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Page last updated at 06:07 GMT, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 07:07 UK

Dalai Lama still hopeful about Tibet's future

The Dalai Lama with Today presenter Sarah Montague

Tibet's exiled Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama, has said that he expects to return to the country, which he fled in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.

The 76-year-old monk told Today presenter Sarah Montague that his own health remained quite good "so I am expecting another 10, 20 years. So within that, definitely things will change".

And he confirmed reports, strongly denied by Beijing, that he had received information that the Chinese government had planned to assassinate him by using female agents with poison in their hair and scarf, adding that this was "impossible to cross-check".

"If I develop anger, suffer myself. No help to our problem," he explained.

The Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule and stepped down form his role as Tibet's leader in exile last year, was speaking in London before receiving the £1.1m 2012 Templeton Prize for his engagement with science and people beyond his own religious traditions.

This is an extended version of the broadcast item.


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