Asia Pacific

The global economy is on tenterhooks in the run-up to United States President Donald Trump’s July 9 deadline for dozens of countries to reach trade deals or face sharply higher tariffs.

Wednesday’s deadline comes after Trump announced in April a 90-day pause on his steepest tariffs after his “Liberation Day” plans sent markets into a tailspin.

With billions of dollars in global trade at stake, US trade partners are racing to negotiate deals to avoid damage to their economies amid continuing uncertainty over Trump’s next moves.

What will happen when the deadline expires?

The Trump administration has indicated that trade partners that fail to reach deals with the US will face higher tariffs, but there are big question marks around which countries will be hit and how hard.

On Sunday, Trump said he would begin sending letters to particular countries this week outlining new tariff rates, while also indicating that he had sealed a number of new trade deals.

Trump told reporters that he would send a letter or conclude a deal for “most countries”, without specifying any by name, by Wednesday.

In an interview with CNN on Sunday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said countries that do not reach a deal would face higher tariffs from August 1.

Bessent disputed the suggestion that the deadline had moved and said tariffs for affected countries would “boomerang back” to the levels originally announced on April 2.

On Friday, however, Trump suggested the tariffs could go as high as 70 percent, which would be higher than the 50 percent maximum rate outlined in his “Liberation Day” plan.

Adding to the uncertainty, Trump on Sunday threatened to impose an additional 10 percent tariff on countries that aligned themselves with the “anti-American policies” of BRICS, a bloc of 10 emerging economies, including Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa as the founding members.

“There will be no exceptions to this policy. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.

“It’s getting harder to guess what might happen given conflicting information from the White House,” Deborah Elms, the head of trade policy at the Hinrich Foundation in Singapore, told Al Jazeera.

“With the lack of ‘deals’ to announce before July 9, I’m not surprised that the US is both issuing threats of new, potentially higher rates to be imposed in letters and suggesting that deadlines could be extended to some if offers are deemed to be sufficiently attractive.”

Which countries have reached trade deals with the US?

So far, only China, the United Kingdom and Vietnam have announced trade deals, which have reduced Trump’s tariffs but not eliminated them.

Under the US-China deal, tariffs on Chinese goods were reduced from 145 percent to 30 percent, while duties on US exports fell from 125 percent to 10 percent.

The deal, however, only paused the higher tariff rates for 90 days, rather than scrapping them outright, and left numerous outstanding issues between the sides unresolved.

The UK’s agreement saw it maintain a 10 percent tariff rate, while Vietnam saw its 46 percent levy replaced by a 20 percent rate on Vietnamese exports and a 40 percent tariff for “transshipping”.

A host of other key US trade partners have confirmed that negotiations are under way, including the European Union, Canada, India, Japan and South Korea.

Trump administration officials have indicated that negotiations are primarily focused on a dozen-and-a-half countries that make up the vast bulk of the US trade deficit.

On Sunday, The Washington Post reported that the EU, the US’s largest trading partner, was working to conclude a “skeletal” deal that would defer a resolution on their most contentious differences before the deadline to avoid Trump’s mooted 50 percent tariff.

India’s CNBC-TV18 also reported on Sunday that New Delhi expected to finalise a “mini trade deal” within the next 24-48 hours.

The CNBC-TV18 report, citing unnamed sources, said the agreement would see the average tariff rate set at about 10 percent.

Andrew K McAllister, a member of Holland & Knight’s International Trade Group in Washington, DC, said while Trump is likely to announce a small number of deals that resemble those signed with China, Vietnam and the UK, most countries are probably looking at significant across-the-board tariffs.

“My view is that tariffs are here to stay,” McAllister told Al Jazeera.

“I view the bargaining chip to be the level at which the tariff is set. For countries in which the president and administration view tariffs and other non-tariff barriers against US products as significant, he is much more likely to impose higher levels of tariffs.”

What will be the economic impact of Trump’s trade war?

Economists widely agree that steep tariffs over a sustained period would push up prices and hinder the growth of both the US and global economies.

The World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) last month downgraded their outlook for the global economy, cutting their forecasts from 2.8 percent to 2.3 percent, and from 3.3 percent to 2.9 percent, respectively.

At the same time, anticipating the impact of Trump’s trade war has been made more challenging by his administration’s repeated U-turns and conflicting signals on tariffs.

Trump’s steepest tariffs have been put on pause, though a 10 percent baseline duty has been applied to all US imports and levies on Chinese exports remain at double-digit levels.

JP Morgan Research has estimated that a 10 percent universal tariff and a 110 percent tariff on China would reduce global gross domestic product (GDP) by 1 percent, with the hit to GDP falling to 0.7 percent in the case of a 60 percent duty on Chinese goods.

So far, the fallout from the tariffs introduced has been modest, though analysts have warned that inflation may still take off once businesses burn through inventory stockpiles built up in anticipation of higher costs.

Despite fears of sharp price rises in the US, annualised inflation came in at a modest 2.3 percent in May, close to the Federal Reserve’s target.

The US stock market, after suffering steep losses earlier this year, has bounced back to an all-time high, while the US economy added a stronger-than-expected 147,000 jobs in June.

Other data points to underlying jitters, however.

Consumer spending fell 0.1 percent in May, according to the US Commerce Department, the first decline since January.

“As for the economy generally, the jury’s out on whether we’re still waiting on the worst of the tariff hit,” Dutch bank ING said in a note on Friday.

“The delay in China’s tariff levels probably came just in time to avert a more serious recessionary threat. The latest jobs report certainly doesn’t point to the bottom falling out of the labour market, though if we’re talking about time lags, this is usually the last place economic damage shows up. Sentiment remains fragile, remember.”

Jennifer Geerlings-Simons to lead the impoverished Latin American country through crisis before oil wealth arrives.

Suriname has elected Jennifer Geerlings-Simons as its first female president, with parliament backing the 71-year-old physician and lawmaker to lead the crisis-hit South American nation.

Her election came after a coalition deal was struck in the National Assembly, which voted by a two-thirds majority on Sunday.

The move followed inconclusive May polls and mounting pressure to replace outgoing President Chandrikapersad Santokhi, whose tenure was marred by corruption scandals and harsh austerity.

Geerlings-Simons, leader of the National Democratic Party, ran unopposed and will take office on July 16.

“I am aware that the heavy task I have taken on is further aggravated by the fact that I am the first woman to serve the country in this position,” she said after her confirmation.

She will be joined by running mate Gregory Rusland, as the pair inherit a country struggling under the weight of economic hardship, reduced subsidies, and widespread frustration. While Santokhi’s government managed to restructure debt and restore macroeconomic stability with IMF backing, it also triggered mass protests over deep cuts.

With Suriname expected to begin producing offshore oil in 2028, Geerlings-Simons has promised to focus on stabilising state finances. She has previously pledged to boost revenues by tightening tax collection, including from small-scale gold miners.

Economists warn she faces a rocky road ahead. Winston Ramautarsingh, former head of the national economists’ association, said Suriname must repay about $400m annually in debt servicing.

“Suriname does not have that money,” he said. “The previous government rescheduled the debts, but that was only a postponement.”

Geerlings-Simons will now be tasked with steering the Dutch-speaking country of 646,000 people through a fragile period, balancing public discontent with the promise of future oil wealth.

As Suriname prepares to mark 50 years since gaining independence from the Netherlands this November, the small South American country is pinning its hopes on a new era driven by oil wealth and deepening ties with China.

In 2019, it joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative, becoming one of the first Latin American states to sign on to the vast infrastructure project.

Suriname is one of the continent’s poorest nations, despite its rich ethnic tapestry that includes descendants of Africans, Indigenous groups, Indians, Indonesians, Chinese, and Dutch settlers.

Erin Patterson, 50, found guilty of murdering her estranged husband’s parents and aunt with poisonous mushrooms.

An Australian woman has been found guilty of murdering her estranged husband’s parents and aunt by serving them a meal laced with poisonous mushrooms.

Erin Patterson was on Monday convicted of three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder following a 10-week trial.

Patterson, 50, showed no emotion as the verdicts were read out in the courtroom in Morwell, a regional town located about 152km (94 miles) east of Melbourne.

Patterson’s parents-in-law, Donald and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, died after eating a lunch of beef Wellingtons laced with death cap mushrooms on July 29, 2023.

Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, was also poisoned but survived after spending seven weeks in hospital.

Patterson, 50, had pleaded not guilty to all charges, with her lawyers arguing that she had unintentionally served her relatives the tainted food in a “terrible accident”.

Prosecutors did not allege a motive for Patterson, but told the jury that her relationship with her estranged husband, who declined an invitation to the lunch, had become strained over his child support contributions.

Prosecutors alleged that Patterson lied about being diagnosed with cancer to lure her guests to the lunch, and that she lied to police about owning a food dehydrator that was later found in a rubbish tip.

Patterson, who spent eight days on the stand, was the only witness called for the defence.

The trial, which began on April 29, captivated Australia, spawning multiple true-crime podcasts, and attracted significant media interest overseas.

Patterson, who faces a possible life sentence, will be sentenced at a later date.

A jury in Australia on Monday found a woman guilty of murdering her estranged husband’s parents and aunt using poisonous mushroom-laced beef Wellington, its verdict capping weeks of courtroom depositions in a case that has gripped the country and made headlines worldwide.

Erin Patterson, the convict, had denied the charges, and her defence team had called the deaths a “terrible accident”.

Here is all you need to know:

What happened?

On July 29, 2023, Patterson hosted her former in-laws for lunch at her home in Leongatha, a town 135km (84 miles) southeast of Melbourne, in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria.

Her guests included her mother-in-law, Gail Patterson; father-in-law, Donald Patterson; Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson; and Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson. Her estranged husband, Simon Patterson, declined the invitation.

Patterson, now 50 years old, served her guests individual beef Wellingtons, a baked steak dish where beef tenderloin is wrapped in a mushroom paste and puff pastry, with mashed potato and green beans on the side. Patterson ate beef Wellington, too.

All four of the guests fell sick within hours of eating the meal and were hospitalised. Gail, Donald, and Heather passed away, while Ian survived after spending weeks in an induced coma. Gail and Donald were both aged 70 at the time of their deaths, while Heather was 66 years old. Patterson’s lawyers argued that she also fell sick after lunch and presented her medical test results as evidence. It was later found out that the Wellingtons were laced with poisonous death cap mushrooms.

Prosecutors said Patterson was separated from Simon, but the two had remained amicable afterwards. Patterson had two children with Simon, who were also present at the house during the lunch, but did not eat the Wellingtons.

Patterson was arrested in November 2023 and has been in custody ever since. She was charged with the murders of Gail, Donald and Heather, alongside the attempted murder of Ian. These charges carry a life sentence.

What did the jury announce, and what about sentencing?

The jury had been sequestered last week, as they discussed and deliberated on a decision. On Monday morning, it became clear that they had arrived at a verdict:

• Guilty, on the three charges of murder, pertaining to the three people killed.
• Guilty, on the charge of attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson.

The judge did not announce a sentencing date. That will be the next stage in the legal proceedings.

What are death cap mushrooms?

Amanita phalloides, commonly known as death caps, are the deadliest mushroom species for humans. The mushrooms are small, plain and yellow or brown, appearing like several other nonpoisonous or edible mushroom species. While the species is native to Europe, these mushrooms are also found in North America and Australia, typically growing under oak trees.

They contain toxins which inhibit DNA production, leading to kidney and liver failure. If an individual consumes these mushrooms, initial symptoms such as abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea start appearing within six to 12 hours.

All parts of the mushrooms are poisonous, and cutting or cooking them does not rid them of the toxins. One mushroom is enough to kill an adult.

What happened during the trial?

The jury trial opened on April 29 this year at Latrobe Valley Magistrates’ Court, located in the former coal-mining town of Morwell in Victoria. Justice Christopher Beale is presiding over the case. Relatives and friends of Patterson testified during the trial.

Prosecution

The prosecution is led by Nanette Rogers, an advocate who has accused Patterson of foraging the poisonous mushrooms, using a kitchen scale to weigh out the fatal dose and adding them to her guests’ beef Wellingtons and not her own. Rogers has also pointed to how Patterson lied to the police when she was asked whether she foraged mushrooms or owned a food dehydrator.

The police found a food dehydrator in a landfill near Patterson’s house, in which traces of death cap mushrooms were found.

The prosecution also found that Patterson had looked at a website listing locations of death cap mushrooms.

Ian’s testimony

The sole survivor of the incident, Ian, testified on the sixth day of the trial.

Ian, a 71-year-old church pastor, told the trial that on the day of the lunch, Patterson seemed “reluctant” to let her guests go inside her pantry. “Both Heather and Gail were offering to help plate up the food. The offer was rejected and Erin plated,” Ian said.

Ian said he and his wife experienced vomiting and diarrhoea that night, but they dismissed the symptoms as gastroenteritis.

Defence

Patterson’s defence is led by barrister Colin Mandy, who told the trial that Patterson had no intention to kill her guests. However, the defence has not denied that there were death caps in the meals.

Mandy said Patterson panicked and lied about foraging mushrooms to the police. “She panicked when confronted with the terrible possibility, the terrible realisation, that her actions had caused the illness of people she liked,” he said.

He also added that Patterson fell sick from the same meal and did not fake her symptoms, something the prosecution alleges. Mandy told the trial, “She was not as sick as the other lunch guests, nor did she represent she was.” He added that blood test results show indicators of sickness “that can’t be faked”, such as low potassium levels and elevated haemoglobin.

Patterson also revealed that she ate a smaller portion of the meal at lunch and binged on an orange cake that Gail Patterson had brought to share, after the guests left. Patterson testified that after eating about two-thirds of the cake, she threw up, which, if true, might explain why her body had lower levels of toxins from the beef Wellington than the others.

Since her arrest in November 2023, Patterson has maintained her innocence and has pleaded not guilty to all counts. She holds that the poisoning was a “terrible accident”.

Mandy told the trial that Patterson had developed an interest in foraging during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, and it was not unusual for her to gather knowledge about death cap mushrooms.

Motive

“You do not have to be satisfied what the motive was or even that there was one,” Rogers told the jury on April 30.

“The prosecution will not be suggesting that there was a particular motive to do what she did.”

Rogers also presented messages Patterson had sent to friends on Facebook, expressing frustration over her in-laws not getting involved in a child support dispute between her and Simon.

In December 2022, she wrote: “I’m sick of this s*** I want nothing to do with them. I thought his parents would want him to do the right thing but it seems their concern about not wanting to feel uncomfortable and not wanting to get involved in their sons personal matters are overriding that so f*** em.”

In another message, she wrote: “This family I swear to f****** god.”

When Mandy asked Patterson how she felt about these messages, she said: “I wish I’d never said it … I feel ashamed for saying it, and I wish the family didn’t have to hear that I said that. They didn’t deserve it.”

What do we know about the jury?

There were initially 15 jurors, but one of them was dismissed in May for discussing the case with friends and family. Justice Beale told the jurors to refrain from researching the case or discussing it outside the courtroom.

The 14-member jury was later reduced to 12 by ballot, which eventually returned the verdict.

On July 1, Justice Beale urged the jurors to put emotions and sympathy aside while returning the verdict.

“The issue is not whether she is in some sense responsible for the tragic consequences of the lunch, but whether the prosecution proved beyond reasonable doubt that she is criminally responsible,” Beale said. “Emotions, such as prejudice and sympathy, must have no part to play in your decision.”

Cultural performances mark the occasion, while messages from global leaders are read out during the ceremony.

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.

“I join 1.4 billion Indians in extending our warmest wishes to His Holiness the Dalai Lama on his 90th birthday. He has been an enduring symbol of love, compassion, patience and moral discipline,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote on X.

Leaders expected to decry US President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs while presenting the bloc as a defender of multilateralism.

Leaders of the growing BRICS group are gathering in Brazil for a summit overshadowed by United States President Donald Trump’s new tariff policies while presenting the bloc as a defender of multilateralism.

The leaders, mainly from the developing world, will be discussing ways to increase cooperation amid what they say are serious concerns over Western dominance at their two-day summit that begins in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday.

The BRICS acronym is derived from the initial letters of the founding member countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The bloc, which held its first summit in 2009, later added Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as full members. It also has 10 strategic partner countries, a category created last year, that includes Belarus, Cuba and Vietnam.

But for the first time since taking power in 2012, Chinese President Xi Jinping will not be attending in person, instead sending Prime Minister Li Qiang.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will also miss in-person attendance as he is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his role in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Brazil, as a signatory to the Rome Statute, would be required to enforce the arrest warrant.

The notable absences are raising questions over the group’s cohesion and global clout.

Now chaired by Brazil, leaders at the BRICS summit are expected to decry the Trump administration’s “indiscriminate” trade tariffs, saying they are illegal and risk hurting the global economy. Global health policies, artificial intelligence and climate change will also be on the agenda.

The BRICS countries say they represent almost half of the world’s population, 36 percent of global land area, and a quarter of the global economic output. The bloc sees itself as a forum for cooperation between countries of the Global South and a counterweight to the Group of Seven (G7), comprised of leading Western economic powers.

However, behind the scenes, divisions are evident. According to a source quoted by The Associated Press news agency, some member states are calling for a firmer stance on Israel’s war in Gaza and its recent strikes on Iran. The source requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the discussions. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi will be attending the Rio summit.

But Al Jazeera’s Lucia Newman, reporting from Rio, said the group’s aim remains clear.

“The BRICS goal is to exert pressure for a multipolar world with inclusive global governance to give a meaningful voice to the Global South, especially in the trading system,” she said.

“It’s not super organised, nor does it have a radical global impact,” Newman added. “The real question is, can an expanded BRICS whose members have very different political systems and priorities form a sufficiently unified bloc to have any significant impact?”

The unarmed man was found in the central-west border section before being led to safety by South Korean troops.

A North Korean man has crossed the heavily fortified land border with South Korea and is now being held in custody, the South Korean military has confirmed.

The unarmed individual was located on Thursday in the central-west section of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), before being guided by South Korean troops to safety, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Seoul’s army carried out “a standard guiding operation to secure custody”, a process that involved a considerable number of soldiers, it said.

After the North Korean was detected early on Thursday morning, the task of bringing him to safety took about 20 hours to complete, the Joint Chiefs of Staff added.

He was mainly still during the day, with South Korean soldiers approaching him at night, it noted.

Seoul has not commented on whether it viewed the border crossing as a defection attempt.

There were no immediate signs of unusual military activity in North Korea, the South Korean army said.

Crossing between the two Koreas is relatively rare and extremely risky, as the border area is strewn with mines.

It is more common for defectors to first travel across North Korea’s border with China, before heading on to South Korea.

Last August, a North Korean soldier reportedly defected to the South and was taken into custody in the northeastern county of Goseong.

And then in April, South Korean troops fired warning shots after roughly 10 North Korean soldiers briefly crossed the military demarcation line. Pyongyang’s officers returned to their own territory without returning fire, Seoul said.

The crossing on Thursday comes a month after the liberal politician Lee Jae-myung was elected as the new South Korean president, following months of political chaos, which began with the conservative President Yoon Suk-yeol’s short-lived attempt to impose martial law in December.

Lee has taken a different stance from his predecessor on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, promising to “open a communication channel with North Korea and establish peace on the Korean Peninsula through talks and cooperation”.

“Politics and diplomacy must be handled without emotion and approached with reason and logic,” he said on Thursday. “Completely cutting off dialogue is really a foolish thing to do.”

As part of his attempt to rebuild trust with his neighbour, Lee has banned loudspeaker broadcasts at the border and attempted to stop activists flying balloons with propaganda into North Korea.

However, it remains to be seen whether Kim will cooperate.

In response to Yoon’s decision to strengthen military alliances with Washington, DC, and Tokyo, Kim called South Korea his country’s “principal enemy” last January.

Diplomatic efforts have stalled on the Korean Peninsula since the collapse of denuclearisation talks between Washington and Pyongyang in 2019 during the first US President Donald Trump administration, after a series of Trump-Kim summits, globally watched spectacles that bore little concrete progress.

The Dalai Lama has announced that there will be another spiritual leader for Tibetan Buddhists.

As the Nobel Peace Prize laureate approaches the age of 90, attention has turned to the sensitive issue of his successor.

Each Dalai Lama is considered a “Living Buddha”. The current one fled to India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese communists in Tibet and says his next reincarnation could be born among his followers there.

But Beijing considers the Dalai Lama a separatist and insists it has a veto over the choice, while the United States supports the Dalai Lama’s right to determine his own reincarnation.

So how will the selection process balance religion and regional politics?

And if it fails, what is the likelihood of having two Dalai Lamas?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Robbie Barnett – Writer and researcher on modern Tibetan-Chinese history and politics, and a professor at SOAS University of London

Andy Mok – Geopolitical analyst and senior research fellow at the Center for China and Globalization

Dibyesh Anand – Political analyst and professor of international relations at the University of Westminster

The country has had three leaders in as many days, following a court’s decision to suspend Paetongtarn Shinawatra.

Thailand has ushered in the appointment of its second interim prime minister this week, following the Constitutional Court’s suspension of the country’s leader, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, fuelled by a phone call scandal with a key Cambodian political figure.

Interior Minister Phumtham Wechayachai assumed caretaker responsibilities on Thursday, two days after Paetongtarn was banned from duties, a government statement on Thursday confirmed.

In a post on social media, the Thai government said that Phumtham’s role as acting prime minister had been agreed at the first meeting of a new cabinet, which took place shortly after ministers were sworn in by King Maha Vajiralongkorn.

The 71-year-old replaces Suriya Jungrungreangkit, who only carried out the role for one day ahead of the reshuffle.

The interim appointments occurred after Paetongtarn was temporarily barred from office earlier this week over allegations that she breached ministerial ethics in a leaked phone conversation with Cambodia’s influential former leader, Hun Sen.

The call took place in mid-June with the aim of defusing recent border tensions between the two countries following an eruption of violence that killed a Cambodian soldier.

Critics in Thailand expressed anger at Paetongtarn’s decision to call Hun Sen “Uncle” and to criticise a Thai army commander.

The Constitutional Court accepted a petition from 36 senators, which claimed that the 38-year-old had violated the constitution in her conversation with Hun Sen.

It said there was “sufficient cause to suspect” Paetongtarn had breached ministerial ethics, with an investigation now under way into the incident.

Before her suspension began, Paetongtarn appointed herself as culture minister in the new cabinet. She was sworn in to the position at the Grand Palace on Thursday.

Paetongtarn’s government had struggled to revive a flagging economy, with an opinion poll in late June suggesting that her popularity had dropped to 9.2 percent from 30.9 percent in March.

Thailand’s political dynasty has been facing legal peril on two fronts, as a separate court hears a royal defamation suit against her father, former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.

Thaksin has denied the charges against him and repeatedly pledged allegiance to the crown.

Thaksin dodged jail and spent six months in hospital detention on medical grounds before being released on parole in February last year. The Supreme Court will this month scrutinise that hospital stay and could potentially send him back to jail.

Weather warnings come as Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing urges officials in Hebei province to up their evacuation efforts.

Northern and western China remain on high alert as torrential rain threatens to bring more flash flooding and landslides, following weather-related deaths in other parts of the country.

Red alerts were in force on Thursday as rains made their way to Gansu province in the northwest and then up to Liaoning province in the northeast.

The weather warnings came as more than 1,000 rescue workers were sent on Wednesday to Taiping, a town in the central Henan province, where five people died and three were declared missing after a river burst its banks, according to state media.

Another state media report confirmed that two people were killed by a landslide at a construction site in Gansu after heavy rain on Wednesday and Thursday.

Meanwhile, a record summer downpour hit the city of Xianfeng in China’s central province of Hubei, bringing more than a month’s rain in just 12 hours, with local videos showing torrents washing away cars.

On Tuesday, the authorities there evacuated 18,000 people, closed schools and suspended bus services.

During a two-day trip to the northern province of Hebei, China’s Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing urged local officials to ramp up the scale of evacuations.

Although China has a nationwide system to forecast and monitor severe weather, scientists say it is hard to make localised predictions, especially in rural communities that lack forecasting capabilities.

“Accurately forecasting the intensity and exact location of heavy rain remains challenging, especially with climate change and the complex terrain of rural areas,” Meng Gao, a climate modelling specialist at Hong Kong Baptist University, told the Reuters news agency earlier this week.

Last July, the “plum rains”, which coincide with the plum-ripening season, caused more than $10bn in economic losses in China.

BREAKINGBREAKING,

National Search and Rescue Agency says rescuers searching for 43 people after vessel sank off resort island.

Rescuers are searching for 43 people missing in rough seas overnight after a ferry carrying 65 people sank near Indonesia’s resort island of Bali.

The KMP Tunu Pratama Jaya sank almost half an hour after leaving East Java’s Ketapang port late Wednesday, the National Search and Rescue Agency said in a statement.

It was bound for Bali’s Gilimanuk port, a 50-kilometre (30-mile) trip.

The ferry carried 53 passengers, 12 crew members and 22 vehicles, including 14 trucks, it said.

Two bodies have been recovered and 20 were rescued, many of them unconscious after drifting in choppy waters for hours, said Banyuwangi police chief, Rama Samtama Putra.

Nine boats, including two tug boats and two inflatable boats, have been searching for the missing people since Wednesday night, battling waves up to two metres (6.5ft) high in the overnight darkness.

Ferry tragedies are common in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, where ferries are often used as transport and safety regulations can lapse.

More to follow…

Bangkok, Thailand – Even at the Nana intersection, a pulsating mecca of this megacity’s seamy nightlife scene, the Wonderland cannabis shop is hard to miss.

Its sprawling, ruby-pink signboard screams across the busy crossroads, broadcasting the wares inside with the help of neon lights twisted into luminescent marijuana leaves.

It is Saturday afternoon, and business should be good. But it is not.

Just days earlier, Thailand’s government imposed new rules sharply curbing the sale of cannabis, only three years after decriminalising the plant with much fanfare and unleashing a billion-dollar business in the process.

All sales of cannabis buds must now be accompanied by a doctor’s prescription – a stipulation aimed at choking off the recreational market, the mainstay of most of the thousands of dispensaries that now dot the country.

Public Health Minister Somsak Thepsuthin has also announced his intention to place the plant back on the country’s controlled narcotics list within 45 days, putting it in the company of cocaine, heroin and meth.

Nanuephat Kittichaibawan, an assistant manager at Wonderland, said his shop used to serve 10 or more customers an hour most afternoons.

Now, even with an in-house doctor to write prescriptions on the spot, “it is just one or two”, he told Al Jazeera.

“It is more complicated than it used to be, and for some people it will be too much,” he added.

Like many in the business, he worries the new rules may even force him to shut down, putting him out of work.

“If we follow the rules, we could [have to] close,” he said. “I do worry about that. A lot of people have this as their main job, and they need it to survive.”

Faris Pitsuwan, who owns five dispensaries on some of Thailand’s most popular tourist islands, including Ko Phi Phi Don and Phuket, is worried, too.

“Yesterday, I could not sell anything,” he told Al Jazeera. “I hope my business will survive, but too soon to say.”

While announcing the policy U-turn last week, Somsak said the new rules would help contain Thailand’s cannabis industry to the medical market, as intended when a previous administration, and a different health minister, decriminalised the plant in 2022.

“The policy must return to its original goal of controlling cannabis for medical use only,” government spokesman Jirayu Houngsub said.

Since a new administration took over in 2023, the government has blamed decriminalisation for a wave of problems, including a spike in overdoses among children and adolescents and increased smuggling to countries where cannabis is still illegal.

A survey by the government’s National Institute of Development Administration last year found that three in four Thais strongly or moderately agreed with putting cannabis back on the narcotics list.

Smith Srisont, president of Thailand’s Association of Forensic Physicians, has been urging the government to relist cannabis from the beginning, mostly because of the health risks.

Smith notes that more than one study has found a fivefold to sixfold spike in cannabis-related health problems among children and adolescents since legalisation.

Although shops have been forbidden from selling to anyone below the age of 20, Smith says it has been too hard to enforce because the job falls mostly on health officers, rather than police, and Thailand does not have enough.

“So, they can’t … look at every shop,” he told Al Jazeera, but “if cannabis is [treated more] like methamphetamine … it will be … better because the police can [then get] involved” right away.

Many farmers and shop owners, though, say the blowback from legalising cannabis has been exaggerated, and scapegoated by the leading Pheu Thai Party to punish the Bhumjaithai Party, which abandoned the ruling coalition two weeks ago over Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s alleged bungling of a border dispute with Cambodia.

Somsak has denied the claim.

Bhumjaithai had led the push to decriminalise cannabis and was tussling with Pheu Thai for control of the powerful Ministry of the Interior in the weeks leading up to its split from the coalition.

“As soon as one party steps down from the coalition, this happens. The timing just could not be any more perfect,” Chokwan Chopaka, who opened a dispensary along Bangkok’s bustling Sukhumvit Boulevard soon after Thailand legalised cannabis, told Al Jazeera.

“I understand that cannabis does create issues,” she said, “[but] I feel that those issues could have been at least mitigated if the government were actually enforcing the rules that [did] exist in the first place.”

Chokwan said she had to shutter her shop a few months ago because she could no longer both follow those rules and compete with other dispensaries in the neighbourhood that were getting away with breaking them.

She expects that most dispensaries will end up closing if the new rules are enforced diligently, many of them before recouping the investments they made to get up and running.

“A lot of people are very stressed out. We’re talking about people that are borrowing money into this. This is their last breath, their last lot of savings, because our economy hasn’t been well,” Chokwan said.

The Thai government said in May that the national economy may grow by as little as 1.3 percent this year, dragged down in part by slumping tourist arrivals.

The government has blamed the freewheeling cannabis scene of the past three years for putting some tourists off Thailand – another reason, it argues, to tighten the reins.

Shah, on his second trip to Thailand from India in the past year, said the new rules could do more harm than good by pushing tourists like him and his friend away.

“One of the reasons that we do come here is so that we can smoke good weed,” Shah, who asked to be referred to by his last name only, told Al Jazeera.

Having landed in Bangkok only hours earlier, Shah and his friend were leaving a Nana neighbourhood dispensary with their purchase.

A self-avowed recreational user, Shah said the shop wrote him a prescription with few questions and no fuss.

But if the government does get serious about enforcing the new rules, he added, “maybe I’ll think twice next time and go somewhere else.”

Cannabis farmers are fretting about the new rules, too.

To keep selling their buds to local shops, every farm will soon need a Good Agriculture and Collection Practice (GACP) certificate from the government.

It certifies that the farm has met certain quality control standards.

Chokwan, who also leads the Writing Thailand’s Cannabis Future Network, a cannabis advocacy group, said only about 100 cannabis farms across the country currently have GACP certification.

Getting farms ready and tested can be expensive, she said, while forcing it on all farmers will weed out thousands of “little guys”, leaving the largest farms and the corporations backing them to dominate the market.

Coming in at less than 300 square metres (360 square yards), under banks of LED lights inside an unassuming beige building on the outskirts of Bangkok, the Thai Kush cannabis farm easily qualifies as one of the little guys.

Owner Vara Thongsiri said the farm has been supplying shops across the country since 2022. His main gripe with the new rules is how suddenly they came down.

“When you announce it and your announcement is effective immediately, how does a farm adapt that quickly? It is impossible. They didn’t even give us a chance,” he told Al Jazeera.

Vara said he would apply for the certificate nonetheless and was confident the quality of his buds would help his farm survive even in a smaller, medical-cannabis-only marketplace, depending on how long the application takes.

“My farm is a working farm. We harvest every month … If the process takes three months to six months, how am I going to last if I can’t sell the product I have?” he said.

“Because a farm can’t last if it can’t sell.”

Rattapon Sanrak, a cannabis farmer and shop owner, is crunching the numbers on the new regulations as well.

His small farm in the country’s fertile northeast supplies his two Highland Cafe dispensaries in Bangkok, including one in the heart of the city’s Khao San quarter, a warren of bars, clubs and budget accommodations catering to backpackers.

“I could stay open, but as [per] my calculation, it may not [be] worth the business. It’s not feasible any more due to the regulations, the rental and other costs,” he told Al Jazeera.

“It’s not worth the money to invest.”

Rattapon and others believe the government could have avoided the latest policy whiplash by passing a comprehensive cannabis control bill either before decriminalisation or soon after.

Like others critical of the government’s approach, he blames political brinkmanship between Bhumjaithai and Pheu Thai for failing to do so.

Proponents of such a bill say it could have set different rules for farms based on their size, helping smaller growers stay in business, and better regulations to help head off the problems the government is complaining about now.

Although a bill has been drafted, Somsak has said he has no intention of pushing it forward, insisting that placing the plant back on the narcotics list was the best way to control it.

The Writing Thailand’s Cannabis Future Network plans to hold a protest in front of the Ministry of Public Health on Monday in hopes of changing the minister’s mind.

Rattapon said he and hundreds of other farmers and shop owners also plan on filing a class action lawsuit against the government over the new rules.

In the meantime, Rattapon and others warn, the government’s attempt at confining cannabis to the medical market will not simply make the recreational supply chain vanish.

Rattapon said many producers, having poured in millions of dollars and put thousands of people to work, will go underground, where they will be even harder to control.

“Imagine you have a company, you hire 10 people, you invest 2 million baht [$61,630] for that, you’re operating your business, and then one day they say that you cannot sell it any more. And in the pipeline, you have 100 kilograms coming. What would you do?” he said.

“They will go underground.”

Faris, the dispensary owner, agreed.

He said many of the shops and farms that rely on the recreational market will close under the new rules.

“But as time goes by,” he added, “people will find a way.”

The United States will place a lower-than-promised 20 percent tariff on many Vietnamese exports, President Donald Trump has said, cooling tensions with its 10th-biggest trading partner days before he could raise levies on most imports.

Vietnamese goods will now face a 20 percent tariff, and any transshipments from third countries through Vietnam will face a 40 percent levy, Trump said, announcing the trade deal on Wednesday. Vietnam would accept US products with a zero percent tariff, he added.

“It is my Great Honor to announce that I have just made a Trade Deal with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” Trump said on Truth Social after speaking with Vietnam’s top leader, To Lam.

Trump’s announcement comes just days before a July 9 deadline he set to resolve negotiations before he ramps up tariffs on most imports, one of the Republican’s signature economic policies.

Under that plan announced in April, US importers of Vietnamese goods would have had to pay a 46 percent tariff.

The Vietnamese government said in a statement that the two countries agreed on a joint statement about a trade framework. It did not confirm the specific tariff levels mentioned by Trump.

Vietnam would commit to “providing preferential market access for US goods, including large-engine cars”, the government in Hanoi said.

A deal between the two countries would be a political boost for Trump, whose team has struggled to quickly close deals with Washington’s biggest trading partners ahead of the deadline.

While the administration has teased a forthcoming deal with India, truces reached earlier with the United Kingdom and China were limited in scope. Talks with Japan, the sixth-largest trading partner for the US and closest ally in Asia, appeared deadlocked.

“Vietnam has been very keen to get out from under this,’’ said Mary Lovely, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “This is forcing a smaller country to eat it, basically. We can do that. It’s the big countries that everybody’s keeping their eyes on.’’

She said she doubts that Trump will be able to impose such a lopsided agreement on big trading partners such as the European Union and Japan.

The US is Vietnam’s largest export market, and the two countries’ growing economic, diplomatic and military ties are a hedge against Washington’s biggest strategic rival, China. Vietnam has worked to retain close relations with both superpowers.

Shares of major US apparel and sportswear makers, including Nike, Under Armour and North Face maker VF Corp, rose on the news.

Lam also asked Trump for the US to recognise Vietnam as a market economy and remove restrictions on the exports of high-tech products to the country, Vietnam said. Those changes have long been sought by Hanoi and dismissed by Washington.

The White House and the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade did not respond to requests for additional comment.

Growing trade ties

Since Trump imposed tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars in Chinese goods in his 2017-2021 term, US trade with Vietnam has exploded.

Since 2018, Vietnam’s exports have gone up nearly threefold, from less than $50bn that year to about $137bn in 2024, Census Bureau data shows. US exports to Vietnam are up only about 30 percent in that time – to just over $13bn last year from less than $10bn in 2018.

Washington complains that Chinese goods have been dodging higher US tariffs by transiting through Vietnam.

William Reinsch, a former US trade official now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the significance of the transshipment crackdown will depend on “how the term is defined and enforced. Some transshipment is outright fraud – simply changing the label; some is a legitimate substantial transformation in Vietnam into a new product; and there is a lot in between. Enforcement is always complicated”.

Details were scarce, and it was not immediately clear how any transshipment provision aimed at products largely made in China and then finished in Vietnam would be implemented.

Trump announced a wave of tariffs for countries around the world on April 2, before pausing the implementation of most duties until July 9. More than a dozen countries are actively negotiating with the Trump administration to avoid a steep spike in tariffs on their exports.

The UK accepted a 10 percent US tariff on many goods, including autos, in exchange for special access for aircraft engines and British beef.

Like the agreement struck with the UK in May, the one with Vietnam resembles more a framework than a finalised trade pact.

China and the US also came to a truce in a tit-for-tat tariff battle in which Beijing restored American access to some rare earth minerals, but the two sides left most of their disagreements to later negotiations.

Talks lay groundwork for a summit between EU and Chinese leaders in Beijing on July 24 and 25.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief has urged China to end restrictions on the export of rare earth elements and warned that Chinese firms’ support for Russia’s war in Ukraine posed a serious threat to European security.

The statement from Kaja Kallas came on Wednesday after a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Brussels.

The EU is seeking to improve its relations with China amid United States President Donald Trump’s tariff war, which has rocked major trading powers.

But instead of improvements, a trade spat has only deepened between Brussels and Beijing over alleged unfair practices by China. The 27-nation bloc is also railing against the flow of vital tech to Russia’s military through China.

On Wednesday in her meeting with Wang, Kallas “called on China to put an end to its distortive practices, including its restrictions on rare earths exports, which pose significant risks to European companies and endanger the reliability of global supply chains”, a statement from her office said.

On trade, Kallas urged “concrete solutions to rebalance the economic relationship, level the playing field and improve reciprocity in market access”.

She also “highlighted the serious threat Chinese companies’ support for Russia’s illegal war poses to European security”.

China says it does not provide military support to Russia for the war in Ukraine. But European officials say Chinese companies provide many of the vital components for Russian drones and other weapons used in Ukraine.

Kallas called on China “to immediately cease all material support that sustains Russia’s military industrial complex” and support “a full and unconditional ceasefire” and a “just and lasting peace in Ukraine”.

Wednesday’s discussions were to lay the groundwork for a summit between EU and Chinese leaders on July 24 and 25. European Council President Antonio Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will travel to China for the summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang.

Earlier in the day, Wang also met Costa as part of those preparations.

In that meeting, Wang called on both sides to respect each other’s core interests and increase mutual understanding, adding that “unilateralism and acts of bullying have seriously undermined the international order and rules”, according to a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement.

Besides discussions on improving bilateral ties, Kallas and Wang also discussed the situation in Iran.

While both leaders welcomed the de-escalation between Israel and Iran, Kallas said she had “urged Iran to immediately restart negotiations on its nuclear programme and that Europe stands ready to facilitate talks”, according to a statement from her office.

Kallas and Wang also “agreed on the importance of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as the cornerstone of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime”.

The EU, the United Kingdom, France and Germany are parties to a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran that the United States abandoned in 2018, which they hope to revive. Iran has always said its nuclear programme is peaceful and denies seeking a weapon.

China and the European Union are marking 50 years of diplomatic relations this month. At the core of their partnership is trade.

They are the second and third biggest economies in the world after the United States.

The Chinese foreign minister is visiting EU headquarters this week as he seeks closer ties in what he has called a “volatile” world.

Under President Donald Trump, the US has increasingly turned to sweeping tariffs to get what it wants.

Although Beijing and Brussels are hoping to improve their economic ties, they have disagreements on a number of issues.

So what will that mean for global trade and the economic order?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Karel Lannoo – CEO, Centre for European Policy Studies

Victor Gao – vice president, Center for China and Globalisation

Raffaele Marchetti – director, Center for International and Strategic Studies at LUISS University in Rome

Officials pledge to toughen laws after 26-year-old childcare worker charged with abusing eight children under his care.

Australia has announced plans to tighten oversight of childcare facilities after a man in Melbourne was charged with dozens of sexual offences against children in his care.

The moves come after police in the southern state of Victoria announced on Tuesday that they had charged a 26-year-old childcare worker with more than 70 child sex offences, including rape.

The man, identified as Joshua Dale Brown, is accused of abusing eight victims, aged between five months and two years, at a childcare centre in Melbourne’s western suburbs.

Police have said they are also investigating evidence of abuse at a second childcare centre in the northwest of the city.

Authorities say the accused worked at 20 childcare facilities in total during an eight-year span that lasted until May.

Health authorities in Victoria have recommended that 1,200 children linked to facilities where the man worked be tested for infectious diseases as a precautionary measure.

On Wednesday, Australian Education Minister Jason Clare said he would press ahead with legislation to strip funding from childcare facilities that do not meet adequate safety standards and examine other potential measures, including strengthening background checks for those working with minors.

“Any Australian who heard the news from Victoria yesterday would be sickened by what they heard,” Clare said during a news conference in Sydney.

“And for every parent that is directly affected by this in Victoria, they would be frightened and they’d be angry.”

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan said she would introduce a state register of childcare workers and ban personal devices at childcare centres from September.

Allan said her government would also commence an “urgent review” to examine options for improving safety in the sector, including potentially installing security cameras in childcare facilities.

“We will adopt every recommendation of the review and implement them as quickly as possible,” Allan said in a statement.

“Following yesterday, I know too many families are suffering unbearable pain and uncertainty. I cannot imagine what they are going through.”

The latest safety scare to engulf Australia’s childcare sector comes less than a year after a Queensland man pleaded guilty to sexually abusing dozens of girls at childcare centres in one of the worst paedophile cases in the country’s history.

Ashley Paul Griffith was sentenced to life in prison in November after admitting to more than 300 offences against 69 girls at daycare facilities in Brisbane and Italy.

The Dalai Lama confirmed on Wednesday that he will have a successor to carry on the role of spiritual leadership to Tibetan Buddhists, in a statement issued during continuing celebrations to mark his 90th birthday.

He said that leaders of Tibet’s spiritual traditions, members of the Tibetan parliament and government in exile, both of which are in the Indian district of Dharamshala, and Buddhists from around the world, including mainland China and Tibet, had written to him, requesting that the institution continue.

“In accordance with all these requests, I am affirming that the institution of the Dalai Lama will continue,” he said.

His statement, issued at a time when Buddhist scholars and revered monks from around the world have converged on McLeodganj town in Dharamshala, where the Dalai Lama lives, to participate in the 90th birthday celebrations. The town, also known as “Little Lhasa” because it is in effect the capital of Tibetan Buddhists in exile, will also host an intense three-day religious conference that the Dalai Lama will preside over.

But the occasion isn’t only religious. How the next Dalai is chosen, and by whom, carries deep geopolitical significance.

For centuries, Tibetan Buddhist leaders have chosen and enthroned a new Dalai Lama only after an intense quest and subsequent schooling after the incumbent passes away. If the current Dalai Lama, the 14th, offers any more details in the coming days about how his successor might be chosen, or whom it might be, that would represent a dramatic break with tradition.

What he says, and doesn’t say, will be closely watched in Washington, New Delhi and Beijing.

The Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who fled Tibet for India in 1959, is seen as a separatist by Beijing. India, as his host for 66 years, has deep stakes in the future of the institution of the Dalai Lama, who has known every Indian prime minister since the country gained independence. And the United States, which has long cited the Tibetan movement in exile as evidence of China’s human rights excesses, will want to make sure that the glue that binds it all – the institution of the Dalai Lama – continues.

So, who will choose the next Dalai Lama? Can the incumbent Dalai Lama stump the Chinese government? And could there be two Dalai Lamas?

How is a Dalai Lama chosen?

Choosing the next Dalai Lama, who will be enthroned as the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, is a process rooted in centuries-old traditions, spiritual beliefs, and rituals.

Traditions consider the Dalai Lama as the reincarnation of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, and each Dalai Lama is believed to be the successor in a line of reincarnations.

Traditionally, the search for the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation typically begins after a period of mourning. High-ranking lamas (spiritual leaders) form a search committee to identify the next Dalai Lama, based on signs such as the direction of the smoke blowing from his cremation, the direction where he was looking when he died, and oracles’ visions, including at Lhamo Latso, a lake considered holy in Tibet.

Once potential candidates are identified, they undergo a series of tests to confirm their identity as the reincarnation. Candidates are usually young boys born at about the time of the previous Dalai Lama’s death. But the current Dalai Lama has said that there is no reason why a woman cannot be the next reincarnation.

After a candidate is chosen, the child begins a rigorous education in Buddhist philosophy, scriptures and leadership responsibilities, preparing them to assume the role of both a spiritual and, historically, political leader of the Tibetan people.

Who is the current Dalai Lama and how was he chosen?

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th and current Dalai Lama, was born as Lhamo Dhondup on July 6, 1935, to a farming family in a region now in Qinghai province. He was identified as a reincarnation when he was barely two years old.

After the death of the 13th Dalai Lama, the search party concluded a four-year-long quest after the toddler identified belongings of his predecessor with the phrase, “It’s mine, it’s mine.” While the majority of Dalai Lamas have been born in Tibet, one was discovered in Mongolia, and another in a region that today lies in northeastern India.

In March 1959, after a failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese control, the Dalai Lama fled Lhasa in disguise, crossing the Himalayas on horseback and foot, eventually reaching India on March 31 that year. Nearly 100,000 Tibetan refugees live in different parts of India today, the community’s largest exile population.

His escape marked the end of traditional Tibetan governance and the beginning of a life in exile, from where he led the Tibetan struggle for autonomy.

What has the 14th Dalai Lama said about his successor?

Addressing a beaming crowd of followers and monks in McLeodganj on Monday, June 30, the Dalai Lama, clad in his traditional red robes and yellow scarf, said: “As far as the institution of the Dalai Lama is concerned, there will be a framework for it to continue.

“I think I have been able to serve the Dharma and sentient beings and I am determined to continue to do so,” he added, noting that at 90 years old, he feels “physically healthy and well”.

He has also hinted about where to look for the next Dalai Lama. Noting that the purpose of a reincarnation is to carry on the work of the predecessor, the 14th Dalai Lama wrote in his book, Voice for the Voiceless, published in March 2025, that “the new Dalai Lama will be born in the free world”.

In effect, that has meant that the Dalai Lama has decreed that the reincarnation would not be in China or China-controlled Tibet. He had earlier said that his incarnation could be found in India.

For Tenzin Jigme, a 39-year-old who lives in McLeodganj and works with the Tibetan government-in-exile, the mere thought of the Dalai Lama passing away is heavy. His voice broke as he said, “We live in a free world because he led us here.”

“For all of us, living as refugees, His Holiness Dalai Lama is a fatherly figure,” Jigme told Al Jazeera. “We need his reincarnation; look at the world, we need someone to teach us compassion.”

Was there a risk that there wouldn’t be a successor?

The 14th Dalai Lama has suggested in the past that there may not be a successor at all.

In 2011, he said that when he turned 90, he would consult his fellow lamas and the Tibetan public and “re‑evaluate whether the institution of the Dalai Lama should continue or not”.

In 2014, during a visit to the 14th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Rome, the then-79-year-old spiritual leader said that whether another Dalai Lama would be enthroned after him would depend on the circumstances after his death and was “up to the Tibetan people”.

“The Dalai Lama institution will cease one day. These man-made institutions will cease,” the Dalai Lama said in an interview with the BBC. “There is no guarantee that some stupid Dalai Lama won’t come next, who will disgrace himself or herself. That would be very sad. So, much better that a centuries-old tradition should cease at the time of a quite popular Dalai Lama.”

Dibyesh Anand, a professor of international relations at the University of Westminster and the author of Geopolitical Exotica: Tibet in Western Imagination, said the institution of the Dalai Lama will face immense uncertainty in the coming decades.

But, he said, “the history shows that this institution has been more protean and resilient than politically power-based states.”

Subsequent exiled Dalai Lamas “will not have political power in conventional sense”; however, the institution will remain “symbolically the heart of the Tibetan nation and the most respected authority in Tibetan Buddhism,” he said.

What is China’s position on this?

China insists that only its government has the authority to approve the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, treating it as a matter of national sovereignty and religious regulation. This position was cemented in a 2007 law, which mandates that all reincarnations of Tibetan “living Buddhas” must be approved by the state and must follow Chinese laws, religious rituals and historical precedent.

Chinese officials have repeatedly stated that the next Dalai Lama must be born inside China, and any foreign-born or exile-appointed successor would be considered “illegitimate”.

A key element of China’s proposed process is the Golden Urn system, an 18th-century Qing Dynasty method in which the names of candidates are placed in a golden vessel and one is selected by lot.

The current Dalai Lama doesn’t favour this method, arguing that it lacks “spiritual quality”.

In March 2015, then Tibet Governor Padma Choling accused the Dalai Lama of “profaning religion and Tibetan Buddhism,” adding that the Dalai Lama was trying to usurp Beijing’s right to decide.

“If he says no reincarnation, then no reincarnation? Impossible. Nobody in Tibetan Buddhism would agree to that,” said Choling.

While talks over finding the next Dalai Lama traditionally occur after the death of the incumbent one, the Chinese position has left monks and Tibetans in exile worried that Beijing might try to hijack the institution.

The centrality of the Dalai Lama to the Tibetan national movement and his stature as a global icon is an irritant for Beijing, said Anand, the professor.

“This is a battle over legitimacy and not actual rule over territorial Tibet. Beijing seeks to win that battle of legitimacy but faces an institution and person in the 14th Dalai Lama that is beyond its control,” he told Al Jazeera.

Robert Barnett, a scholar of modern Tibetan history and politics and founder of Columbia University’s Modern Tibetan Studies Program, said that some “Chinese strategists see the succession issue purely as an opportunity to frustrate the exile project”.

Another reason could be the Chinese leaders’ anticipation of another plausible Tibetan uprising. It helps Beijing to “have a ‘tame’ Dalai Lama to dissuade Tibetans from protest,” Barnett told Al Jazeera.

Has China hijacked a selection before?

Yes. In 1995, the Dalai Lama recognised a young boy in Tibet as the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama – the second most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism. He was a six-year-old, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the son of a doctor and a nurse from the Tibetan town of Naqchu.

Soon after, Chinese authorities took the boy into custody and relocated the family. Their whereabouts are not known since.

In his place, Beijing appointed its own candidate, a move widely rejected by Tibetan Buddhists in exile and many inside Tibet, who view the Chinese-selected Panchen Lama as illegitimate.

The disappearance of the Panchen Lama in 1995 was a turning point in Chinese-Tibetan political history, said Barnett.

“The Chinese side decided that it has to control not just which child should be chosen, but whether a lama can reincarnate, where he or she can reincarnate, who should search for them,” he said. The Chinese were clear that the Dalai Lama needed to be excluded from the process.

That episode is a key reason why the current Dalai Lama and Tibetans in exile are opposed to the selection of any future reincarnation inside China, including Tibet. The chosen child might simply be abducted, as happened 30 years ago.

Anand said that China’s goal is to dishearten and divide Tibetans. “If [China] cannot achieve it through winning hearts and minds, they’d do it through divide and rule, and this is how we should see the battle over reincarnation,” he told Al Jazeera.

A case of two rival Dalai Lamas

Tibet observers and scholars believe that after the 14th Dalai Lama’s death, Tibetan Buddhists might well find a scenario where two rival successors jostle for legitimacy – an exiled leader, appointed by the lamas faithful to the incumbent Dalai Lama, and one appointed by the Chinese government.

It would be unprecedented in the history of Tibetan Buddhism, but “is highly likely to occur,” said Barnett.

While the reality of two Dalai Lamas may not matter to exiled Tibetans from a religious perspective, it “makes life very difficult for Tibetans inside Tibet who will be forced in huge numbers to publicly declare their loyalty to China over and over again”.

Barnett noted that Beijing could also use the succession issue as leverage to get foreign governments to marginalise organisations of Tibetans in exile in those countries.

Anand said that Beijing’s insistence on its candidate “will be a source of instability in China-Tibetan relations” and “may come back to haunt the Chinese Communist Party”.

In an interview in March 2019, the Dalai Lama acknowledged that following his death, there could be two rival Dalai Lamas. “In future, in case you see two Dalai Lamas come, one from here, in free country, one chosen by Chinese, then nobody will trust, nobody will respect [the one chosen by China],” he said.

“So that’s an additional problem for the Chinese! It’s possible, it can happen,” the Dalai Lama added, laughing.

Is the selection also a geostrategic issue?

It is, mainly for India and the United States.

For India, which hosts the Tibetan government-in-exile, the succession of the Dalai Lama intersects with national security and its fraught border relationship with China.

New Delhi will want to carry on giving hospitality and refuge to the Dalai Lama and his followers, said Anand. He added that the “Tibetan exiles in India offer a leverage and buffer to India vis-a-vis China’s influence in the Himalayan region”.

The US’s interest in Tibet dates back to the Cold War era, when the CIA backed Tibetan resistance against Chinese occupation, in the 1950s, including after the Dalai Lama’s exile.

Washington has long shown bipartisan support for the religious autonomy of Tibetan Buddhists, including in choosing the next Dalai Lama.

In 2015, when China claimed authority to select the next Dalai Lama, US officials publicly rejected this, asserting that Tibetan Buddhists alone should decide. The most forceful position came in 2020 with the passage of the Tibetan Policy and Support Act (TPSA) under President Donald Trump.

The new US position explicitly supported the Dalai Lama’s right to determine his own reincarnation and authorised sanctions on Chinese officials who interfered in the process.

The international support for the Tibetan right to decide on the institution of the Dalai Lama, Anand said, “is going to play out in geopolitical rivalry between the US and China as well as China and India in the future”.

Australia’s flagship carrier says it believes a ‘significant’ amount of personal data was stolen in a cyberattack.

Qantas is investigating a major cyberattack after hackers accessed a system holding personal data belonging to 6 million customers, Australia’s flagship airline has said.

Qantas took “immediate steps” to secure its systems after detecting “unusual activity” on a third-party platform on Monday, the airline said on Wednesday.

The airline is investigating the amount of data that was stolen, but it expects that it will be “significant”, Qantas said in a statement.

The affected data includes customers’ names, email addresses, phone numbers, birth dates and frequent flyer numbers, but not credit card details, personal financial information or passport details, according to the airline.

Qantas said it had put additional security measures in place, and notified the police, the Australian Cyber Security Centre and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

Qantas Group Chief Executive Officer Vanessa Hudson offered an apology to customers over the breach.

“Our customers trust us with their personal information and we take that responsibility seriously,” Hudson said.

“We are contacting our customers today and our focus is on providing them with the necessary support.”

The data breach comes as Qantas is working to rebuild its reputation following a series of controversies during the COVID-19 pandemic, including revelations that it sold tickets for thousands of cancelled flights and lobbied against a bid by Qatar Airways to operate more flights to Europe.

Qantas earned its lowest-ever spot in last year’s World Airline Awards by Skytrax, falling from 17th to 24th place, before climbing 10 spots in the 2025 ranking.

Hudson’s predecessor, Alan Joyce, stepped down two months ahead of his scheduled retirement in 2023, while acknowledging the need for the airline “to move ahead with its renewal as a priority”.

Last week, the FBI in the United States said that a cybercriminal group known as Scattered Spider had expanded its targets to include airlines.

The FBI said the hacking group often impersonates employees or contractors to deploy ransomware and steal sensitive data for extortion purposes.

The Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra has 15 days to make her case after the country’s high court suspended her for a breach of ethics.

This comes after a phone call between Shinawatra and Cambodia’s Senate President Hun Sen, discussing an earlier border dispute.

A leaked audio of that call, in which the prime minister referred to Hun Sen as “uncle” and appeared to criticise a Thai army commander, has sparked outrage and protests.

So, what’s next for Paetongtarn Shinawatra?

And for a country that’s seen its fair share of military coups, what will it mean for democracy?

Presenter: James Bays

Guests:

Sean Boonpracong – Political analyst.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak – Political scientist at Chulalongkorn University.

Kasit Piromya – Former Thai minister of foreign affairs.