The Dalai Lama is visiting Switzerland on a four-day trip beginning on Friday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Tibet Institute near Zurich. No meetings with the government have been scheduled. The Tibetan spiritual leader will not be received by any of the seven-member Federal Council during his 15th visit to the country. "It is particularly incomprehensible that the government is not receiving the Dalai Lama this time," Thomas Büchli, president of the Swiss-Tibetan Friendship Association, told the news agency Keystone-ATS. According to him, it would have been mere "politeness" to welcome the Nobel Peace Prize winner "with dignity" on the occasion of the jubilee. The 83-year-old will instead participate in the 50th anniversary celebration of the Tibet Institute in Rikon, in canton Zurich. It is the only Buddhist monastery founded outside Asia by order of the current Dalai Lama. Inaugurated on November 9, 1968 under the name "Monastery of the Wheel of Education", ...
