Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Dalai Lama, battling exhaustion, cancels trips

DHARMSALA, India (AP) — The Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, was suffering from exhaustion and has canceled two planned international trips to undergo medical tests, his office said Wednesday.

The 73-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner had been "experiencing some discomfort in the past couple of days," a statement from his office said, adding that his doctors had diagnosed him as suffering from "exhaustion."

The Dalai Lama spends several months a year traveling the globe to highlight the struggle of Tibetans for greater freedom from China and to teach Buddhism.

He canceled two upcoming trips to Mexico and the Dominican Republic and would rest over the next three weeks, said Thupten Samphel, the spokesman of the self-declared Tibetan government-in-exile.

Samphel said the holy man would travel to Mumbai for medical tests before returning to the north Indian hill town of Dharmsala to recuperate. He gave no further details on his condition.

The Dalai Lama has had his headquarters in Dharmsala since fleeing Tibet in 1959 after an abortive uprising against China.

No comments: