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. 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. Follow Al Jazeera English:...

Two young members of a Palestinian family were left with life-altering injuries after Israeli police opened fire during a celebration. Occupied East Jerusalem – A pizza box and a bullet hole. That was the only evidence left on al-Hardoub Street of the gruesome June 16 sniper attack on Uday Abu Juma’, 21, and Iyas Abu Mufreh, 12, in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of at-Tur, after authorities swept the scene the following day. Just before midnight, cousins Uday and Iyas had gathered with family members outside their grandfather’s home in at-Tur. The Abu Juma’ extended family had come together to celebrate their grandmother’s return from the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. A daughter in the family had also scored highly on the Palestinian national “tawjihi” exams. Days before, Israeli authorities had placed roadblocks on the two main entrances into the neighbourhood, at the start of the 12-day conflict with Iran on June 13. But according to family members, that night, all was quiet in the neighbourhood. Iyas and Uday were sitting near a car, eating pizza, when suddenly, they and their family members were fired on. Of 10 shots fired, two struck Iyas and Uday, and blood spilled over the pizza. “Everyone was in shock,” recalled Nisreen Abu Mufreh, Iyas’s mother. “We didn’t know what was happening. Obviously, there weren’t any threats towards the military [from our street].” Only when reviewing neighbours’ security camera footage of the street did they later realise that two Israeli snipers, positioned about 500 metres (550 yards) away on a rooftop, had opened fire on the family gathering without warning. When the family tried to rush the two to the hospital, Israeli police stopped the ambulance, detaining Iyas’s father, Raed. The police accused Iyas and Uday of throwing Molotov cocktails and launching fireworks during the family gathering, and claimed that Israeli forces had opened fire in self-defence. The boys were initially taken to Al Makassed Hospital in at-Tur. They were later transferred to Hadassah Hospital in Ein Kerem, West Jerusalem. At the hospital in at-Tur, the family was again stopped by the police. “How could you shoot a kid like this?” a horrified Nisreen asked the police. The police responded that they didn’t know who shot the two boys, and even tried to claim that the shooting was the result of an “internal family dispute”, according to the family. The injuries to Iyas and Uday were catastrophic. The bullet that hit Iyas – who is lucky to be alive, doctors say – struck just centimetres from his heart, leaving a huge open wound on his left shoulder and causing significant nerve and artery damage. Uday was shot in the stomach, with the bullet coming out through his back and damaging his nerves, arteries and spine. Iyas’s family is terrified that the boy’s arm and hand will be permanently impaired, while Uday may not walk again. Doctors at the hospital told the families that Uday and Iyas had been struck by “dumdum” bullets. These are designed to expand on impact to cause maximum damage, and are banned for use in war under international law. While East Jerusalem is not officially a war zone, it is under illegal Israeli occupation. “What gives you the right to shoot a 12-year-old kid, sitting with his cousin, eating pizza? And to make it so that his cousin is not able to walk again in his life?” asked a distraught Amir Abu Mufreh, 21, outside Iyas’s patient room. Amir has spent every day and night in the hospital with his little brother. Amir said his youngest brother was “a good kid” and “not a troublemaker”, and recalled how Iyas would help him sell corn on the street. “I am speechless. I don’t know what to say any more.” The day after the attacks, Israeli police came to al-Hardoub Street and removed the bullets and bullet casings left behind at the scene, members of the local community said. They also took away broken glass from the car they were near, and cleaned away the blood left by the shootings. Only a single bullet hole on the car and the discarded pizza box remained. “They wiped the crime scene clean,” remarked Nisreen. According to the family and their neighbours, police returned to the neighbourhood several times in the days that followed, surveying the situation. Curiously enough, they removed the concrete blocks placed at the neighbourhood’s entrances. These roadblocks had forced locals to take long detours and walk on foot to reach the nearby Augusta Victoria Hospital, another facility that caters mainly to local Palestinians. “They claimed the roadblocks were [installed] to control the neighbourhood, considering the whole war situation,” said Nisreen. “So why remove them the day after [the shooting] and act like nothing happened? “Their goal,” said Nisreen, “is to make chaos and leave.” The shooting of Uday Abu Juma’ and Iyas Abu Mufreh is one of the more violent cases among a number of crackdowns by Israeli authorities on East Jerusalem’s Palestinian residents, during the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June. At the start of the conflict, Israeli police put up roadblocks in several neighbourhoods and residents described a rise in the number of nightly raids in neighbourhoods such as At-Tur, Issawiyeh, Kafr Aqab and Wadi al-Joz. Mirroring police actions following the October 7, 2023 attacks on southern Israel by Hamas, at least two residents in occupied East Jerusalem were arrested over social media posts during the 12-day conflict. Locals reported having their phones regularly searched by Israeli border police deployed to East Jerusalem, and two Palestinians were allegedly beaten for possessing content on their phones supportive of Iran’s retaliatory rocket attacks on Israel, according to Rami Saleh, director of the Jerusalem branch of the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center (JLAC). “The aggressive approach of police and soldiers in these [neighbourhood] entrances is much, much heavier than usual,” said Saleh. As well as abruptly closing entrances to the Old City of Jerusalem for nearly everyone who did not reside there, the Israeli authorities forced most shopkeepers and street vendors to close their businesses in the Muslim and Christian Quarters, citing “the security situation”. The Western Wall, a holy site for Jews, remained open. But for nearly a week, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and Haram al-Sharif, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, were closed off to Christian and Muslim worshippers. These rules were relaxed slightly for a couple of days, allowing only a limited number to pray. But access to Haram al-Sharif was completely blocked again to worshippers following the US strike on Iranian nuclear facilities early on June 22, until after Israel’s ceasefire with Iran. In response, dozens of Palestinian men gathered for Friday afternoon prayers outside the walls of the Old City on June 20. The closure of Haram Al-Sharif – an area containing the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque, and under the sole custodianship of the Jordanian-operated Islamic Waqf – is in direct contravention of the arrangement between Israel and Jordan, following a series of attempts by the Israeli authorities and political figures to infringe on the Waqf’s sovereignty over the religiously and politically delicate site. As a senior source from the Waqf told Al Jazeera: “The [Israeli] occupation closed Al-Aqsa Mosque to send a message to the Islamic world: ‘Al-Aqsa is under my full sovereignty, just like Tel Aviv.’” Alongside these restrictions and actions by the Israeli authorities in occupied East Jerusalem, Palestinian movement in the West Bank was also severely curtailed during the war with Iran, with most Palestinian crossings into Jerusalem closed or restricted, along with many checkpoints in the besieged West Bank. “The intensified restrictions, raids, arrests and religious site closures are justified under a security pretext but, in practice, these are political tools used to suppress Palestinian presence in public space and silence legitimate expression,” said the Israeli NGOs Ir Amim and Bimkom in a shared statement, calling these policies “unjustified collective punishment”. “The Palestinian public in East Jerusalem is treated as a collective threat,” the statement continued, “not as a legitimate civilian population that is an integral part of the city’s fabric.” A spokesperson for the Israeli police did not respond to Al Jazeera’s requests for comment regarding the shootings of Iyas Abu Mufreh and Uday Abu Juma’, as well as questions regarding the purpose and nature of the East Jerusalem restrictions and policies by Israeli authorities during the war with Iran. With his likely paralysed cousin being treated on another floor of the hospital, Iyas Abu Mufreh remains in Hadassah Hospital, having already undergone a series of surgeries in dimming hopes that he will not be permanently impaired. He has struggled to eat, drink or sleep at the hospital, still traumatised by the shooting and wondering if he will ever be able to play pool – a passion of his – again, according to his family. “I just want to go back home, to be able to play with my friends and to go back to school,” said Iyas from his hospital bed, surrounded by his family and friends. Screws were holding his arm in one piece as he nervously awaited his next surgery. “How Israel deals with [Palestinians] is through all these measures and violence,” said Aviv Tatarsky, a researcher for Ir Amim, “and [Israel] sees that no one is holding it accountable.” Follow Al Jazeera English:...

Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke, and the All Progressives Congress in the state argued on Sunday over who should collect market rates in local government areas. They even threatened to arrest each other. Since February, APC-elected chairmen have been in charge of local councils in Osun. But Adeleke told the PDP chairmen and councillors elected on February 21 not to go to work. Adeleke’s spokesperson, Olawale Rasheed, released a statement in which the governor asked the Osun State Commissioner of Police to stop what he called illegal tax collection by some APC council chairmen. He also accused them of forging council documents. The governor said the police should question those involved in faking documents, collecting money with fake papers, and charging traders illegally. Adeleke mentioned a specific case in Boripe Local Government. He said the chairman there set up a revenue taskforce, which is against the law. He said this act also disrespects the court, since the APC has already filed an appeal about their removal from office. In response, the APC told Adeleke to stop violating the Constitution, asking the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, to order the Osun Commissioner of Police to investigate the state government’s alleged plan to attack some council officials who are working to keep order in markets using fake policemen. APC’s spokesperson, Kola Olabisi, said since February 10, when the Appeal Court in Akure brought back APC council officials elected in 2022, the state government has used several tricks to stop them from returning to work. Adeleke, however, argued that the APC chairmen are in office illegally. He added, “The same illegal taskforce officials have begun issuing the fake documents like local government Identification letters, market revenue receipts, etc., to the members of the public,” and asked the police to act before things get out of hand. He also told his Special Adviser on Security, Samuel Ojo, to work with the police to carry out his order. Adeleke said the APC chairmen were making life harder for people by collecting “illegal revenue and tax collections.” He continued, “Is this the reason for illegal occupation of local government secretariats? Is this all about extorting the people and imposing pains and suffering on them? This should stop forthwith.” He warned the public, saying, “We alert the public to this new round of illegality on a subjudiced matter. I have directed the police authorities accordingly. Forging council documents and collecting revenue illegally are punishable offences under the law. Any person caught in such act will face the full wrath of the law.” The APC denied the governor’s claims, saying the governor and his team refuse to accept that the APC chairmen and councillors were legally brought back to power by the court. APC said they have the right to supervise markets. They said, “By virtue of the Court of Appeal judgement of the 10th of February, 2025, the said chairmen and councillors cannot be said to be performing illegal duties by superintending the markets which fall within the purview of their schedule as allowed by the Constitution. “One wonders why Governor Adeleke is afraid of approaching the Supreme Court if he is angry that the Court of Appeal backed the elected chairmen to return to their office to exercise the mandate given to them by the electorate in October 2022. The governor should act decently and honourably, rather than knocking his head on the wall, pacing maniacally like a bull in a china shop.” APC asked the police bosses to warn Adeleke and others causing trouble. They reminded him that the Constitution does not give the state government power over market affairs. They added, “We resolve that the political instability which Governor Adeleke has courted in recent time, and which his faction of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) has been conscripted to energize, would be given to him in full dosage if he decides to prevent the recognized, lawfully elected and reinstated local government council chairmen from performing their constitutional duties.”

Swansea City captain Ben Cabango "would love it" if caretaker boss Alan Sheehan takes the role on a permanent basis. Cabango struck their winner at Sunderland on Saturday, a fifth triumph under Sheehan since he took the reins following Luke Williams' February departure. After flirting with a fight against relegation, the Swans now sit seemingly safe with 54 points at 12th in the table with four games left this season. "You can see all the players are behind him now, and I feel like he's done superbly well in his period he's had and the period he had previously as well," said Wales defender Cabango. "So he shows the qualities as a manager and I'd be delighted if it was him." Swansea have spent much of 2025 trying to avoid dropping towards the bottom three, thanks largely to a run of seven defeats in nine league games which led to former boss Williams' exit. Under Sheehan, the they have earned 17 points from nine league games. Sheehan joined Swansea in the summer of 2023, initially as assistant head coach to Michael Duff. After Duff's departure, Sheehan had seven games as caretaker boss in 2023-24 before reverting to his original role when Williams took over in January 2024. Having stepped up for a second time two months ago – and then agreed a deal until the end of this season last month - Sheehan is waiting to discover whether he will be offered a long-term contract. The Sunderland victory was a fifth since Sheehan took the reins, with only two defeats coming during what has been an encouraging run. But question marks remain over Sheehan's long-term future with Swansea known to have considered numerous options in the search for Williams' permanent successor. Cabango said it was "a great feeling" to hit Swansea's 58th-minute winner at Sunderland. But he also relished a third successive clean sheet as part of their rearguard. "I feel like we're loving defending as a team right now. Everyone's just giving it everything," Cabango said. "We're recovering well. If there's a mistake, we're always backing each other up and it's a good feeling that we've just got that foundation so we can build on it. "We've got to appreciate the blocks because they're always key moments in games and I feel like, when you do appreciate them, people want to do it more and we want to throw our bodies on the line and keep them clean sheets." Cabango also believes winning at promotion contenders Sunderland and drawing 2-2 at leaders Leeds United in March shows they can "definitely" compete with the division's best. "They're two one of the hardest places to go in the league and the performances we've showed here (Sunderland), we've not just sat in, we've actually created chances, especially in the Leeds game," he added. "I think we were a bit more penned in (at Sunderland), but we're showing we have that quality when we do get the chances and we put them away, and we're hard to break down."