
Dalai Lama celebrates his 90th birthday, triggering geopolitical questions for the future
Tibetans fear China will eventually name a rival successor to the Dalai Lama, bolstering Beijing's control over Tibet, the territory it poured troops into in 1950 and has ruled ever since.
The man who calls himself a 'simple Buddhist monk' celebrated in India, where he has lived since he and thousands of other Tibetans fled Chinese troops who crushed an uprising in their capital, Lhasa, in 1959.
The Dalai Lama says only his India-based office has the right to identify his eventual successor.
'I join 1.4 billion Indians in extending our warmest wishes to His Holiness the Dalai Lama on his 90th birthday,' the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, said in a statement, read at celebrations in the Himalayan hill town where the Dalai Lama lives.
'He has been an enduring symbol of love, compassion, patience and moral discipline,' he added.
China insisted on Wednesday that it would have the final say on who succeeds the Tibetan spiritual leader.
Modi's effusive support is significant.
India and China are intense rivals competing for influence across south Asia, but have sought to repair ties after a 2020 border clash.
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, also said in a statement, read at the celebrations in India, that Washington was 'committed to promoting respect for the human rights and fundamental freedoms of Tibetans'.
'We support efforts to preserve Tibetans' distinct linguistic, cultural and religious heritage, including their ability to freely choose and venerate religious leaders without interference,' the statement added.
Taiwan's president, Lai Ching-te – who leads an island that China says is part of its territory and has threatened to use force to seize – said in a statement read at the ceremony that the example set by the Dalai Lama 'resonates with all who cherish freedom, democracy and respect for human rights'.
Messages from three former US presidents were also broadcast.
'At a time when we see the forces of division tearing at the fabric of our common humanity … I'm grateful for your enduring efforts to build a better, kinder, more compassionate world,' Bill Clinton said.
'The world is a troubled place, and we need your spirit of kindness and compassion and love more than ever,' George W Bush added.
Barack Obama wished a 'very happy birthday to the youngest 90-year-old I know'.
'It is humbling to realise that you've been a leader on the world stage for longer than I've been alive,' Obama said, in his message to his 'dear friend'.
'You've shown generations what it means to practise compassion, and speak up for freedom and dignity,' Obama added. 'Not bad for someone who describes himself as a simple Buddhist monk.'

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Rubio to make first Asia trip as Trump unveils tariffs on host and allies
WASHINGTON, July 7 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will visit Malaysia this week to attend meetings of Southeast Asian Nations in his first trip to Asia as America's top diplomat, the State Department said on Monday. The department announced the July 8-12 trip, billed as a move to reaffirm Washington's commitment to the Indo-Pacific, just hours before President Donald Trump said he would impose 25% tariffs on imports from Japan and South Korea, the key U.S. allies in the region and vital partners in countering China's growing might, as well as on Malaysia. Trump also announced 40% tariffs on Laos and Myanmar, which along with Malaysia are members of ASEAN. Rubio will take part in meetings with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, whose ministers are gathering in Kuala Lumpur and will also meet with senior Malaysian government officials, the State Department said. Rubio will seek to firm up U.S. relationships with partners and allies unnerved by Trump's global tariff strategy and the president's announcements look certain to dampen the mood. The trip has been seen as part of a renewed U.S. focus on the Indo-Pacific and an effort to look beyond conflicts in the Middle East and Europe that have consumed much of the Trump administration's attention. "Top topics that he's going to want to hit, obviously, are to reaffirm our commitment to East Asia, to ASEAN, to the Indo-Pacific, and not just ... for its own sake," a senior State Department official told reporters. "I think a key message that the secretary likes to deliver is that we're committed, and we prioritize it because it is in America's interests, right? It promotes American prosperity and it promotes American security." The official said Rubio would be prepared to discuss trade, including reiterating that the need to rebalance U.S. trade relationships is significant and echoing messages from the White House and U.S. Trade Representative. ASEAN countries have been nervous about Trump's tariffs and questioned the willingness of his "America First" administration to fully engage diplomatically and economically with the region. "There is a hunger to be reassured that the U.S. actually views the Indo-Pacific as the primary theater of U.S. interests, key to U.S. national security," said Greg Poling, director of the Southeast Asia Program at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies. The White House said twelve other countries after Japan and South Korea will receive trade letters informing them of new tariffs to take effect from August 1. Trump said on Sunday the U.S. was close to finalizing several trade pacts and would notify other countries by July 9 of higher tariff rates. He also sent a message to BRICS group of developing nations as its leaders met in Brazil, threatening an additional 10% tariff on any aligning themselves with "anti-American" policies. The BRICS includes ASEAN member Indonesia, as well as China and India. Trump announced last week he had reached a trade agreement with important Southeast Asian partner and ASEAN member Vietnam and could reach one with India, but cast doubt on a possible deal with Japan, which is not only Washington's main Asian ally, but a major investor in the United States. Rubio has yet to visit Japan, or South Korea, the other main U.S. ally in Northeast Asia, since taking office in January, even though Washington sees the Indo-Pacific as its main strategic priority given the perceived threat from China. South Korea's presidential security adviser Wi Sung-lac headed to Washington on Sunday for trade and defense talks, with Seoul seeking to head off U.S. tariffs. He aims to meet with Rubio and discuss a possible summit between Trump and President Lee Jae Myung, who took office last month.


BBC News
2 hours ago
- BBC News
Emergency: The Indian cartoonist who fought the censors with a smile
"It's unfair to lift censorship suddenly," growls a grizzled newspaper editor into the phone, a copy of The Daily Pulp sprawled across his desk. "We should be given time to prepare our minds."The cartoon capturing this moment - piercing and satirical - is the work of Abu Abraham, one of India's finest political cartoonists. His pen skewered power with elegance and edge, especially during the 1975 Emergency, a 21-month stretch of suspended civil liberties and muzzled media under Indira Gandhi's press was silenced overnight on 25 June. Delhi's newspaper presses lost power, and by morning censorship was law. The government demanded the press bend to its will - and, as opposition leader LK Advani later famously remarked, many "chose to crawl". Another famous cartoon - he signed them Abu, after his pen name - from that time shows a man asking another: "What do you think of editors who are more loyal than the censor?"In many ways, half a century later, Abu's cartoons still ring true. India currently ranks 151st in the World Press Freedom Index, compiled annually by Reporters Without Borders. This reflects growing concerns about media independence under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government. Critics allege increasing pressure and attacks on journalists, acquiescent media and a shrinking space for dissenting voices. The government dismisses these claims, insisting that the media remain free and vibrant. After nearly 15 years drawing cartoons in London for The Observer and The Guardian, Abu had returned to India in the late 1960s. He joined the Indian Express newspaper as a political cartoonist at a time when the country was grappling with intense political later wrote that pre-censorship - which required newspapers and magazines to submit their news reports, editorials and even ads to government censors before publication - began two days after the Emergency was declared, was lifted after a few weeks, then reimposed a year later for a shorter period."For the rest of the time I had no official interference. I have not bothered to investigate why I was allowed to carry on freely. And I am not interested in finding out."Indira Gandhi's Emergency: When India's democracy was put on pauseMany of Abu's Emergency-era cartoons are iconic. One shows then President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed signing the proclamation from his bathtub, capturing the haste and casualness with which it was issued (Ahmed signed the Emergency declaration that Gandhi had issued shortly before midnight on 25 June).Among Abu's striking works are several cartoons boldly stamped with "Not passed by censors", a stark mark of official one, a man holds a placard that reads "Smile!" - a sly jab at the government's forced-positivity campaigns during the Emergency. His companion deadpans, "Don't you think we have a lovely censor of humour?" - a line that cuts to the heart of state-enforced seemingly innocuous cartoon shows a man at his desk sighing, "My train of thought has derailed." Another features a protester carrying a sign that reads "SaveD democracy" - the "D" awkwardly added on top, as if democracy itself were an afterthought. Abu also took aim at Sanjay Gandhi, the unelected son of Indira Gandhi, who many believed ran a shadow government during the Emergency, wielding unchecked power behind the scenes. Sanjay's influence was both controversial and feared. He died in a plane crash in 1980 - four years before his mother, Indira, was assassinated by her work was intensely political. "I have come to the conclusion that there's nothing non-political in the world. Politics is simply anything that is controversial and everything in the world is controversial," he wrote in Seminar magazine in also bemoaned the state of humour - strained and manufactured - when the press was gagged."If cheap humour could be manufactured in a factory, the public would rush to queue up in our ration shops all day. As our newspapers become progressively duller, the reader, drowning in boredom, clutches at every joke. AIR [India's state-run radio station] news bulletins nowadays sound like a company chairman's annual address. Profits are carefully and elaborately enumerated, losses are either omitted or played down. Shareholders are reassured," Abu a tongue-in-cheek column for the Sunday Standard in 1977, Abu poked fun at the culture of political flattery with a fictional account of a meeting of the "All India Sycophantic Society".The spoof featured the society's imaginary president declaring: "True sycophancy is non-political." The satirical monologue continued with mock proclamations: "Sycophancy has a long and historic tradition in our country… 'Servility before self' is our motto." Abu's parody culminated in the society's guiding vision: "Touching all available feet and promoting a broad-based programme of flattery."Born as Attupurathu Mathew Abraham in the southern state of Kerala in 1924, Abu began his career as a reporter at the nationalist Bombay Chronicle, driven less by ideology than a fascination with the power of the printed word. His reporting years coincided with India's dramatic journey to independence, witnessing firsthand the euphoria that gripped Bombay (now Mumbai). Reflecting on the press, he later noted, "The press has pretensions of being a crusader but is more often a preserver of the status quo."After two years with Shankar's Weekly, a well-known satire magazine, Abu set his sights on Europe. A chance encounter with British cartoonist Fred Joss in 1953 propelled him to London, where he quickly made a debut cartoon was accepted by Punch within a week of arrival, earning praise from editor Malcolm Muggeridge as "charming".Freelancing for two years in London's competitive scene, Abu's political cartoons began appearing in Tribune and soon attracted the attention of The Observer's editor David Astor. Astor offered him a staff position with the paper."You are not cruel like other cartoonists, and your work is the kind I was looking for," he told 1956, at Astor's suggestion, Abraham adopted the pen name "Abu", writing later: "He explained that any Abraham in Europe would be taken as a Jew and my cartoons would take on slant for no reason, and I wasn't even Jewish."Astor also assured him of creative freedom: "You will never be asked to draw a political cartoon expressing ideas which you do not yourself personally sympathise."Abu worked at The Observer for 10 years, followed by three years at The Guardian, before returning to India in the late 1960s. He later wrote he was "bored" of British politics. Beyond cartooning, Abu served as a nominated member of India's upper house of Parliament from 1972 to 1978. In 1981, he launched Salt and Pepper, a comic strip that ran for nearly two decades, blending gentle satire with everyday observations. He returned to Kerala in 1988 and continued to draw and write until his death in Abu's legacy was never just about the punchline - it was about the deeper truths his humour revealed. As he once remarked, "If anyone has noticed a decline in laughter, the reason may not be the fear of laughing at authority but the feeling that reality and fancy, tragedy and comedy have all, somehow got mixed up."That blurring of absurdity and truth often gave his work its edge. "The prize for the joke of the year," he wrote during the Emergency, "should go to the Indian news agency reporter in London who approvingly quoted a British newspaper comment on India under the Emergency, that 'trains are running on time' - not realising this used to be the standard English joke about Mussolini's Italy. When we have such innocents abroad, we don't really need humorists."Abu's cartoons and photograph, courtesy Ayisha and Janaki Abraham


The Independent
3 hours ago
- The Independent
What to know about a potential deal to keep TikTok running in US
Less than a month after extending a deadline to ban TikTok for the third time, President Donald Trump told reporters late Friday night that, 'We pretty much have a deal,' on TikTok — but he did not offer details. The details and timing of a potential deal are not clear. TikTok did not immediately respond to messages for comment on Monday. Emarketer analyst Jeremy Goldman said while TikTok is 'reportedly planning' a U.S. version of its app to comply with legal restrictions, the platform — if it launches without the original TikTok algorithm — 'risks losing the very personalization that drives user engagement.' In other words, TikTok just isn't TikTok without its algorithm. 'And getting millions to download a new app is no small feat, to say the least,' Goldman added. Here's what to know about where TikTok stands in the U.S. following Trump's comments. Extensions continue Though he has no clear legal basis to do so, Trump has continued to extend the deadline for TikTok to avoid a ban in the U.S. This gives his administration more time to broker a deal to bring the social media platform under American ownership. It is not clear how many times Trump can — or will — keep extending the ban as the government continues to try to negotiate a deal for TikTok, which is owned by China's ByteDance. While there is no clear legal basis for the extensions, so far there have been no legal challenges against the administration. Trump has amassed more than 15 million followers on TikTok since he joined last year, and he has credited the trendsetting platform with helping him gain traction among young voters. He said in January that he has a 'warm spot for TikTok.' TikTok stays for now For now, TikTok continues to function for its 170 million users in the U.S. Tech giants Apple, Google and Oracle were persuaded to continue to offer and support the app, on the promise that Trump's Justice Department would not use the law to seek potentially steep fines against them. Americans are even more closely divided on what to do about TikTok than they were two years ago. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that about one-third of Americans said they supported a TikTok ban, down from 50% in March 2023. Roughly one-third said they would oppose a ban, and a similar percentage said they weren't sure. Among those who said they supported banning the social media platform, about 8 in 10 cited concerns over users' data security being at risk as a major factor in their decision, according to the report. Trump said Friday that on Monday or Tuesday, the U.S. would take the proposal to Chinese leader Xi Jinping or one of his representatives. The president said he thinks they 'probably' need China to approve the deal but he wasn't sure they needed to. When asked whether he was confident China would approve the deal, Trump said, 'I'm not confident but I think so.' He said that for the U.S., 'we make a lot of money if the deal goes through." Who wants to buy TikTok? Although it's unclear if ByteDance plans to sell TikTok, several potential bidders have come forward in the past few months. Aides for Vice President JD Vance, who was tapped to oversee a potential deal, have reached out to some parties, such as the artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI, to get additional details about their bids, according to a person familiar with the matter. In January, Perplexity AI presented ByteDance with a merger proposal that would combine Perplexity's business with TikTok's U.S. operation. Perplexity had no comment on Monday. Other potential bidders include a consortium organized by billionaire business executive Frank McCourt, which recently recruited Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian as a strategic adviser. Investors in the consortium say they've offered ByteDance $20 billion in cash for TikTok's U.S. platform. And if successful, they plan to redesign the popular app with blockchain technology they say will provide users with more control over their online data. Among the possible investors are the software company Oracle and the investment firm Blackstone. Neither company immediately responded to messages seeking comment on Monday.