Tibet

"May peace prevail on Earth. " Could be a Hallmark saying. Or a department store banner. Or a church's plea. A prayer for peace seems as natural a part of public life during this holiday season as the trimmings around City Hall. Heartfelt or rhetorical, it may mean different things to different Americans. But it doesn't mean death. And that is worth contemplating as the story of the torture of Tibet unfolds this week in The Inquirer. Two young Tibetan Buddhist nuns chanted that peace-loving phrase at a rally to protest the Chinese occupation of their country in 1992.

The Dalai Lama? Getting the Nobel Peace Prize? OK. We were as surprised as the next guy. Americans don't give a lot of thought to Tibet, much less to its exiled spiritual leader. Tibet may be to China what the Baltic republics are to the Soviet Union, but it's geographically remote and, more important in the age of instantaneous global communications, it's closed to the foreign news media. When Tibetans held mass demonstrations two years ago to protest Chinese domination - the communist Chinese invaded Tibet in 1951 and annexed it - their outcry, which provoked a bloody Chinese response, was largely muffled in the West.

Carolyn Holland's three-hour investment yielded a minute - tops - of Chinese President Jiang Zemin's time and attention. For Holland, that was enough. She and about 500 others protesting China's human-rights policies used it to maximum effect last evening as a shimmery black stretch limousine carrying Jiang slid past, taking the president to his nine-minute visit to Independence Hall. Beating drums, chanting and striking cymbals, they told Jiang that he was not welcome in the building where a democracy took shape more than 200 years earlier.

Serene as he faced some of his harshest critics, President Jiang Zemin ended his visit to Washington with no apologies yesterday, arguing that civil liberties in China are less important than economic progress. "Before adequate food and clothing is ensured for the people," he said, "the enjoyment of other rights would be out of the question. " In separate talks with members of Congress and China specialists, Jiang responded head-on to American criticism of China's human rights record.

Travelers planning a holiday trip to New York this year should make sure to book lodging in advance to get what they want. "We're having one of the best years in recent memory," said Richard Altman of the city's visitors bureau. "We've had growth every month this year. " Altman is quick to say that, with 58,000 hotel rooms, the city has never been sold out. Still, prime hotels are expected to fill up. The holiday period is always busy in the Big Apple, but several developments have converged this season.

Premier Zhao Ziyang became head of the Communist Party today, capping a major leadership reshuffle that swept younger, reform-minded officials into the top echelons of power. Deng Xiaoping, who stepped down from three high party posts yesterday, was reappointed chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission in a move that indicated the 83-year-old leader would continue to be the country's dominant leader. Meeting with reporters today after the Central Committee confirmed his appointment, Zhao, 68, blasted the United States for criticizing China's human rights record in Tibet and accusing China of selling missiles to Iran.

Sylvia Green is safe. She is somewhere in Tibet. Honest. Dallas Green kissed his honey goodbye a week ago Thursday, wished her well on her one-month camping trip in pursuit of the ultimate rhododendron, and promised to take good care of their two Pennsylvania farms. And then life became complicated. The Mets called Tuesday and asked him to be manager. Green spent Wednesday and Thursday lining up help for the farms, and lining up help for the Mets. He hired 65-year-old Darrell Johnson as bench coach Wednesday.

Nearly 8 years after the Sydney Olympics, the International Olympic Committee is prepared to disqualify Marion Jones' U.S. relay teammates because of her doping history. Any reallocation of the medals, however, is expected to be postponed again. What to do with Jones' five medals from the 2000 Games is among the main agenda items this week for the IOC executive board, which opens a 2-day meeting in Beijing today. Any reshuffling of the medals could affect the medal results of more than three dozen other athletes.

If your once-in-a-lifetime vacation next summer involves scaling Mt. Everest on a bicycle built for two - you and a significant other such as your Sherpa guide - be advised that there's an exciting lecture on that subject today and tomorrow in the Franklin Institute's science auditorium, 20th and the Parkway. Bruce Mason recently led an expedition of bicyclists across southern Tibet, over the Himalyas and into Nepal. His slide show/talk, titled "Tibet by Bicycle," 3 p.m. both days, will graphically illuminate the rigors of such an odyssey.

Jane Wyatt is smiling because 15 "lost" minutes of the Frank Capra classic Lost Horizon have been restored by archivists, making it possible for the first time since 1937 to see the film at its original 132-minute length. Yet despite the archival heroics, Horizon is still more of a film curiosity than a film classic. Set in the Tibet utopia of Shangri-La, where weather and tempers are always sunny, Lost Horizon is a sober plea for pacificism in a world about to go to war. Ronald Colman and Edward Everett Horton are Wyatt's co-stars, and the best aspects of the restoration are that Horton's part is enlarged and that there are many more shots of art director Stephen Goosson's spectacular sets.

The Tibetan Association of Philadelphia will present a cultural show from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday to raise money for victims of the April 14 earthquake in western China. The show, to be held at the Ethical Society at 1906 S. Rittenhouse Square, will feature dances from different parts of Tibet. Tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for students and seniors. The earthquake killed 2,698 in the heavily Tibetan prefecture of Yushu, in Qinghai Province. For more information on the show, contact Karma Gelek by e-mail at kgelek@phillytibetans.

Whether the appeal was travelogue or artistic saturation, Network for New Music's premiere of Lung-Ta (The Windhorse), a convergence of Tibet-inspired dance, painting, and new music by esteemed Philadelphia composer Andrea Clearfield, was packed beyond standing room Friday at the University of the Arts. Though some endeavors are juxtapositions of talent rather than true collaborations, composer Clearfield, painter Maureen Drdak, and choreographer Manfred Fischbeck worked toward a central, high-minded purpose: Composer and painter spent a month in the remote Himalayas, amid the Tibetan culture of Nepal, yielding field recordings - ambient sounds, chanting monks - that were incorporated into the music and made that world seem near.

The latest round of talks between representatives of the Dalai Lama and the Chinese government predictably failed to make progress, and now hundreds of Tibetans are gathering in India to discuss the way forward. Since the two sides had a totally different understanding of the nature of the talks, it was not surprising that they could not reach agreement. The Dalai Lama's representatives wanted to discuss the situation in Tibet, where there were riots in March, and genuine autonomy for the region.

A powerful earthquake rocked Kyrgyzstan, killing at least 72 people and leveling a remote mountain village, officials said yesterday. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake measured magnitude 6.6 and struck about 10 p.m. Sunday in the Osh region in the south of the Central Asian republic. Yesterday, two quakes struck Tibet, a remote mountainous region of China, state news media reported. They revised an earlier estimate of at least 30 killed to nine dead. The Geological Survey said the first quake was magnitude 6.6 and struck 50 miles west of the Tibetan capital of Lhasa.

I'VE LONG BEEN an admirer of Signe Wilkinson's insight and humor, and her cartoon showing the Chinese torch carrier asking about the U.S. occupation of Iraq was yet one more confirmation of those wonderful characteristics. But I want to suggest that she's being too kind to the United States on this one. While Iraq was a sovereign nation invaded by the United States without cause, and is today an occupied nation, that is not analogous to Tibet. Tibet is a region of the People's Republic of China and has been for nearly 50 years.

Nearly 8 years after the Sydney Olympics, the International Olympic Committee is prepared to disqualify Marion Jones' U.S. relay teammates because of her doping history. Any reallocation of the medals, however, is expected to be postponed again. What to do with Jones' five medals from the 2000 Games is among the main agenda items this week for the IOC executive board, which opens a 2-day meeting in Beijing today. Any reshuffling of the medals could affect the medal results of more than three dozen other athletes.

Three members of the group Students for a Free Tibet scaled San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge yesterday to protest China's crackdown in Tibet. The three unfurled banners saying "Free Tibet 2008" and "One World, One Dream, Free Tibet. " The slogan for the August Olympics in Beijing is "One World, One Dream. " The protesters later climbed down. In all, seven were charged with conspiracy and causing a public nuisance, with the three climbers facing additional charges of trespassing, said Mary Ziegenbien of the California Highway Patrol.

In 1996, I asked a senior Chinese Foreign Ministry official in Beijing about human rights for Tibet. That question sparked a tirade against Tibet's Dalai Lama that was too vituperative to forget. "Some politicians and journalists claim the Dalai Lama is a fighter for freedom and human rights," the official railed, "but have you any idea of how, before 1958, he used human skulls to hold wine?" (The Dalai Lama fled Tibet for India in 1959.) The official fulminated further: "We all know that some servants of Washington [presumably the Dalai Lama]

China's grandiose plans for the torch relay, the high-profile prelude to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, have been engulfed in conflict by an old political rival - Taiwan. Within hours of Beijing's announcement yesterday of what would be the longest torch relay in Olympic history - an 85,000-mile, 130-day route that would cross five continents and scale Mount Everest - Taiwan rejected its inclusion. "It is something that the government and people cannot accept," Tsai Chen-wei, the head of Taiwan's Olympic Committee, said in the Taiwanese capital, Taipei.

If you thought the hotel-room wrestling scene in Borat was extreme (and extremely funny), check out Taxidermia. This wild, multigenerational saga from Hungary's Gyorgy Palfi makes Sacha Baron Cohen's potty-humored faux-doc look like a kid's trip to the candy store. Visually dazzling and outlandishly obscene, Taxidermia begins in old Red Army days, with a lowly orderly prowling around the farmhouse of his lieutenant, spying on the officer's daughters as they undress and bathe. After a not-to-be-believed scene that brings new meaning to the phrase "hot sex," the orderly Vendel beds (in a manner of speaking)