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TENZIN PEMA

Award-winning journalist of Tibetan origin with over two decades of experience as a reporter, editor, innovator, and newsroom leader in global media firms, with a specialization in Tibet, human rights, social and environmental justice, Sino-Tibetan-India-US issues, and tech and business news coverage. 

Proven record of leading and executing strategic initiatives and delivering innovative projects requiring cross-functional stakeholder management, with demonstrated ability to build, train, and scale high-performing teams covering diverse specializations in multiple formats, languages, and platforms.

Radio Free Asia •

EXCLUSIVE: Area where Buddhist monastery stood now under water

Read RFA coverage of this story in Tibetan.

Rising waters from a new dam in central China have submerged the area where a 135-year-old Tibetan Buddhist monastery once stood, as well as a nearby village, according to experts who viewed satellite photos and two sources inside Tibet.

The Atsok Monastery, built in 1889, was demolished earlier this year to make way for the expansion of the Yangqu hydropower station in Qinghai province.

Tibetans have decried the dam’s construction, saying it is yet...
Radio Free Asia •

Scorsese reflects on ‘spiritual act’ of making film about the Dalai Lama

NEW YORK — The making of Martin Scorsese’s 1997 Oscar-nominated film Kundun was a “spiritual act” and a “very personal and special project,” the legendary filmmaker said at a rare public screening of the film on the big screen at the Tribeca Festival in New York.

Friday’s screening was part of global celebrations honoring the Dalai Lama’s 90th birthday. Kundun chronicles the early life of the Tibetan spiritual leader, from his discovery as the 14th Dalai Lama as a young child in Tibet to his es...
Radio Free Asia •

REVEALED: Inside the CIA’s (largely) secret role in the Tibetan resistance

Read this story in Tibetan

EAGLE COUNTY, Colorado — High up in the Southern Rocky Mountains of Colorado, at 2,800 meters (9,200 feet), lies Camp Hale – widely known as the birthplace of backcountry skiing and the training grounds of the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division soldiers who fought the Nazis in World War II.

Lesser known, however, is the camp’s storied past as the CIA-operated secret training facility for Tibetan resistance fighters in the early 1960’s.

The Tibetan fighters who train...
Radio Free Asia •

The story of one of Buddhism’s most revered figures, long missing, explained

Updated April 25, 2025, 12:38 a.m. ET

The young boy who was abducted as a 6-year-old turned 36 on Friday.

What he does, where he lives or even if he’s still alive isn’t known, thanks to the reticence of the Chinese government, which kidnapped him along with his family and his teacher 30 years ago.

Beijing leaders, ever wary of potential rivals for the Communist Party’s authority, viewed the boy, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, as a possible threat.

Days earlier the Dalai Lama had named him the 11th re...
Radio Free Asia •

Tibetan Buddhist leader missing for 8 months has died, monastery confirms

Updated at 15:30 on April 4, 2025.

The death of an influential Tibetan Buddhist leader who went missing eight months ago shortly after he publicly called for the preservation of Tibetan language and culture was confirmed in a statement by his monastery.

Tibetans inside Tibet took to social media platforms on Thursday to mourn the loss of Tulku Hungkar Dorje, age 56. He was the 10th abbot of Lung Ngon Monastery in Gade (Gande in Chinese) county of Golog in Qinghai province. He was renowned as a...
Radio Free Asia •

Trump tariffs on China now total 145%, White House says

U.S. tariffs on imports from China actually total 145%, the White House said Thursday, amid an escalating tariff war between the world’s two largest economies that threatens to upend global trade.

On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump announced he was raising tariffs on Chinese imports to 125%. But the White House said Thursday that did not include a 20% tariff the U.S. had previously imposed on China for fentanyl trade. Adding that in takes the new China tariffs total to 145%.

Trump’s tar...
Radio Free Asia •

Netizens demand China reinstate Tibetan language use in schools

Hundreds of Tibetans have taken to social media to demand that China restore Tibetan language studies in schools, just days after Beijing released a white paper claiming that the right to use Tibetan language is guaranteed in Tibet.

In the March 28 report about human rights in Tibet, China said the use of Tibetan language is widespread in government documents, public notices, media and schools, and that courses on both Mandarin and Tibetan are taught in primary and secondary schools in the regi...
Radio Free Asia •

Bhutan refers to Tibet as Beijing-preferred ‘Xizang,’ sparking pushback

Bhutan became the latest nation to refer to Tibet as “Xizang,” prompting Tibetan politicians and advocates to urge Bhutan to stop using the term promoted by Beijing that they say contributes to China’s efforts to erase Tibetan identity.

In a March 17 statement, Bhutan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and External Trade used the term “Xizang” to refer to the Tibet Autonomous Region, a Chinese government-designed administrative region that makes up only part of the larger region that Tibetans refer...
Radio Free Asia •

China deploys army veterans for military, political training in Tibetan schools

China is placing army veterans as so-called “on-campus instructors” in schools across Tibet to impart military and political training to Tibetan children as young as 6, sources inside Tibet say, confirming state-run media reports about the new system.

The move is a bid to instill loyalty to the Chinese government from a young age -– an initiative that experts say highlight an escalation in Beijing’s assimilation policies aimed at erasing Tibetan identity.

State-run TV segments show Tibetan stu...
Radio Free Asia •

Tibet is a ‘front line’ in struggle for freedom with Beijing: US official

Tibet’s struggle for autonomy in China is “one of the front lines” in America’s battle with the Chinese Communist Party, a senior State Department official said at a Tibetan New Year celebration.

Albert Gombis, the acting under secretary of state for civilian security, democracy and human rights, made the remark at an event marking Losar, or Tibetan New Year, at the State Department on Tuesday.

Gombis told the gathering that U.S. national security was “inextricably bound to the battle of ideas...
Radio Free Asia •

Gyalo Thondup, Dalai Lama’s older brother, dies aged 97

Gyalo Thondup, an elder brother of the Dalai Lama who played a crucial role in the history of modern Tibet, has died at his home in Kalimpong in northeast India aged 97.

One of six siblings to the Tibetan spiritual leader, he leaves behind a legacy built on a lifetime of advocating against Chinese rule in Tibet.

At different points in his life, Thondup made numerous – at times desperate – attempts to save Tibet’s traditional culture and self-governance, including seeking U.S. support for an ar...
Radio Free Asia •

Dozens killed as 7.1-magnitude earthquake hits Tibet

UPDATED at 12:41 P.M. ET on 01-07-2025

At least 126 people were killed and 188 others were injured after a powerful earthquake hit Tibet on Tuesday morning, according to Chinese state media, with the tremors felt in multiple regions in neighboring countries of India, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh.

The 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck at 9:05 a.m. local time in Dingri county of Shigatse prefecture in the Tibet Autonomous Region, located close to the border with Nepal, according to the United Stat...
Radio Free Asia •

Nepal’s leader visits Beijing, joint statement uses ‘Xizang’ to refer to Tibet

Read original story in Tibetan.

Nepal referred to Tibet as “Xizang” in a statement issued after its new Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli completed a four-day visit to Beijing this week, his first trip outside the country after his election -- not India, as is traditionally the case.

Xizang is a term promoted by Beijing, but Tibetan advocates say it is yet another attempt by China to erase their distinct cultural heritage.

Both moves highlight China’s growing influence in Nepal -- and its hopes to...
Radio Free Asia •

EXCLUSIVE: Buddhist Monastery destroyed to make way for Chinese hydropower project

Authorities have demolished a 19th-century Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the Tibetan area of Qinghai province to make way for a hydropower dam project, three sources with knowledge of the situation said.

A video shared exclusively with Radio Free Asia by a source who recorded it in early July shows that nothing remains of the religious structure, with the monastery’s main prayer halls and the many stupas that surround it completely razed to the ground. RFA was able to independently verify the a...
Radio Free Asia •

China sends glacial water from Tibet to the Maldives, raising concerns

China gifted 3,000 metric tons of Tibet’s glacial water to the island nation of the Maldives in two separate batches in March and May — the same months it unveiled and implemented water conservation regulations at home.

The Water Conservation Regulationsset limits on water usage within administrative regions and prioritizes water conversation work in Tibet and other parts of China.

They were issued by China’s State Council on March 20, a week before it sent the first delivery of 1,500 metric t...
Radio Free Asia •

Beijing sets conditions for possible resumption of talks on Tibet

The Chinese government says it will only talk with the representatives of the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, while ruling out any scope for “contact” with the India-based Tibetan government in exile.

Beijing called the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), as the government is known, a “separatist” bloc demanding autonomy for Tibet – a line that experts say it has long upheld and signals no change in Beijing’s stance towards engaging meaningfully with the Tibetan side since previous t...
Radio Free Asia •

China names 30 places in India-controlled Arunachal Pradesh

Beijing has issued Chinese names for 30 locations in Arunachal Pradesh to bolster its claims on the territory that is controlled by India, which quickly dismissed the move as meaningless.

It was the fourth time since 2017 that China released place names for geographical locations in what it refers to as Zangnan and claims is part of southern Tibet, in Chinese territory.

“If today, I change the name of your house, will it become mine?” asked India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on the...
Radio Free Asia •

China arrests more than 1,000 Tibetans protesting dam project

Police on Friday arrested more than 1,000 Tibetans, including monks from at least two local monasteries, in southwestern China’s Sichuan province after they protested the construction of a dam expected to destroy six monasteries and force the relocation of two villages, two sources from inside Tibet told Radio Free Asia.

The arrested individuals – both monks and local residents – are being held in various places throughout Dege county in Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture because the police d...
Radio Free Asia •

Video captures Chinese soldiers confronting Tibetan herders

In an incident captured on video, Chinese soldiers confronted Tibetan herders in a remote, rugged region near the border of India and Chinese-controlled Tibet, claiming they were in Chinese territory and denying them access to traditional grazing land.

The Jan. 2 video, taken by a Tibetan nomad named Kunsang Namgyal, shows about a dozen People’s Liberation Army soldiers in desert fatigues talking with herders, gesturing and pointing, while sirens from armored vehicles can be heard in the backgr...
Radio Free Asia •

Snowless winter in Himalayas – another sign of climate change

Ski instructor Showkat Ahmad Chopan looks around at the brown, rocky mountain slopes around him in Indian-administered Kashmir – normally covered in snow at this time of year – and realizes he may not have any students this year.

“This is the first time I’ve seen such conditions in January, our peak snow season,” he said.

“Kashmir’s winters have always been our pride and joy. The snow not only blankets our valleys in beauty but is extremely important for tourism and the local economy,” said Sh...
Reuters •

Dalai Lama's envoys say Tibet at crossroads

Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the world’s largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day. Reuters provides business, financial, national and international news to professionals via desktop terminals, the world's media organizations, industry events and directly to consumers.

Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the world’s largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day. Reu...