KFC not to serve fried chicken in Tibet

Tibet's chickens got a reprieve after KFC axed a plan to open outlets in the Dalai Lama's homeland.
Yum Brands Inc, the world's second-largest fast-food company and owner of the KFC fried chicken chain, on Thursday scratched a plan to expand into Tibet because it would cost too much.
The decision came after the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader and a vegetarian for almost 40 years, had appealed to KFC in May not to expand into the region.
"I've been particularly concerned with the sufferings of chickens for many years," the Dalai Lama said in his appeal.
Yum, which faced opposition from groups that protest against Chinese control of Tibet, first announced plans to expand into Tibet in January. In April, it said it was studying the market.
"We did look into entering Tibet earlier in the year, but we decided not to move forward because it isn't economically feasible for us to do business there today," Yum spokesman Jonathan Blum said. "Maybe someday it will be less costly and we'll continue to explore this option at that time," he said.
China is Yum's fastest growing and most profitable country outside the United States. There are around 1,100 KFC outlets in China, from the far western region of Xinjiang to the frigid cities of the north-east and down to the tropical south. China accounted for 32 percent of Yum's international operating profit of $436 million in fiscal 2003.
Louisville, Kentucky-based Yum, which also operates the Pizza Hut and Taco Bell chains, is one of a handful of Western companies to receive permission from Beijing to expand into Tibet, where Chinese troops forcefully imposed their government's rule in 1950.
China has long sought to silence pro-independence voices in the region and the Dalai Lama fled into exile after a failed uprising against China in 1959.
Pro-Tibetan groups, including New York-based Students for a Free Tibet, decried Yum's plans to open one of its KFC outlets in Tibet, portraying it as an instrument of imperialist China.
Animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals on Thursday publicised a Dalai Lama letter dated June 22 to Yum Chief Executive David Novak asking the chain to abandon its plan to expand into his homeland.
Yum said it had not received a letter from the Dalai Lama.
Tashi Wangdi, the Dalai Lama's representative in New Delhi, told Reuters the letter was a May 14 general appeal to KFC not to start doing business in Tibet, not a letter addressed to Yum's Novak. The text of PETA's letter was identical to the appeal, though, he said.