakhstani land. Under the proposal, Chinese growers would cultivate soybeans and rapeseed, which is used to produce vegetable oil, on the leased land. The government insists that opponents of the lease-scheme are overreacting.

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SHANGHAI (Reuters) - A Chinese woman is seeking extensive plastic surgery to look like U.S. actress Jessica Alba, mainly because she hopes to win back her boyfriend who she said always wished she looked more like the Hollywood star.

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ABN...Can we add a "Samsara" tag for stories like this? Robyn

Known for its Buddhist relic sites, Orissa has offered to organise the third international Buddhist Conclave in the state.

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We all know Thailand loves Doraemon, but this story lifts the anime doll's celebrity status to new heights. According to recent Thai media reports, a woman in Ayudha spent 200,000 baht for an elaborate Thai Buddhist funeral for a Doraemon doll that concluded last week.

Yes, that's right, a stuffed doll. Blog Xomba posted an English version of the reports, noting that Plubplueng Ngamchareon, a 48-year-old Thai woman, received the famous blue Japanese anime character from a Buddhist monk when she was in the hospital being treated for cancer three years ago.

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This anthology of 19 well-researched articles examines the concept of dharma from semantic, cultural, and religious points of view. ‘Dharma’ is considered the fulcrum of Indian civilisation, since it is not affected by any linguistic, sectarian, or regional differences. The term itself is “untranslatable” for it has several connotations. Paul Horsch, in his article, attempts to examine the evolution of the term ‘dharma(n)’ from its Indo-Aryan origin to the position it occupies in the intellectual history of India, tracing the various phases it has gone through.

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Mikulov, South Moravia, Feb 8 (CTK) - The Czech police detained three women from Tibet who wanted to illegally travel from Poland via the Czech Republic to Austria last week, foreigner police spokesman Roman Pittner told CTK Monday.

They claimed they want to join their relatives in the celebrations of the forthcoming Buddhist New Year falling on Sunday, Pittner said.

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THE vast spread of Indic philosophy across Asia since ancient times is one of the great miracles of history. The concept of samsara, of maya and mithya, the illusory nature of the material world around us, was crystallised in the Upanishads by the 8th or 9th century B.C. The high purpose in life was to be able to see beyond this veil of illusion to the eternal truth which was beyond. People who were able to achieve this were known as Buddhas, or Enlightened Ones, and Tirthankaras, or Victors over the fear of Death.

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At first sight it seems the ultimate in child cruelty - a two-year-old boy chained to a lamp post to stop him getting away.

Yet his parents say this is the only way they can guarantee not to lose him.

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A Chinese activist who was trying to compile a list of children killed when their shoddily built schools collapsed in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake was sentenced to five years in jail on Tuesday on charges of “incitement to subvert state power”.

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...In its attempt to fool regulators, the company is understood to have developed software that would display acceptable-looking readouts on screens whenever inspectors from the Transport Ministry came to observe the testing procedures.

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Tuesday, February 9, 2010 7:00 pm CST

Description: “Entering the World of Tibetan Buddhism” with a focus on history, part one of four taught by Dr. Roger Jackson, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the Northfield Buddhist Meditation Center, 313 1/2 Division St., above Jenkins Jewelers. Free and open to the public; free-will donations accepted. Registration: e-mail contact@northfieldmeditation.org.

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9 February, 2010 - The government of India yesterday donated more than 100 books to the national library in Thimphu.

The books, most of them on Buddhism and related to Buddhist philosophy, were handed over by the Indian ambassador to Bhutan, Pavan K Verma. At a simple handing over ceremony, the home minister, Lyonpo Minjur Dorji said that the books would not only help to realise the ministry’s objectives to collect and enhance holdings, but also immensely benefit students, scholars, teachers, authors and journalists.

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SINGAPORE (Reuters Life!) - Singapore has warned a Christian pastor that his online videos are offensive to Buddhists and Taoists, underlining the city-state's concerns that religion is a potential faultline for its multicultural society.

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Though I do not live in Singapore, I am a Buddhist, and I hereby declare that his videos DO NOT offend me in the least. Let him say whatever he wants. In fact, I WANT him to criticize us because it is good for us. Furthermore, if anything about this incident does offend me, it is only that the pastor is being censored. Censorship laws offend me and they are against the deep tenets of my religion. NOT what some pastor, or anyone else, says about us. ABN

A Chinese-born aerospace engineer was jailed for more than 15 years Monday after being convicted of selling technology related to the US space shuttle program to China, officials said.

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STOCKHOLM — Sweden's unemployment agency has been found guilty of discrimination for expelling a Muslim man from a job training program because he refused to shake hands with a woman.

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At first glance this decision may seem very odd, even self-contradictory. How can one party be judged guilty of discrimination for not allowing another party to discriminate? I can sympathize with seeing it that way, but there is another way to look at the matter, and this concerns religious freedom, and more particularly the freedom to practice and express your religion in public. I believe restrooms in Sweden are still (at least mostly) separated according to gender. If the state can make this distinction based on what we all know are very common sensibilities, why cannot a religion, and why cannot an adherent to that religion be free to act upon his beliefs? Is there really much harm in him doing that? Is not his freedom to express his religious beliefs more important than forcing upon him the appearance of some politically determined rule of propriety? In this context, recall that Theravada monks are also not supposed to have any physical contact with women, including touching their hands. They have taken a vow of celibacy and their behavior is restricted. Religious freedom, and the freedom to express your beliefs in public, is an extremely important right, a fundamental right, because without religious freedom everything becomes politics. ABN

Lebanon's Christian Maronite monks have injected a touch of modern marketing savvy into their age-old wine-making tradition to introduce the country's first certified organic wine.

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COLOMBO — The wife of Sri Lankan ex-army chief Sarath Fonseka accused the government on Tuesday of abducting her husband and treating him "like an animal" following his dramatic arrest.

"This is not an arrest. It is an abduction," a tearful Anoma Fonseka said at a press conference at her Colombo home.

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The Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin joined the Sea Shepherd ship Bob Barker this morning at 0700 Hours (Sydney time). Both Sea Shepherd ships are now on the tail of the Japanese factory ship Nisshin Maru.

The Japanese fleet was running fast to the Northeast not knowing that the Steve Irwin was on a course of Southwest coming directly for them. With the fleet doing 15 knots, and the Steve Irwin doing 15 knots, the Steve Irwin and the whaling fleet closed the gap at 30 knots cutting the rendezvous time in half.

The Steve Irwin sat motionless by an iceberg for two hours at a distance of thirty miles to allow the Nisshin Maru to continue towards it. At a distance of only three miles, the Steve Irwin got underway and intercepted the Nisshin Maru.

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LESS than 50 wild tigers remain in China, a conservation group said, voicing hope that the Year of the Tiger would not be the last for the endangered cats.

Xie Yan, director of the China program for the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society, said that just 20 years ago tigers still roamed across large swathes of China.

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Nepal has discharged all of the under-aged combatants from the army of the former Maoist rebels. That is being hailed as the closing of a critical chapter for the peace process in the poor, landlocked country between China and India.

More than 200 former child soldiers boarded buses in the rugged highlands of mid-western Nepal for a ride back into civilian life.

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Exploiting the aged and frail in Washington's adult family homes

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The linked page was slightly confusing to me. There are several short videos and note that on the left there are links to three parts. ABN

Tokyo's gay scene is 300 bars and clubs packed into two blocks, where, perhaps surprisingly in an otherwise regimented society, it has been anything goes for decades. So why, asks our Tokyo correspondent David McNeill, is the wildest party in town coming to an end?

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Mongolian sumo champion Asashoryu has announced his retirement following allegations he attacked a man outside a Tokyo nightclub last month.

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Mongolian press ridicules JSA

CALLEBASSE, Haiti (AFP) - "I would like to give up my son again," says Anchello Cantave, a farmer here, who willingly handed over his five-year-old to US missionaries now facing charges of child abduction in Haiti's post-quake chaos.

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Webster G. Tarpley
February 6, 2010

For her Jan. 29 speech at the Ecole Militaire in Paris, Mrs. Clinton was evidently wearing that stylish new French perfume from the House of Sarkozy called Chantage – meaning blackmail. Mrs. Clinton gloats because she thinks she has the Chinese leadership in a bind. As she stated, she knows that China increasingly depends on oil from the Gulf. She demanded that China vote for crippling sanctions against Iran in the UN Security Council this month, while Sarkozy — the craziest of all western leaders against Iran — controls the presidency of that body. For China, approving crippling sanctions against Iran means in all probability the loss of 10% to 12% of its oil imports, the aborting of some $80 billion in development projects by Beijing in Iran, the sacrifice of hundreds of billions of dollars worth of oil which the Chinese have locked in via futures contracts, and, above all, a farewell to the best chance of getting a secure overland oil pipeline far away from the US-UK fleets — the pipeline from Iran via Pakistan into China.

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The great Buddha statues of Sukhothai summon visitors from across the centuries

An uncommon devotion to their faith has taken many Thai Buddhists on pilgrimages to temples across the country and to Laos and Burma to learn more about the history of the religion and the art that celebrates it.

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RANCHI: On January 2, 2010, three masked men barged into Pinki’s home in Tapodana village, Ranchi district and killed her parents on the charges of practicing witchcraft. Pinki, 14, and her younger brother are now in hiding because she too has been named as a dayan or witch.

Sushila Devi, 45, tries to hide the injury on her head with her sari pallu as she describes how she and four other village women, mostly widows, were beaten, paraded naked and forced to eat excreta in Patharghatia village in Deoghar district, Jharkhand on October 17, 2009.

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Shame and disrepute came India’s way when the issue of corruption reared its ugly head on the concluding day of the two-day first International Buddhist Conclave at Nalanda, some 85 kms south-east of Patna, in Nalanda on Sunday.

During an interaction Union Minister for Tourism Kumari Selja had with foreign delegates — 113 of whom had come — Nuanchan Pientam, chairman of NC Group, a leading tour operator from Bangkok, said the immigration officials unabashedly asked for money from foreign tourists who landed at Varanasi and Gaya airports.

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The Brazosport College Art Gallery will host a reception on Monday for Montana artist Valerie Hellermann, world traveler and student of Buddhism.

Hellermann’s appearance comes in conjunction with her show, titled “Witness — Culture in Peril,” currently on display at the Brazosport College Art Gallery. The show will run through Feb. 28.

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Over two feet of snow fell on the Washington, DC area this weekend, crippling the city in one of the worst storms in the region's history. Over 200,000 homes and businesses lost power, and city officials urged residents to stay home as crews worked to clear streets and repair power lines.

Still, some sought to have a bit of fun in the winter wonderland. At least 2,000 people converged on Dupont Circle, in downtown Washington, on Saturday afternoon, for a snowball fight of epic proportions -- responding to messages posted on Facebook and Twitter and spread through word of mouth.

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