Panchen Lama to get official post
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Gyaltsen Norbu, a Tibetan youth anointed by China’s Communist Party as the 11th Panchen Lama, is to become the country’s youngest official holding a rank equivalent to Cabinet minister as early as next month, said a source with knowledge of government policy on Tibet.
China and the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, chose rival reincarnations of the 10th Panchen Lama, the second-highest figure in Tibetan Buddhism, in 1995.
The Dalai Lama’s choice, who was then 6, disappeared from public view, leading human rights watchdogs to call him the world’s youngest political prisoner.
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