Dalai Lama celebrates 90th birthday with followers in north Indian town

The Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, has turned 90 to cap a week of celebrations by followers during which he riled China again and spoke about his hope to live beyond 130 and reincarnate after dying.

Dressed in his traditional yellow and burgundy robe, the Dalai Lama arrived at a Buddhist temple complex to smiles and claps from thousands of monks and followers who had gathered on a rainy Sunday morning in the north Indian hill town of Dharamshala, where he lives.

He waved and greeted them as he walked slowly to the stage with support from monks.

“As far as I am concerned, I have a human life, and as humans, it is quite natural for us to love and help one another. I live my life in the service of other sentient beings,” the Dalai Lama said, flanked on the stage by longtime supporters, including Western diplomats, Indian federal ministers, Hollywood actor Richard Gere, and a monk who is expected to lead the search for his successor.

Fleeing his native Tibet in 1959 in the wake of a failed uprising against Chinese rule, the 14th Dalai Lama, along with hundreds of thousands of Tibetans, took shelter in India and has since advocated for a peaceful “Middle Way” to seek autonomy and religious freedom for the Tibetan people.

A Nobel Peace Prize winner, the Dalai Lama is regarded as one of the world’s most influential religious leaders, with a following that extends well beyond Buddhism – but not by Beijing, which calls him a separatist and has sought to bring the faith under its control.

In a sign of solidarity, Taiwan’s President William Lai Ching-te, leaders of Indian states bordering Tibet, and three former United States presidents – Barack Obama, George W Bush, and Bill Clinton – sent video messages which were played during the event.

In the preceding week of celebrations, the Dalai Lama had said he would reincarnate as the leader of the faith upon his death and that his nonprofit institution, the Gaden Phodrang Trust, had the sole authority to recognise his successor.

China has said the succession will have to be approved by its leaders, and the US has called on Beijing to cease what it describes as interference in the succession of the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan Buddhist lamas.

Show of solidarity

Guests gathered at the ceremony took turns to speak, including Indian Parliamentary and Minority Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju, a practising Buddhist, who had earlier made a rare statement contradicting China by backing the Dalai Lama’s position on his successor.

He later clarified that the statement was made in his personal capacity as China warned New Delhi against interfering in its domestic affairs at the expense of bilateral relations.

On Sunday, Rijiju said the Dalai Lama was India’s “most honoured guest”. “We feel blessed for his presence here in our country,” he said.

Cultural performances were held throughout the morning, including from Bollywood playback singers, while messages from global leaders were read out.

Ukraine’s sovereignty was violated long before Trump

On June 16, the Ukrainian government started the process for opening bids for foreign companies to mine lithium deposits in the country. Among the interested investors is a consortium linked to Ronald S Lauder, who is believed to be close to United States President Donald Trump.

The bid is part of a minerals deal signed in April that is supposed to give the US access to Ukraine’s mineral wealth. The agreement was negotiated over months and was touted by Trump as “payback” for US military support for the Ukrainian military.

The final text, which the Ukrainian side has celebrated as “more favourable” compared with previous iterations, paves the way for US investment in the mining and energy sectors in Ukraine. Investment decisions will be made jointly by US and Ukrainian officials, profits will not be taxed and US companies will get preferential treatment in tenders and auctions.

Trump’s demand for access to Ukrainian mineral wealth was slammed by many as infringing on Ukrainian sovereignty and being exploitative at a time when the country is fighting a war and is highly dependent on US arms supplies. But that is hardly an aberration in the record of relations between Ukraine and the West. For more than a decade now, Kyiv has faced Western pressure to make decisions that are not necessarily in the interests of its people.

Interference in domestic affairs

Perhaps the most well-known accusations of Western influence peddling have to do with the son of former US President Joe Biden – Hunter Biden. He became a board member of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma in May 2014, three months after Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian president of Ukraine, fled to Russia during nationwide protests.

At that time, Joe Biden was not only vice president in President Barack Obama’s administration but also its pointman on US-Ukrainian relations. Over five years, Hunter Biden earned up to $50,000 a month as a board member. The apparent conflict of interest in this case bothered even Ukraine’s European allies.

But Joe Biden’s interference went much further than that. As vice president, he openly threatened then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko with blocking $1bn in US aid if he did not dismiss the Ukrainian prosecutor general, whom Washington opposed.

When Biden became president, his administration – along with the European Union – put pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to give foreign “experts” a key role in the election of judges for Ukraine’s courts. As a result, three of the six members on the Ethics Council of the High Council of Justice, which vets judges, are now members of international organisations.

There was fierce opposition to this reform, even from within Zelenskyy’s own political party. Nevertheless, he felt compelled to proceed.

The Ukrainian government also adopted other unpopular laws under Western pressure. In 2020, the parliament passed a bill introduced by Zelenskyy that removed a ban on the sale of private farmland. Although polls consistently showed the majority of Ukrainians to be against such a move, pressure from the West forced the Ukrainian president’s hand.

Widespread protests against the move were muffled by COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. Subsequently, Ukraine’s agricultural sector became even more dominated by large, export-oriented multinational companies with deleterious consequences for the country’s food security.

Attempts to challenge these unpopular laws were undermined by attacks on courts. For example, the Kyiv District Administrative Court ruled that the judicial reform law violated Ukraine’s sovereignty and constitution, but this decision was invalidated when Zelenskyy dissolved the court after the US imposed sanctions on its head judge, Pavlo Vovk, over accusations of corruption.

The Constitutional Court, where there were also attempts to challenge some of these laws, also faced pressure. In 2020, Zelenskyy tried to fire all the court’s judges and annul their rulings but failed. Then in 2021, Oleksandr Tupytskyi, the chairman of the court, was sanctioned by the US, again over corruption accusations. This facilitated his removal shortly thereafter.

With Western interference in Ukrainian internal affairs made so apparent, public confidence in the sovereignty of the state was undermined. A 2021  poll  showed that nearly 40 percent of Ukrainians did not believe their country was fully independent.

Economic sovereignty

In step with interference in Ukraine’s governance, its economy has also faced foreign pressures. In 2016, US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt urged the country to become an “agricultural superpower”. And it appears that the country indeed has gone down that path, continuing the process of deindustrialisation.

From 2010 to 2019, industry’s share of Ukraine’s gross domestic product fell by 3. 7 percentage points while that of agriculture rose by 3. 4 percentage points.

This didn’t benefit Ukrainians. UNICEF found that nearly 20 percent of Ukrainians suffered from “moderate to severe food insecurity” from 2018 to 2020, a figure that rose to 28 percent by 2022. This is more than twice as high as the same figure for the EU.

This is because the expansion of agriculture has favoured export-oriented monocrops like sunflowers, corn and soya beans. Although Ukraine became the world’s biggest exporter of sunflower oil in 2019, a 2021 study found that the domination of agriculture by intensively farmed monoculture has put 40 percent of the country’s soil at risk of depletion.

The 2016 free trade agreement with the EU also encouraged low-cost exports. Due to the restrictive provisions of the agreement, Ukrainian business complained that domestic products were often unable to reach European markets while European producers flooded Ukraine. Ukraine had a 4-billion-euro ($4. 7bn) trade deficit with the EU in 2021, exporting raw materials and importing processed goods and machinery.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s industrial output collapsed under the blows of closed export markets, Western competition and neoliberal economic policies at home. According to the Ministry of Economy, by 2019, automobile production had shrunk to 31 percent of its 2012 level, train wagon production to 29. 7 percent, machine tool production to 68. 2 percent, metallurgical production to 70. 8 percent and agricultural machinery production to 68. 4 percent.

In 2020, the government under the newly elected Zelenskyy tried to intervene. It proposed new legislation to protect Ukrainian industry, Bill 3739, which aimed to limit the amount of foreign goods purchased by Ukrainian state contracts. Member of parliament Dmytro Kiselevsky pointed to the fact that while only 5 to 8 percent of state contracts in the US and EU are fulfilled with imports, the same figures stood at 40 to 50 percent in Ukraine.

But Bill 3739 was immediately criticised by the EU, the US and pro-Western NGOs in Ukraine. This was despite the fact that Western countries have a range of methods to protect their markets and state purchases from foreigners. Ultimately, Bill 3739 was passed with significant amendments that provided exceptions for companies from the US and the EU.

The recent renewal of EU tariffs on Ukrainian agricultural exports, which had been lifted in 2022, is yet another confirmation that the West protects its own markets but wants unrestricted access to Ukraine’s, to the detriment of the Ukrainian economy. Ukrainian officials worry that this move would cut economic growth this year from the projected 2. 7 percent to 0. 9 percent and cost the country $3. 5bn in lost revenues.

In light of all this, Trump’s mineral deal reflects continuity in Western policy on Ukraine rather than a rupture. What the US president did differently was show to the public how Western leaders bully the Ukrainian government to get what they want – something that usually happens behind closed doors.

Hezbollah chief says won’t disarm until Israel leaves southern Lebanon

The Hezbollah chief says the Lebanese group remains open to peace, but it will not disarm or back down from confronting Israel until it ends its air raids and withdraws from southern Lebanon.

“We cannot be asked to soften our stance or lay down arms while [Israeli] aggression continues,” Naim Qassem told thousands of supporters gathered in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sunday for Ashura, an important day in the Shia Muslim calendar.

Ashura commemorates the 680 AD Battle of Karbala, in which Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Imam Hussein, was killed after he refused to pledge allegiance to the Umayyad caliphate. For Shia Muslims, the day symbolises resistance against tyranny and injustice.

The Beirut area, a Hezbollah stronghold, was draped in yellow banners and echoed with chants of resistance as Qassem delivered his speech, flanked by portraits of his predecessor, Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed by Israel in September last year.

Israel launched a wide-scale assault on Lebanon on October 8, 2023 – a day after Palestinian group Hamas, which counts Hezbollah as an ally, stormed the Israeli territory, killing some 1,100 people and taking about 250 others captive.

The Hamas attack was immediately followed by Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children. The Israeli genocidal campaign was accompanied by a brutal blockade on entry of food and medical aid, bringing the enclave’s 2. 3 million residents to the brink of starvation.

Israel’s simultaneous attack on Lebanon escalated into a full-scale war by September 2024, killing more than 4,000 people, including much of Hezbollah’s top leadership, and displacing nearly 1. 4 million, according to official data. A United States-brokered ceasefire nominally ended the war in November.

However, since the ceasefire, Israel has continued to occupy five strategic border points in southern Lebanon and has carried out near-daily air strikes that it says aim to prevent Hezbollah from rebuilding its capabilities. Those strikes have killed some 250 people and wounded 600 others since November, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health.

“How can you expect us not to stand firm while the Israeli enemy continues its aggression, continues to occupy the five points, and continues to enter our territories and kill? ” Qassem said in his video address.

“We will not be a part of legitimising the occupation in Lebanon and the region. We will not accept normalisation,” he added, in an apparent response to Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar saying his government was “interested” in such a move.

Qassem said Hezbollah’s weapons would not be on the negotiating table unless Israel “withdraws from the occupied territories, stops its aggression, releases the prisoners, and reconstruction begins”.

“Only then,” he said, “will we be ready for the second stage, which is to discuss national security and defence strategy. ”

On Saturday, Israeli drones carried out four strikes on southern Lebanese towns, killing one person and wounding several others. Most of the Israeli attacks have targeted areas near the border, but Israeli warplanes have also hit residential neighbourhoods in Beirut’s southern districts, causing panic and mass evacuations.

Qassem’s speech came as the US envoy to Turkiye and Syria, Tom Barrack, was expected in Beirut on Monday. Lebanese officials say the US has demanded that Hezbollah disarm by the end of the year. Israel has warned it will continue striking Lebanon until the group is disarmed.

What’s in Trump’s ceasefire proposal and can it end Israel’s war on Gaza?

Discussions of a ceasefire in Gaza have picked up in recent days.

United States President Donald Trump said last week that Israel agreed to the conditions for a 60-day ceasefire, and negotiators could meet to carve out a path to finally ending Israel’s nearly 21-month-long war on Gaza.

Hamas said it delivered a “positive response” to mediators, with amendments, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the Palestinian group’s asks “unacceptable” but sent negotiators to the Qatari capital, Doha, for talks nonetheless.

Netanyahu is set to visit Washington, DC, on Monday, where reports say Trump would like a deal.

“There could be a Gaza deal next week,” Trump told reporters on Saturday, adding that he had not been briefed yet about Hamas’s counterproposal but that it was “good” that they had responded.

Here’s all you need to know:

What is Hamas asking for?

According to reports, there are three main demands:

An end to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)

At least 743 Palestinians have been killed seeking aid at GHF sites in Gaza in recent weeks.

In late June, the Haaretz newspaper reported that Israeli soldiers were deliberately ordered to fire on unarmed people waiting for food.

Humanitarians have repeatedly said they are able to distribute aid and food to Palestinians in Gaza and have criticised the GHF for furthering Israel’s political agenda.

“It makes aid conditional on political and military aims,” Tom Fletcher, the United Nations chief humanitarian, said in May.

“It makes starvation a bargaining chip. It is a cynical sideshow … A fig leaf for further violence and displacement. ”

Israeli military withdrawals

Hamas wants the Israeli military to withdraw to the positions it held before it violated the ceasefire in March of this year.

In May, the Israeli military began extensive new ground operations in Gaza, killing hundreds of Palestinians, to take “operational control” of large swaths of the Strip.

The Israeli military had already created the Netzarim Corridor, which splits the Gaza Strip into northern and southern sectors, soon after launching the war, and in April, Netanyahu announced the creation of the Morag Corridor in the southern Gaza Strip.

International guarantees for an end to the war

In March, Israel unilaterally broke a ceasefire that had been agreed in January, despite the conditions for the ceasefire being upheld by the Palestinian side.

This time, Hamas and other Palestinian groups want international assurances that this will not be repeated.

Hamas reportedly wants a US guarantee that Israeli air attacks and ground operations, which have killed thousands of Palestinians, will not resume even if the ceasefire ends without a permanent end to the war.

What does the original US-backed proposal say?

There is reportedly a key focus on the remaining Israeli captives in Gaza.

The plan is to release 10 living Israeli captives held by Hamas and the bodies of 18 others in exchange for Palestinians lodged in Israeli prisons. The release would be staggered over a number of days.

Fifty captives are still in Gaza, with about 20 reportedly alive.

On the question of aid, the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross would contribute to distributing sufficient quantities to Palestinians.

Lastly, it calls for phased pull-outs of Israeli troops from parts of Gaza.

What is Israel saying?

Netanyahu reportedly agreed to the original US proposal but has called Hamas’s amendments “unacceptable”.

He has said he will not end the war until all captives are released and Hamas is “destroyed”. The latter goal has been called impossible by many analysts and is believed to be an open-ended political objective for Netanyahu to continue the war as long as he believes it will serve his personal interests.

Netanyahu is on trial for corruption and is still widely blamed in Israeli society for the security failures that led to Hamas’s Al-Aqsa Flood operation on October 7, 2023, during which 1,139 people died in Israel and about 250 were taken captive.

Analysts believe Netanyahu wants to continue the retaliatory war on Gaza until he can gain enough political leverage to dismiss the cases against him and build enough popular support to remain the leader of Israel.

Netanyahu’s war has been supported by his far-right ministers, particularly Itamar Ben Gvir, minister of national security, and Bezalel Smotrich, the minister of finance. They want Israel’s military operations to be intensified to kill more Palestinians and to stop providing any aid to the besieged and starving people in Gaza.

What is life like for Palestinians in the meantime?

Israel is still launching deadly attacks on Gaza, with at least 138 Palestinians killed in the last 24 hours, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.

In the occupied West Bank, bulldozers are demolishing homes, and Israel has killed more than 1,000 people since October 7, 2023.

People in the West Bank are also suffering recurring attacks by Israeli soldiers and armed settlers from illegal settlements, as well as severe limitations on movement and access to livelihoods.

What are the chances a deal will be reached?

Trump appears keen on reaching one, and Palestinians in Gaza are desperate for the Israeli attacks to cease.

However, one major roadblock remains.

“Israel and Netanyahu are not interested in reaching a ceasefire,” Adnan Hayajneh, professor of international relations at Qatar University, told Al Jazeera, adding that there is a “very slim chance” of a ceasefire.

FIFA Club World Cup semifinals: Qualified teams and full schedule

Three European teams and one from South America have their sights set on the FIFA Club World Cup (CWC) 2025 trophy as the tournament enters the semifinal stage on Tuesday.

The final two clubs qualified for the final four on Saturday. UEFA Champions League holders Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) spectacularly defeated Bayern Munich 2-0 in the quarterfinals despite being reduced to nine men. Five-time CWC winners Real Madrid played out a five-goal thriller to beat Borussia Dortmund 3-2 to seal their semifinal spot.

Here’s how the Club World Cup semifinals line up:

⚽ First semifinal : Fluminense vs Chelsea

When: Tuesday at 3pm (19:00 GMT)
Where: MetLife Stadium, New Jersey

The opening semifinal pitches Brazil’s Fluminense against English Premier League side Chelsea.

Fluminense continue to impress at the CWC with goals from Matheus Martinelli and Hercules securing their place in the last four with a 2-1 win against Al Hilal in Orlando, Florida.

Chelsea scored the go-ahead goal on Malo Gusto’s 83rd-minute shot, which went in after a pair of deflections, beating Palmeiras 2-1 on Friday night to secure their spot in the semifinals.

Cole Palmer put Chelsea ahead in the 16th minute, but Estevao, an 18-year-old who will transfer to Chelsea after the CWC, tied the score against his future club in the 53rd. Gusto’s match-winning shot after a short corner kick that appeared to deflect off defender Agustin Giay and goalkeeper Weverton sent the Chelsea fans among the 65,782 spectators into a frenzy.

The match will take place at the 88,000-seat MetLife Stadium just outside New York City.

Cole Palmer of Chelsea scores the opening goal during the quarterfinal against Palmeiras at Lincoln Financial Field on July 4, 2025, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania [Chris Brunskill/Fantasista via Getty Images]

⚽ Second semifinal: PSG vs Real Madrid

When: Wednesday at 3pm (19:00 GMT)
Where: MetLife Stadium, New Jersey

The second semifinal features a mouthwatering European heavyweight matchup between PSG and Real Madrid.

Nine-man Paris Saint-Germain advanced after defeating Bayern Munich 2-0 with goals from Desire Doue and Ousmane Dembele keeping the French side on track to achieve a historic quadruple of major titles in one season.

Luis Enrique’s side needed to dig deep in front of 67,000 fans at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, after late red cards for Willian Pacho and Lucas Hernandez.

Ousmane Dembele reacts.
Paris Saint-Germain’s French forward Ousmane Dembele celebrates scoring his team’s second goal in the quarterfinal against Bayern Munich on July 5, 2025 [Patricia de Melo Moreira/AFP]

Meanwhile, Gonzalo Garcia scored his fourth goal of the Club World Cup and Kylian Mbappe his first as Real Madrid beat Borussia Dortmund 3-2 in the final quarterfinal on Saturday.

Garcia put Madrid ahead from close range early on during a hot afternoon at the MetLife Stadium, and Fran Garcia then doubled their lead before the midway point.

Dortmund never seriously threatened a comeback before a remarkable late flurry of activity with Maximilian Beier pulling one back in the 93rd minute and superstar forward Mbappe registering Madrid’s third goal with a stunning overhead kick.

Mbappe, who has battled illness for most of the CWC, will face his previous club PSG for the first time since he departed the Paris-based side for Real Madrid in June 2024.

INTERACTIVE-FIFA-FOOTBALL-VENUES-1749482048
A map of the 11 host cities staging the FIFA Club World Cup 2025 [Al Jazeera]

The final will be played on Sunday at the MetLife Stadium, which will also the venue for the 2026 FIFA World Cup final.

The winning team in the Club World Cup could pocket as much as $125m in prize money.

French intelligence claims China trying to foil global sale of Rafale jets

French military and intelligence officials claim China has deployed its embassies to spread doubts about the performance of French-made Rafale jets following the aerial combat between India and Pakistan in May.

The Associated Press news agency, quoting French officials, reported on Sunday that Beijing is working to harm the reputation and sales of France’s flagship fighter aircraft.

French officials say they have found that the Chinese embassies are trying to undermine Rafale sales by persuading countries that have already ordered the jets, notably Indonesia, not to buy them and instead choose Chinese-made fighters.

The AP report said the findings were shared by a French military official on condition that they should not be named.

Four days of India-Pakistan clashes in May were the most serious confrontation in years between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, which included air combat involving dozens of aircraft from both sides.

Military officials and researchers have since been digging for details of how Pakistan’s Chinese-made military hardware – particularly warplanes and air-combat missiles – fared against weaponry that India used in air strikes on Pakistani targets, notably French-made Rafale fighters.

Sales of Rafales and other armaments are big business for the French defence industry and help Paris to strengthen ties with other nations, including in Asia, where China is becoming the dominant regional power.

India confirms losses

Pakistan says its air force downed five Indian planes during the fighting, including three Rafales. French officials say that prompted questions about their performance from countries that have bought the fighter from French manufacturer Dassault Aviation.

India acknowledged aircraft losses but did not say how many. French air force chief General Jerome Bellanger said he has seen evidence pointing to just three aircraft losses – a Rafale, a Russian-made Sukhoi and a Mirage 2000, which is an earlier generation French-made jet.

Debris of an aircraft lies in the compound of a mosque at Pampore in Pulwama district of Indian-administered Kashmir, May 7, 2025 [Dar Yasin/AP Photo]

It was the first known combat loss of a Rafale, which France has sold to eight countries. “Of course, all those, the nations that bought Rafales, asked themselves questions,” Bellanger said.

French officials have been battling to protect the plane from reputational damage, pushing back against what they allege was a concerted campaign of Rafale-bashing and disinformation online from Pakistan and its ally, China.

They say the campaign included viral posts on social media, manipulated imagery showing supposed Rafale debris, AI-generated content and video-game depictions to simulate supposed combat.

More than 1,000 social media accounts newly created as the India-Pakistan clashes erupted also spread a narrative of Chinese technological superiority, according to French researchers who specialise in online disinformation.

French claims

Military officials in France say they have not been able to link the online Rafale-bashing directly to the Chinese government.

But the French intelligence service said Chinese embassy defence attaches echoed the same narrative in meetings they held with security and defence officials from other countries, arguing that Indian Rafale jets performed poorly and promoting Chinese-made weaponry.

The defence attaches focused their lobbying on countries that have ordered Rafales and other potential customer nations that are considering purchases, the intelligence service said. It said French officials learned of the meetings from nations that were approached.

The French Ministry for Armed Forces said the Rafale was targeted by “a vast campaign of disinformation” that “sought to promote the superiority of alternative equipment, notably of Chinese design”.

“The Rafale was not randomly targeted. It is a highly capable fighter jet, exported abroad and deployed in a high-visibility theatre,” the French ministry wrote on its website.

Asked by AP to comment on the alleged effort to dent Rafale’s appeal, the Ministry of National Defence in Beijing said: “The relevant claims are pure groundless rumours and slander. China has consistently maintained a prudent and responsible approach to military exports, playing a constructive role in regional and global peace and stability. ”