Dalai Lama : Journalists should be nosey as elephants



WARSAW - Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on Tuesday urged journalists to be as nosey as elephants in seeking out information for the good of society.
"I am always telling when I meet the press, media people, they should have long noses like elephants and that it should smell in front and also behind," he told a predominantly student audience at Warsaw University.



Dalai Lama : Journalists should be nosey as elephants
He also called on Chinese authorities to allow for freedom of information.
"In a totalitarian regime like China (there's) too much censorship, no free information -- it's not only morally wrong but also practically is ultimately a source of poverty."
"All information (is) censored, all information stopped -- how can you develop trust? Without trust, how can harmony, friendship develop? Impossible," he said.
The Dalai Lama, 74, arrived in the Polish capital on Monday for a three-day visit during which he is to receive the honorary citizenship of the city.
On Tuesday he also visited a museum dedicated to the World War II Warsaw Uprising, a doomed 1944 insurrection by the Polish resistance against occupying Nazi German troops.
Beijing accuses the Dalai Lama of wanting full independence for Tibet, a claim which he himself has called "totally baseless", insisting instead on an autonomous status for his Himalayan homeland within China.
He has lived in exile in India since fleeing Tibet after a failed uprising in 1959 against Chinese rule, nine years after Chinese troops invaded the territory.
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Wednesday, July 29th 2009
AFP
           


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