Dalai Lama to meet senior Buddhist monks before likely reincarnation statement
The Dalai Lama will meet 11 senior Buddhist monks on Wednesday morning before delivering a written statement that will "most probably" talk about his eventual succession as the spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhists, an official said, Reuters reported.
Tibetan Buddhists believe that enlightened monks are reborn to continue their spiritual legacy. The 14th Dalai Lama will turn 90 on Sunday and has long been expected to use the occasion to share possible clues on where his successor, a boy or a girl, could be found following his death.
Beijing views the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule, as a separatist and says it will choose his successor. The Dalai Lama has said his successor will be born outside China and has urged his followers to reject anyone chosen by Beijing.
The northern Indian town of Dharamshala, where the Dalai Lama is based with thousands of other Tibetans, has already seen the arrival of the heads of various sects of Buddhism ahead of a Wednesday-Friday religious conference that precedes the birthday celebrations on the weekend, according to Reuters.
Indian lawmakers to review aviation safety weeks after Air India crash
A panel of Indian lawmakers will review safety in the country's civil aviation sector and has invited several industry and government officials to answer questions on July 9, with topics set to include Air India's recent plane crash, Reuters reported.
The upper house of India's parliament has asked airport operators, air traffic controllers and airlines including Air India and IndiGo to take part in a comprehensive review of passenger safety, according to a memo drafted for the meeting and seen by Reuters.
The gathering comes after the June 12 Air Indiadisaster that killed 260 people, including 241 on board, when a Boeing 787-8 jet crashed within a minute of take-off from India's Ahmedabad. Investigators are still probing what caused the world's worst aviation accident in a decade.
Though the memo did not mention the crash, R K Chaudhary, a lawmaker on the panel, told Reuters that it planned to discuss the matter internally and during the meeting, according to Reuters.
Qantas data breach exposes up to six million customer profiles
Qantas is contacting customers after a cyber attack targeted their third-party customer service platform, BBC reported.
On 30 June, the Australian airline detected "unusual activity" on a platform used by its contact centre to store the data of six million people, including names, email addresses, phone numbers, birth dates and frequent flyer numbers.
Upon detection of the breach, Qantas took "immediate steps and contained the system", according to a statement.
The company is still investigating the full extent of the breach, but says it is expecting the proportion of data stolen to be "significant", according to BBC.
Spain and England record hottest June as heatwave grips Europe
Spain and England have recorded their hottest June ever, as scorching temperatures continue to grip Europe, BBC reported.
Spain's weather service Aemet said the "extremely hot" June - with an average temperature of 23.6C (74.5F) - "has pulverised records", surpassing the normal average for July and August.
In England, the Met Office said June's mean temperature of 16.9C set a new record for that month, while the UK as a whole saw its second warmest June since records began in 1884.
Mainland Portugal experienced a record daily temperature for June of 46.6C. The monthly average data is yet to be released, according to BBC.
