Chris Brown doing well on probation, judge says

Singer Chris Brown has completed 17 out of 52 groups counseling sessions, his probabiton report says.

Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- Singer Chris Brown earned a glowing probation report six months after he was sentenced to "labor-oriented service" for assaulting his pop star girlfriend, Rihanna, the judge said Thursday.

Brown, 20, sat silently in court Thursday afternoon as Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Patricia Schnegg reviewed his probation report.

"It looks like you're doing really, really well," Schnegg said.

The police chief in Richmond, Virginia -- where Brown is being allowed to complete his sentence -- reported that he had worked 32 days of hard labor, she said.

Schnegg said when she sentenced Brown that she wanted to see him do "actual physical labor, as opposed to some type of community service."

The report on his court-ordered domestic violence counseling said he had completed 17 out of 52 groups sessions, she said.

The agency running the sessions reported "you are participating and doing a very good job," the judge said.

The judge rewarded Brown by signing an order allowing him to again travel outside the United States for concerts.

When Brown returns to court on May 11, 2010, for his next probation progress report, he will be "way over halfway there" to completing his sentence, she said.

Brown was sentenced in August to serve five years probation and to spend more than 1,400 hours in "labor-oriented service" for the assault conviction.

Schnegg also put a restraining order in place, requiring Brown to stay 50 yards away from Rihanna, 10 yards if the two are at the same industry event. The judge issued a strict warning to Brown not to violate the order, which remains in place until 2014.

Brown was arrested after an early morning argument inside a rented Lamborghini on a Hollywood street on February 8, 2009.

According to Brown's probation report, the February argument began over an incident at a Beverly Hills party. An earlier, sworn statement by Los Angeles Police Detective DeShon Andrews said the incident began when Rihanna found a text message on his cell phone from "a woman who Brown had a previous sexual relationship with."

The pair argued while in the car driven by Brown, the police statement said. It went on to describe the assault in great detail, saying Brown punched Rihanna -- identified in the statement by her real first name, Robyn, and the first initial of her last name, Fenty -- numerous times and put her in a headlock, restricting her breathing and causing her to start to lose consciousness. He threatened to beat her and kill her, according to the statement, and he bit her ear and her fingers.

Eventually, the statement said, "Robyn F. began screaming for help and Brown exited the vehicle and walked away. A resident in the neighborhood heard Robyn F.'s plea for help and called 911, causing a police response. An investigation was conducted and Robyn F. was issued a domestic violence emergency protective order."

The detective said Brown sent a text message nine days later, apologizing.

Rihanna's injuries included cuts and bruises inflicted by a large ring on Brown's right hand, which he used to punch her, the probation report said.

"Officers at the scene observed numerous contusions and abrasions to the victim's face and forehead, as well as bruising to her left arm near the bicep," it said. "They also saw abrasions to her arms near both wrists and on her upper chest near her collarbone and around her neck. There were abrasions on her left leg and on the inside of her upper lips."

Rihanna declined to speak to the probation investigator, so the probation report's details were gathered from police detectives who interviewed her soon after the attack.

"He beat me up," Rihanna told the police, the report said.

Brown made a public apology in July in a video statement posted on his personal Web site.

"I have told Rihanna countless times, and I'm telling you today, that I'm truly, truly sorry in that I wasn't able to handle the situation both differently and better," Brown said in the Web site statement.

"What I did was unacceptable, 100 percent. I can only ask and pray that you forgive me. Please."

Girl's arrest for doodling raises concerns about zero tolerance

"They put the handcuffs on me, and I couldn't believe it," Alexa Gonzalez, 12, said of her arrest.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Alexa Gonzalez, 12, was arrested by NYPD for drawing on her desk
  
• Critics of zero tolerance policies say school officials, police have gone too far
  
• Zero tolerance policies became more popular after Columbine, security experts say
  
• Students in Chicago arrested for food fight; students in L.A. ticketed for tardiness
  

(CNN) -- There was no profanity, no hate. Just the words, "I love my friends Abby and Faith. Lex was here 2/1/10 :)" scrawled on the classroom desk with a green marker.

Alexa Gonzalez, an outgoing 12-year-old who likes to dance and draw, expected a lecture or maybe detention for her doodles earlier this month. Instead, the principal of the Junior High School in Forest Hills, New York, called police, and the seventh-grader was taken across the street to the police precinct.

Alexa's hands were cuffed behind her back, and tears gushed as she was escorted from school in front of teachers and -- the worst audience of all for a preadolescent girl -- her classmates.

"They put the handcuffs on me, and I couldn't believe it," Alexa recalled. "I didn't want them to see me being handcuffed, thinking I'm a bad person."

Alexa is no longer facing suspension, according a spokeswoman for the New York City Department of Education. Still, the case of the doodling preteen is raising concerns about the use of zero tolerance policies in schools.

I didn't want them to see me being handcuffed, thinking I'm a bad person.
--Alexa Gonzalez

Critics say schools and police have gone too far, overreacting and using well-intended rules for incidents involving nonviolent offenses such as drawing on desks, writing on other school property or talking back to teachers.

"We are arresting them at younger and younger ages [in cases] that used to be covered with a trip to the principal's office, not sending children to jail," said Emma Jordan-Simpson, executive director of the Children's Defense Fund, a national children's advocacy group.

There aren't any national studies documenting how often minors become involved with police for nonviolent crimes in schools. Tracking the incidents depends on how individual schools keep records. Much of the information remains private, since it involves juveniles.

But one thing is sure: Alexa's case isn't the first in the New York area. One of the first cases to gain national notoriety was that of Chelsea Fraser. In 2007, the 13-year-old wrote "Okay" on her desk, and police handcuffed and arrested her. She was one of several students arrested in the class that day; the others were accused of plastering the walls with stickers.

At schools across the country, police are being asked to step in. In November, a food fight at a middle school in Chicago, Illinois, resulted in the arrests of 25 children, some as young as 11, according to the Chicago Police Department.

The Strategy Center, a California-based civil rights group that tracks zero tolerance policies, found that at least 12,000 tickets were issued to tardy or truant students by Los Angeles Police Department and school security officers in 2008. The tickets tarnished students' records and brought them into the juvenile court system, with fines of up to $250 for repeat offenders.

The Strategy Center opposes the system. "The theory is that if we fine them, then they won't be late again," said Manuel Criollo, lead organizer of the "No to Pre-Prison" campaign at The Strategy Center. "But they just end up not going to school at all."

His group is trying to stop the LAPD and the school district from issuing the tickets. The Los Angeles School District says the policy is designed to reduce absenteeism.

And another California school -- Highland High School in Palmdale -- found that issuing tardiness tickets drastically cut the number of pupils being late for class and helped tone down disruptive behavior. The fifth ticket issued landed a student in juvenile traffic court.

In 1998, New York City took its zero tolerance policies to the next level, placing school security officers under the New York City Police Department. Today, there are nearly 5,000 employees in the NYPD School Safety Division. Most are not police officers, but that number exceeds the total police force in Washington, D.C.

In contrast, there are only about 3,000 counselors in New York City's public school system. Critics of zero tolerance policies say more attention should be paid to social work, counseling and therapy.

"Instead of a graduated discipline approach, we see ... expulsions at the drop of a hat," said Donna Lieberman, an attorney with the New York branch of the American Civil Liberties Union.

We see ... expulsions at the drop of a hat.
--Donna Lieberman, ACLU attorney

"If they have been suspended once, their likelihood of being pushed out of the school increases," she said. "They may end up in jail at some point in their life."

One of Lieberman's clients was in sixth grade when police arrested her in 2007 for doodling with her friend in class. The child, called M.M. in court filings to protect her identity, tried to get tissues to remove the marks, a complaint states.

Lieberman says police subjected M.M. to unlawful search and seizure. A class-action lawsuit, filed in January on behalf of five juveniles, is pending. It maintains that inadequately trained and poorly supervised police personnel are aggressive toward students when no criminal activity is taking place.

Several studies have confirmed that the time an expelled child spends away from school increases the chance that child will drop out and wind up in the criminal justice system, according to a January 2010 study from the Advancement Project, a legal action group.

Alexa Gonzalez missed three days of school because of her arrest. She spent those days throwing up, and it was a challenge to catch up on her homework when she returned to school, she said. Her mother says she had never been in trouble before the doodling incident.

New York attorney Joe Rosenthal, who is representing Alexa, plans to file a lawsuit accusing police and school officials of violating Alexa's constitutional rights. New York City Department of Education officials declined to comment specifically on any possible legal matters.

"Our mission is to make sure that public schools are a safe and supportive environment for all students," said Margie Feinberg, an education department spokeswoman.

Our mission is to make sure that public schools are a safe and supportive environment for all students.
--Margie Feinberg, New York City Department of Education spokeswoman

Several media outlets have reported that school officials admitted the arrest was a "mistake," but when asked by CNN, Feinberg declined to comment specifically on the incident. She referred CNN to the NYPD.

The NYPD did not return CNN's repeated phone calls and e-mails. It is unknown whether charges will be pressed against Alexa.

Kenneth Trump, a security expert who founded the National School Safety and Security Services consulting firm, said focusing on security is essential to the safety of other students. He said zero tolerance policies can work if "common sense is applied."

Michael Soguero recalls being arrested himself in 2005 when, as principal at Bronx Guild School, he tried to stop an officer from handcuffing one of his students. A charge of assault against him was later dropped. He says police working in schools need specific training on how to work with children.

In Clayton County, Georgia, juvenile court judge Steven Teske is working to reshape zero tolerance policies in schools. He wants the courts to be a last resort. In 2003, he created a program in Clayton County's schools that distinguishes felonies from misdemeanors.

The result? The number of students detained by the school fell by 83 percent, his report found. The number of weapons detected on campus declined by 73 percent.

Last week, after hearing about 12-year-old Alexa's arrest in New York, he wasn't shocked.

"There is zero intelligence when you start applying zero tolerance across the board," he said. "Stupid and ridiculous things start happening."

Toyoda to testify before U.S. lawmakers

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Toyota president Akio Toyoda accepted on Thursday a formal invitation to testify at a hearing to be held next Wednesday.

The House Oversight Committee sent the invitation Thursday morning. Toyoda had initially said he would not appear before the committee but would instead send North America chief Yoshimi Inaba.

But late Thursday, Toyoda released a short statement: "I have received Congressman Towns' invitation to testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on February 24 and I accept. I look forward to speaking directly with Congress and the American people."

The invitation sent by Committee Chairman Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., reads: "There appears to be growing public confusion regarding which vehicles may be affected and how people should respond. In short, the public is unsure as to what exactly the problem is, whether it is safe to drive their cars, or what they should do about it."

After Toyoda announced his acceptance, Towns released his own statement, with Ranking Member Darrell Issa, R-Calif,: "We are pleased Mr. Toyoda accepted the invitation to testify before the Committee. We believe his testimony will be helpful in understanding the actions Toyota is taking to ensure the safety of American drivers."

Earlier Thursday, the committee issued a subpoena for "all documents relating to Toyota motor vehicle safety and Toyota's handling of alleged motor vehicle defects and related litigation" that are held by Toyota's former U.S. counsel Dimitrios Biller.

Biller has claimed that he possesses documents that proved Toyota hid key findings of safety defects. Even before Thursday's news, Toyota had filed an injunction to prevent Biller from making those documents public, but a Committee aide said the Committee's subpoena overrides the state-level injunction.

U.S. demands Toyota recall documents

Mr. Toyoda has been criticized for being slow to speak up regarding the issues. The carmaker has recently faced a string of massive recalls and, only yesterday, became the subject of a second ongoing National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigation into potential safety problems with its cars.

Also, late Thursday, the NHTSA announced it had officially opened an investigation into possible steering problems with Toyota's Corolla compact cars.

The investigation involves reports that Corolla cars can wander or drift at highway speeds. Seven people have been injured in incidents that may have been related to the problem, according to a NHTSA report.

Toyota plans to cooperate fully in the investigation, a Toyota spokesman said.

Gene Grabowski, head of the crisis communication practice for Washington-based Levick Strategic Communications, said Toyoda "needs to be very well-prepared."

Grabowski's firm has worked with more than a dozen witnesses called to testify on Capitol Hill, he said, and the most important thing they all must remember is to remain humble. A witness must remember that the members of Congress need to be seen helping their constituents and the best thing for a witness to do is to play his part.

"Your job in a hearing is to assist the members of Congress," he said, "and sometimes that means taking some lumps."

If Mr. Toyoda is smart, Grabowski said, he'll come to Washington a few days early to meet privately with the Congressional members he'll be testifying for.

"If you go in cold and they don't know you," Grabowski said, "they're far more likely to attack you."

Pakistan avalanche buries village and kills at least 38

At least 38 people are dead after an avalanche buried an entire village in north-west Pakistan.

The avalanche hit a remote village in Kohistan district, about 200km (124 miles) north of Islamabad.

Local government head Aminul Haq told the BBC that the eventual death toll could exceed 56, as many others are missing.

According to most recent reports from the area, 38 bodies had been dug up by the villagers before sunset, he said.

The regional police chief said roads had been blocked by landslides and several feet of snow.

"Rescue workers are facing a lot of problems," a local police official was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.

"We fear that some women and children were also trapped," Mohammad Sadiq told AFP.

Increased risk

Avalanches are common in the mountains of Pakistan.

The village of Bagaro Serai in the Kandia Valley is so remote that it took hours for news to get out, the BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Islamabad says.

Rescuers are trying to find survivors, but conditions are poor.

A helicopter that flew in from Peshawar with relief goods could not reach the area due to bad weather.

Heavy snow over the past two weeks has meant an increased risk of avalanches across northern Pakistan.

On Monday, a mass of snow killed seven people about 150km from Bagaro Serai, local police said.

Nato strike 'kills Afghan police' in Kunduz

A Nato air strike has killed seven policemen in Afghanistan's northern Kunduz province, Afghan officials say.

The officers were mistakenly hit after a joint Nato-Afghan patrol was ambushed by Taliban insurgents, the officials told news agencies.

The Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said it was investigating the reports.

Isaf also said four Nato soldiers had died on Thursday in its big offensive, Operation Moshtarak, in the south.

Britain's Ministry of Defence confirmed that two Britons were among them.

Nine Nato soldiers have been killed since the operation in Helmand province began on Saturday. One Afghan soldier has died, while at least several dozen Taliban are believed to have been killed.

'Human shields'

About 15,000 Afghan and Nato troops, mostly US and British, are battling Taliban in and around the town of Marjah.

I would be very cautious about any triumphalism just yet Maj Gen Nick Carver Nato commander, southern Afghanistan When Taliban fighters change sides Operation Moshtarak day-by-day

The area has long been known as a Taliban stronghold, and was considered a major hub of Afghanistan's opium poppy trade.

The operation is intended to oust the Taliban from the area and establish the control of the Kabul government.

British Maj Gen Nick Carter, in command of Nato forces in southern Afghanistan, said Operation Moshtarak, which means "together" in Dari, would take 25-30 days to secure the area.

More time would be needed after that to fully gauge the operation's success.

"Looking downstream, in three months' time or thereabouts we should have a pretty fair idea about whether we've been successful," he said.

"But I would be very cautious about any triumphalism just yet."

Nato and Afghan officials have claimed a degree of success in securing the area around Marjah but have run into stiff opposition from determined Taliban in the town itself.

Nato has praised the conduct of Afghan troops in Operation Moshtarak

Nato officials said they had learned from intercepted Taliban communications that the insurgents were running low on ammunition and have called for support.

Afghan commanders have said the Taliban in Marjah are using civilians as human shields to deter attacks from the US and Afghan troops.

On Sunday, 12 civilians died in a missile strike that Nato said had also killed three Taliban militants who were in the same house.

One villager who had fled to Helmand's provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, told BBC Pashto that relatives could not leave Marjah because the area was heavily mined.

Meanwhile, Isaf said it was investigating the reports from Kunduz province of the airstrike hitting Afghan police.

Afghan officials said the air strike was called in after a patrol of Afghan soldiers, police and Nato troops had been attacked by Taliban in Imam Sahib district.

The Afghan forces were hit by mistake, killing seven policemen and wounding two, a spokesman for the interior ministry said.

Taliban ammunition 'running low'

Troops are due to push into south-west Marjah in the coming days

Taliban militants battling coalition troops in Marjah, Afghanistan, are running out of ammunition, Nato officials say.

A BBC correspondent in Kandahar says that from eavesdropping on Taliban communications, Nato understands militants have called for support.

On Wednesday, an Afghan general said Taliban fighters were increasingly using civilians as "human shields".

The Afghan-Nato offensive in Helmand province is now in its sixth day.

Operation Moshtarak, meaning "together" in the Dari language, is the biggest coalition offensive since the Taliban fell in 2001.

Nato officers told BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner in Kandahar that the resistance they were currently encountering was coming from small, disjointed but determined groups of fighters.

Protecting Marjah

In the next few days, US Marines and Afghan government troops are due to push into south-west Marjah, which is believed to be an insurgent stronghold.

But the head of the council for tribal elders in Helmand told BBC Pashto that the long-term security of the area depended on locals being involved in policing.

"As long as you don't get local people involved in the security, you will not be able to protect this area," Haji Abdurahman Sabir said.

"If police were from local people I am sure Marjah would have fallen within two days," he said.

He added that the people of Helmand felt isolated from Afghanistan's central government.

During fighting on Wednesday, US Marines had to call in air support as they came under heavy fire from fighters hiding in bunkers and in buildings including homes and mosques.

Afghan commander Gen Mohiudin Ghori said his soldiers had seen Taliban fighters placing women and children on the roofs of buildings and firing from behind them.

Day-by-day report and map Civilians die in Kandahar strike

He told the AP news agency: "Especially in the south of Marjah, the enemy is fighting from compounds where soldiers can very clearly see women or children on the roof or in a second-floor or third-floor window."

Nato has stressed the safety of civilians in the areas targeted during Operation Moshtarak is its highest priority.

One villager who had fled to Helmand's provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, told BBC Pashto that relatives could not leave Marjah because the area was heavily mined.

"They say they can't get out of their home. If anyone takes a look outside they are fired upon by the Nato troops - they have no food left and can't go out to shop.

"The Taliban left some places but are now resisting very strongly."

On Wednesday, Helmand's governor, Gulab Mangal, visited Marjah and later travelled to Camp Bastion to visit injured civilians from the area.

A number of Afghan civilians remain in Marjah

Nato reports that he held a shura - a council meeting - with local tribal elders and officials to discuss security in Nad Ali.

British and Afghan troops are reported to be advancing more swiftly in the nearby district of Nad Ali than are their US and Afghan counterparts in Marjah.

Afghan officials say that more than 1,200 families have been displaced and evacuated from Marjah and all are receiving aid in Lashkar Gah.

Meanwhile, it has been confirmed that three days of previously undisclosed talks took place last month between Afghan parliamentarians and Taliban representatives.

The Afghan and Maldives governments said the meeting took place in the Maldives but were not brokered by local officials or any other third party.

Falkland Islands: Oil boom or no oil boom?

Anticipation of a big oil find off the coast of the Falkland Islands is once again reaching fever pitch.

The Ocean Guardian rig will explore reserves in the Falklands

A drilling rig from the Scottish Highlands, the Ocean Guardian, is being towed by tug to the North Falkland Basin, widely considered the most promising of the four areas licensed for exploration.

In the UK, investment tipsters are lining up to recommend buying shares in the companies that own those licences.

Strangely enough, though, those shares are not enjoying any notable bounce at present - probably because of the reaction from Buenos Aires.

The Argentine government has imposed new restrictions on all ships heading to the Falklands, in a move that revives memories of the war it fought with Britain over the islands in 1982.

Argentina is clearly furious at the prospect of being excluded from an oil boom in a territory over which it still claims sovereignty.

After trying to raid the central bank's reserves to service its debts, President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner's cash-strapped government is desperate for funding.

For their part, some of the key oil explorers are keeping tight-lipped as they wait to see what the diplomatic fallout will be.

Desire Petroleum, one of the firms that has contracted the Ocean Guardian rig, told the BBC it would be making no comment until the start of drilling next week and referred all inquiries to the British Foreign Office.

Reliable sources?

But at this stage, any Falklands oil boom remains strictly hypothetical. After all, no-one has yet proved that any commercially viable oil field exists there.

Not that you would know that from the oil explorers themselves. Desire Petroleum's website talks of "excellent oil source rock" and "significant gas potential" in the six licence areas it holds.

The only previous drilling off the Falklands was in 1998

It estimates a "potential" - that word again - 3.5 billion barrels of oil and nine trillion cubic feet of natural gas down there, ready to be extracted.

Desire is also co-operating with another firm, Rockhopper Exploration, which has "farmed in" to two of Desire's licences while operating four more of its own, all in the North Falkland Basin. Both firms plan to drill a number of wells using the Ocean Guardian.

Rockhopper reckons that 4.3 billion barrels of oil lie in its licence areas, two of which were previously held by Royal Dutch Shell.

Four other firms are in the game, including Falkland Oil and Gas (FOG), which has brought in mining giant BHP Billiton as a partner.

FOG believes its top four prospects alone could yield eight billion barrels, with tens of billions more lurking elsewhere in its licence areas.

It, too, plans to use the Ocean Guardian rig to drill what will be the first well in the East Falklands Basin, also known as the Falklands Plateau.

Second time round

You might be thinking that this is beginning to amount to an awful lot of oil - or potential oil, at least.

You might also be wondering why Shell decided to pull out of such a lucrative earner.

Well, the answer goes back to the only previous attempt to drill for oil in the area, back in 1998.

Six test wells were drilled in the North Falkland Basin, and five of them showed encouraging results. However, it was not clear whether there was enough oil there to make further investment worthwhile and Shell decided to call a halt.

However, there is one big difference between then and now. In 1998, oil prices fell to little more than $10 a barrel. Nowadays, they are above $75 a barrel.

That means there is plenty of oil still in the ground worldwide that would have been too expensive to extract in 1998, but is perfectly profitable now.

That is certainly the case for much of the oil that might be found in the Falklands' territorial waters, since many of the potential locations are deep under the sea and hard to reach.

In the North Falkland Basin, the waters are relatively shallow, giving a drilling depth of 1,500ft (500m) or less.

But in the eastern and southern basins, the drilling depths are likely to be up to 9,000ft.

This is not as deep as Brazil's big discovery of recent years, the Tupi oil field off the coast of Rio de Janeiro.

But Brazil's state oil firm Petrobras has hard-won experience of deep-sea oil drilling over decades, whereas Falkland Oil and Gas was not formed until 2004.

Sovereignty stand-off

An oil bonanza would clearly make a big difference to the lives of the 3,000-odd inhabitants of the Falklands, whose livelihood currently depends on fishing licences, cruise ship visits and sheep-farming.

But the Argentine government is also acutely aware of what a difference those oil revenues could make to its finances.

Brazil is using semi-submersible platforms to pursue deep-water oil

Argentina has $13bn of international debt that matures this year, and a hole in its budget of between $2bn and $7bn.

However, it was Argentina that unilaterally decided in 2007 to scrap an agreement with the UK to share the proceeds of any oil discoveries in Falklands waters.

The decision was taken by the government of Nestor Kirchner, the predecessor and husband of the current president.

Under the Kirchners, Argentina has increased pressure on the UK to reopen talks on the sovereignty of the islands.

It's a far cry from the 1990s, when the foreign minister of the time, the late Guido di Tella, launched a charm offensive aimed at winning over the hearts and minds of the islanders.

This included sending annual Christmas cards to every household, accompanied by presents such as video cassettes featuring children's character Pingu and books including the adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

Now, however, the gloves are off again - and diplomatic strife plus the lure of financial gain could prove to be a potent combination.

Flip-flop diplomacy with the Dalai Lama

By Richard Lister BBC News, Washington

Not too many people meet the president at the White House wearing flip flops, particularly in the freezing depths of February.

But the Dalai Lama is no ordinary visitor, and not just because of his footwear.

Despite his relatively limited political influence, the impact of the Dalai Lama's presidential face-time resounds far beyond Washington. It provides a yardstick for measuring the administration's commitment to human rights, and for assessing its willingness to stand up to China.

So his visits to the White House are minutely choreographed with the understanding that how he is received here is at least as important as what is discussed behind closed doors.

President Bill Clinton was so wary of the possible Chinese repercussions that he chose never to have a formal meeting with the Dalai Lama, opting instead to "drop by" when the Dalai Lama was meeting other US officials.

Chinese sensibilities

George W Bush was somewhat more welcoming, becoming the first president to be filmed in public with the Dalai Lama. The obviously warm relationship between the two men when the president gave him the Congressional Medal of Honour in 2007 infuriated the Chinese.

The two men held a seemingly animated discussion

But even President Bush did not allow TV cameras into his White House meetings with the Dalai Lama, a step which would be even more antagonising to Beijing.

President Obama seems to have opted for something in between those two approaches.

He met the Dalai Lama in the Map Room of the White House, avoiding the obvious symbolism of the Oval Office. A single photograph was released of the two of them, but the TV cameras were kept well away.

China condemned the meeting anyway, but that is part of the ritualised diplomatic dance that these meetings have now become

No-one expects this deliberately low-key meeting to have any real impact on US-Sino relations.

Of course, by keeping it so low-key, the president risks tarnishing his credentials as a champion of human rights.

'Worth fighting for'

There was outrage from pressure groups when the Dalai Lama came to Washington last year and the president decided not to meet him in advance of his first official trip to Beijing.

That was a clear nod to Chinese sensibilities but was inevitably condemned by those who felt human rights had been dropped down the US agenda.

Neither I nor any of my thirteen previous incarnations have ever met a president Dalai Lama, 1991

After his day of meetings, I asked the Dalai Lama if he did not get frustrated having to play out this diplomatic ritual year after year with apparently so little effect.

"No!" he said, forcefully. "It doesn't matter how quickly something is achieved."

More important, he said, was that it was a cause worth fighting for, even if success was achieved "after my lifetime".

And it is clear that the Dalai Lama regards time a little differently from most people.

Douglas Paal, the senior US official who escorted the Dalai Lama into his first meeting with President George HW Bush in 1991, asked him if he had ever met a US president before.

The Dalai Lama laughed and said "Neither I nor any of my thirteen previous incarnations have ever met a president".

Now he can at least expect a regular invitation - with conditions. Though not about what he wears.