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Indian officials say at least 68 people are unaccounted for a week after a deadly wall of icy water swept away a Himalayan town and buried it in mud.On top of four people reported to have been killed, it takes the likely overall toll of the August 5 disaster to more than 70 dead.Videos broadcast by survivors showed a terrifying surge of muddy water sweeping away multi-storey apartment blocks.Disaster officials said Tuesday that they were searching for corpses in the wreckage of the tourist town of Dharali in Uttarakhand state.Gambhir Singh Chauhan, from the National Disaster Response Force, said sniffer dogs had identified several sites indicating there was a body but when “when digging started, water came out from below”.Chauhan said teams were also using ground penetrating radar in the grim search.More than 100 people were initially reported as missing.But with roads swept away and mobile phone communications damaged, it has taken rescuers days to cross-check the list.The local government now lists 68 people as missing, including 44 Indians and 22 Nepalis. Nine soldiers are on the list.Deadly floods and landslides are common during the monsoon season from June to September, but experts say climate change, coupled with poorly planned development, is increasing their frequency and severity.Climate change experts warned that the disaster was a “wake-up call” to the effects of global warming.No official cause of the flood has been given, but scientists have said it was likely that intense rains triggered a collapse of debris from a rapidly melting glacier.Himalayan glaciers, which provide critical water to nearly two billion people, are melting faster than ever before due to climate change, exposing communities to unpredictable and costly disasters.The softening of permafrost increases the chances of landslides.

The day after the Taliban stormed into the Afghan capital in August 2021, Afghans desperate to evacuate clung to the fuselage of a departing American plane at Kabul airport — only to fall to their deaths.Four years later, their families still relive those desperate acts and endure wounds they say will never heal. The images sped around the world: hundreds of people running alongside a military plane about to take off, with some clinging to it. Other videos show figures falling from the C-17, plummeting through the air.One of them was Shafiullah Hotak. Aged 18, he dreamt of becoming a doctor, but lacking the money for his studies, was forced to work doing odd jobs. On August 16, 2021, the day after the Taliban seized Kabul, Hotak was swept up by rumours that the departing Americans, after 20 years of war, were taking with them Afghans eager to flee. “I’m leaving for the United States!” he told his parents at dawn that day, with only 50 Afghanis (less than a dollar today) in his pocket. The airport was swarmed with families clutching any scrap of paper they thought might help them leave with the swiftly departing foreigners.”Shafiullah had hope. He said that if he made it to the United States, I could stop working, that he would repay us for everything we had done for him,” recalled his mother, Zar Bibi Hotak.”I gave him his ID card and he left. Then we heard he was dead.”- Fell to their deaths -More than 120,000 people were evacuated in August 2021 by NATO countries, including 2,000 who had directly worked with the organisation against the Taliban. Thousands of others left the country in the following months.”We were told stories about the previous Taliban regime, how even flour was hard to find,” said Intizar Hotak, Shafiullah’s 29-year-old brother, referring to the Taliban’s first rule in 1996-2001.”With those stories in mind, we were worried. We thought there would be no more work.”In the eastern Kabul neighbourhood where they live, crisscrossed by foul-smelling drainage channels, the only people who managed to get by were those with family sending money from abroad.”Shafiullah said the situation wouldn’t improve, that it was better to leave,” his mother said, clinging to a portrait of the young man with neatly combed hair and piercing eyes, posing next to a rose bush.His body landed on the roof of a house in northern Kabul, a few kilometres (miles) from the airport.So did that of 24-year-old Fida Mohammad Amir, who according to his father Payanda Mohammad Ibrahimi, hated the Taliban.On August 16, he pretended to have an appointment at his dental clinic and left the family home in Paghman, a quiet village west of Kabul. Later that morning his family tried to reach him.When the phone finally rang early in the afternoon, a stranger claiming to be at the airport asked, “Do you know Fida? He fell from a plane.” The young dentist had slipped his father’s number into his pocket — just in case.- ‘I didn’t understand anything’ -Zar Bibi Hotak was alerted by relatives who saw a photo of Shafiullah shared on Facebook by witnesses at the airport. “I screamed, I ran like a madwoman. Some neighbours were embarrassed, unsure how to react. Another grabbed me and brought me back home,” she said.To this day, the number of those who died during the evacuation remains unknown. In 2022, the US military cleared the plane’s crew of wrongdoing.The crew had “decided to depart the airfield as quickly as possible” due to a deteriorating security situation as “the aircraft was surrounded by hundreds of Afghan civilians who had breached the airport perimeter”, according to a spokesperson. It’s not enough, said all the families interviewed by AFP, who said their grief was only made worse by the lack of accountability.”No one has called us — not the previous government, not the Taliban, not the Americans,” said Zar Bibi Hotak.”The planes have cameras… the pilot knew what he was doing, that it was dangerous, he could have stopped,” said Zakir Anwari, whose brother Zaki was crushed by the plane on the tarmac.A promising football player at 17 years old, Zaki went to the airport out of curiosity with another of his brothers. But in seeing the crowd, he decided to take his chances, Anwari believes. “Everyone wondered how Zaki, so smart, took such a risk. But he wasn’t the only one: I met at the airport a father of six who proudly said he had tried three times to climb onto a plane,” Anwari said. At the airport, where he rushed to try to find his brother, he recalled bodies piled into a pickup, blood on the ground, and being struck by a Taliban fighter. “I had nightmares for a year. Impossible to forget,” he said.

India captain Harmanpreet Kaur on Monday said the team was determined to break the “final barrier” and lift their first Women’s World Cup cricket title this year after missing out twice previously.The 13th edition of the women’s showpiece 50-over tournament will begin on September 30, with co-hosts India set to face Sri Lanka in the opener in Bengaluru.The Indian women made it to two ODI World Cup finals but lost on both occasions — going down to England by nine runs the last time around in 2017 at Lord’s.Kaur, who made a valiant 51 runs in the final, will be leading India for the first time in the marquee tournament. “Playing in front of a home crowd is always special, and hopefully, this time we will give our 100 percent and finally break that barrier that all Indian fans are waiting for,” Kaur said.”World Cups are always special, and we always want to do something special” for the country, she said at an International Cricket Council event in Mumbai.Kaur’s India are fresh from a series win in England, where they beat the hosts 3-2 in T20 matches and 2-1 in three 50-overs games.”(The confidence is) very high. The kind of cricket we’ve played over the last couple of years, gives us a lot of confidence,” said the top-order batter.India opener Smriti Mandhana said the women’s team has witnessed a change in mindset over the years.”There’s a calmness with which I want to go about on the field,” said Mandhana at the event, which marked the 50-day countdown to the tournament.”Our whole team is heading in that direction. We know where we want to work hard. And when we enter the field, we know we’ve just got to implement.”Pakistan will play all their matches in Colombo as part of a compromise deal that allows both India and Pakistan to play at neutral venues in multi-nation tournaments.The final will be played on November 2 either in Bengaluru or Colombo, depending on whether Pakistan reach the title clash.

India’s Supreme Court on Monday ordered the removal of tens of thousands of stray dogs from the capital, citing public safety concerns after a surge in dog bites.India is home to millions of stray dogs and deadly attacks, particularly on children and the elderly, are regularly reported by the city’s media.At least 60,000 stray dogs live on the streets of Delhi, according to India’s Livestock Census of 2012, the most recent data available.Some suggest that number to be now far higher, with large rival dog packs patrolling parks and residential neighbourhoods across the city.The country accounts for more than a third of global rabies deaths, according to the World Health Organization, a crisis exacerbated by a lack of sterilisation programmes and legal restrictions on canine culling.The court asked city authorities to set up dog shelters within eight weeks, and maintain daily records of the canines captured.”What is important, and without which the entire exercise would go futile, not a single stray dog should be released,” it said, which applies to Delhi and its satellite suburbs, a megacity home to some 30 million people.The court warned of action against animal activists who obstruct the removal of dogs.It also ordered a 24-hour helpline to be set up to report dog bites and officials must publicise locations where anti-rabies vaccines are available.Data tabled in the Indian parliament showed more than 3.7 million cases of dog bites and 54 suspected human deaths from rabies in 2024.Other estimates peg the number to be nearly twice as high, with Delhi alone accounting for roughly 2,000 cases of dog bites every day.In middle class neighbourhoods, many of Delhi’s strays are beloved by their residents despite lacking formal owners, with some dogs clothed in special canine jackets to keep warm during the winter.But they are also a hazard to humans, with Indian media regularly reporting on the mauling of young children by aggressive dog packs.

Police in Indian-administered Kashmir raided bookshops on Thursday after authorities banned 25 books, including one by Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy, saying the titles “excite secessionism” in the contested Muslim-majority region.The raids came after the government accused the writers of propagating “false narratives” about Kashmir, “while playing a critical role in misguiding the youth” against the Indian state.”The operation targeted materials promoting secessionist ideologies or glorifying terrorism,” police said in a social media statement.”Public cooperation is solicited to uphold peace and integrity,” it said.Authorities also seized Islamic literature from bookshops and homes after a similar directive in February.Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947. Both claim the Himalayan territory in full.Rebel groups have waged an insurgency since 1989 against Indian rule of Kashmir, demanding independence or its merger with Pakistan.The order banning the books was issued on Tuesday — the six-year anniversary of New Delhi’s imposition of direct rule — although the ban took time to be brought to wider attention.Chief cleric and separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said the ban “only exposes the insecurities and limited understanding of those behind such authoritarian actions”.”Banning books by scholars and reputed historians will not erase historical facts and the repertoire of lived memories of people of Kashmir,” Farooq said on social media platform X.Kashmir elected a new government in November, its first since it was brought under New Delhi’s direct control, with voters backing opposition parties to lead its regional assembly.However, the local government has limited powers and the territory continues in practical terms to be governed by a New Delhi-appointed administrator.The ban listed 25 books authorities said “have been identified that propagate false narrative and secessionism”, including Roy’s 2020 book of essays, “Azadi: Freedom, Fascism, Fiction”.Roy, 63, is one of India’s most famous living authors but her writing and activism, including her trenchant criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, have made her a polarising figure.Other books banned include titles by academics, including one of India’s foremost constitutional experts A.G. Noorani, and Sumantra Bose, who teaches political science at the London School of Economics.Historian Siddiq Wahid said the edict contravenes the constitution, “which allows for the freedoms of speech and expression”.”The list of banned books numbers several that are authored and published by individuals and institutions whose reputations depend on supplying evidence, logic and argument towards the conclusions they draw,” Wahid told AFP.”Does that count for anything anymore?” 

A deadly wall of muddy water that swept away an Indian Himalayan town this week was likely caused by a rapidly melting glacier exacerbated by the rising effects of climate change, experts said on Thursday.Scores of people are missing after water and debris tore down a narrow mountain valley, smashing into the town of Dharali in Uttarakhand state on Tuesday.Several people could be seen in videos running before being engulfed as waves uprooted entire buildings, leaving others smothered in freezing sludge.At least four people have been confirmed killed, but at least 50 others are missing.Government officials said shortly after the disaster that the flood was caused by an intense “cloudburst” of rain.However, experts assessing the damage suggested that it was only the final trigger, adding to days of prolonged rains that had already soaked and loosened the ground.P.K. Joshi, of New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, an expert on Himalayan hazards, said it appeared the flood was caused by the collapse of debris — known as moraine — that had dammed a lake of meltwater from a retreating glacier.”Given the persistent rainfall over preceding days and the sudden discharge observed, a glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) or collapse of a moraine-dammed lake is suspected as the primary trigger,” Joshi told AFP.That would have contributed to a “sudden high energy flash flood”, he said, noting that glacial terrain upstream of the town included “unstable sediment zones”.Cloud cover has obstructed satellite imagery to check for the exact source of the debris, and Joshi cautioned that there was not enough satellite data for a “definitive confirmation”.- ‘Disaster severity’ -Safi Ahsan Rizvi, an adviser to the National Disaster Management Authority, also said that it was “likely” that the cause was a “glacio-fluvial debris landslide”.Sandip Tanu Mandal, a glaciologist at New Delhi’s Mobius Foundation, also pointed to the “possibility of a GLOF”, caused by “significant water accumulation in the lake due to increased melting and rainfall”.Mandal noted that while heavy, the amount of rain immediately before the flood was “not very significant” in comparison to the vast volumes of water that poured down the valley.That would indicate the source was a potentially collapsing lake.Himalayan glaciers, which provide critical water to nearly two billion people, are melting faster than ever before due to climate change, exposing communities to unpredictable and costly disasters, scientists warn.The softening of permafrost increases the chances of landslides.Joshi said the latest disaster “highlights the complex and interconnected nature of Himalayan hazards”.Rapid development and building downstream meant that the damage caused was multiplied.”The land use patterns in the floodplain exacerbated the disaster severity,” Joshi said.

Germany will push on with temporary border controls beyond a  September deadline as it cracks down on irregular immigration, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said Thursday.Berlin also plans to deport more rejected asylum seekers with criminal records to Taliban-run Afghanistan and to war-scarred Syria, Dobrindt said in a podcast with media outlet Table.Today.Germany’s conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz has vowed a tough crackdown on irregular immigration, saying this is the only way to stem rising support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.A spate of deadly attacks blamed on asylum seekers and other foreign nationals fuelled public fears during the campaign for the February election, in which the AfD scored a record 20 percent.”We will continue to maintain the border controls” beyond the September 15 deadline, Dobrindt said about the measures first launched last year under the previous government of Olaf Scholz and extended by six months in March.”We are in agreement with our European partners that this is a necessary measure until the (EU) external border protection system is fully operational,” he said.Members of Europe’s Schengen area are allowed to temporarily reintroduce border controls for up to two years in response to serious threats such as terrorism or large-scale unauthorised migration.Merz’s government further tightened the border checks when it took power in early May, moving to also reject most asylum seekers — a step that sparked an outcry from human rights groups.Federal police numbers deployed daily at the borders were stepped up to 14,000 from 11,000.According to ministry data, 9,254 people were turned back at German land borders between May 8 and July 31 — with most recorded cases from Afghanistan followed by Algeria, Eritrea and Somalia. Germany’s border with France saw the most rejections, at more than 2,000 in that period, followed by Poland, Switzerland and Austria. Germany has also twice deported migrants convicted of offences to Afghanistan, most recently last month when 81 were sent back — a move Dobrindt said “cannot remain a one-off measure”.Amnesty International criticised the deportations, saying the situation in Afghanistan was “catastrophic” and that “extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances and torture are commonplace”.Dobrindt also said Berlin was working to organise deportation flights to Syria, where an Islamist-led offensive toppled longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad in December.

Weeks after he was forced to return from Iran, Mohammad Mohsen Zaryab was still searching for somewhere to live in Kabul, where rental prices have soared along with an influx of Afghans expelled from neighbouring countries. More than 2.1 million Afghans have returned from Pakistan and Iran so far this year, according to the United Nations refugee agency. They join earlier rounds of mass expulsions from the neighbouring countries, deported or driven out by fear of arrest.Many of the returnees, like Zaryab, fled with their meagre belongings to Kabul, expecting the swelling city of eight million to offer the best prospects of finding work in a country where half the population lives below the poverty line.Zaryab begged landlords to bring down prices for his family of eight, only to be told, “If you can’t pay, someone else will”. The 47-year-old factory worker said he had expected when he returned in July to find more solidarity for Afghans coming “from far away with no home”. Multiple Kabul property dealers told AFP that rental prices had skyrocketed with the influx of returnees. “Since landlords noticed that refugees (from Iran and Pakistan) were returning, they doubled their rents,” said real estate agent Hamed Hassani, calling for the government to “intervene”. “We have many refugees who come to ask us for an apartment to rent, and most of them cannot afford what’s available,” he said. – Urban anarchy -A year ago, a three-room house would on average cost 10,000 Afghanis ($145) per month, but renters now pay 20,000, said Nabiullah Quraishi, the head of a property dealership. The cost amounts to a fortune for the majority of Afghanistan’s 48 million people, 85 percent of whom live on less than one dollar a day, according to the UN.Two years ago, multiple landlords would come to Quraishi’s business every month seeking help renting their property. Now, demand outstrips supply, he said. The municipality denies any housing crisis in the city. Major urban development plans, which include building new roads even if it means bulldozing numerous residences, are further straining housing access.”Seventy-five percent of the city was developed unplanned,” municipality spokesman Nematullah Barakzai told AFP. “We don’t want this to happen again.” – Can’t stay, can’t leave -Zahra Hashimi fears being evicted from the single basement room that has served as her home since she and her family returned from Iran. Her husband, who works odd jobs, earns about 80 Afghanis per day (a little over a dollar), not enough to pay the rent for the property, which has no electricity or running water. “We lost everything when we returned to Afghanistan,” said Hashimi, whose eldest daughter can no longer attend school under Taliban rules that deny women and girls schooling and employment. Her two primary-school-aged daughters could still attend, but the family cannot afford the tuition. The housing pressures have also affected long-time Kabul residents. Tamana Hussaini, who teaches sewing in the west of Kabul, where rents are lower, said her landlord wants to raise the 3,000 Afghani rent for their three-bedroom apartment.The family of eight tried to move out, but “rents are too high”, she told AFP. “It’s a frustrating situation where you can’t stay, but you can’t leave either.” 

Indian exporters warned on Thursday that the cost of additional US tariffs risked making businesses “not viable” after President Donald Trump ordered steeper levies totalling 50 percent on imported Indian goods.Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was willing to “pay a great personal price”, while opposition Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi called the levies “economic blackmail” and “an attempt to bully India into an unfair trade deal”.Stocks opened marginally lower on Thursday, with the benchmark Nifty index down 0.31 percent after an initial 25 percent US tariff came into effect.That levy will be doubled in three weeks after Trump signed an order on Wednesday to impose an additional 25 percent tariff because of New Delhi’s continued purchases of Russian oil, a key revenue source for Moscow’s war in Ukraine.India is the second-largest buyer of Russian oil, saving itself billions of dollars on discounted crude.India’s foreign ministry condemned Trump’s announcement of further tariffs, calling the move “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable”.S.C. Ralhan, president of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations, said he feared a troubling impact.”This move is a severe setback for Indian exports, with nearly 55 percent of our shipments to the US market directly affected,” he said in a statement.”The 50 percent reciprocal tariff effectively imposes a cost burden, placing our exporters at a 30–35 percent competitive disadvantage compared to peers from countries with lesser reciprocal tariff.”Ralhan said “many export orders have already been put on hold” as buyers reassess sourcing decisions.Profit margins for “a large number” of small- to medium-sized enterprises profit “are already thin”, he said.”Absorbing this sudden cost escalation is simply not viable,” he said.India, the world’s fifth-largest economy and most populous nation, is bracing for a bumpy ride because the United States is its largest trading partner, with New Delhi shipping goods worth $87.4 billion in 2024.”If the extra 25 percent tariff that President Trump has announced on imports from India remains in place, India’s attractiveness as an emerging manufacturing hub will be hugely undermined,” Shilan Shah of Capital Economics said in a note.US spending drives around 2.5 percent of India’s GDP, Shah said.A 50 percent tariff is “large enough to have a material impact”, he said, with the resulting drop in exports meaning the economy would grow by closer to six percent this year and next, down from the seven percent they currently forecast.- Drug, gems, seafood -India’s top exports include smart phones, drugs, gems, textiles and industrial machinery, with some of the most labour-intensive goods — including jewellery and seafood — under threat.The Seafood Exporters Association of India said on Wednesday that the 50 percent tariff “imperils” its $3 billion business.India’s jewellery sector, which exported goods worth more than $10 billion last year, had already warned of job losses potentially hitting “thousands” at lower levy levels. It called the higher rate “devastating”.A key sticking point for India has been its reluctance to fully open its agriculture, a sector that employs vast numbers of people, to US imports.Modi said in a speech on Thursday that “India will never compromise on the interests of its farmers”.He said he would “have to pay a great personal price, but I am ready for it”, without giving further details.It seemed a far cry from India’s early hopes for special tariff treatment. Trump said in February he found a “special bond” with Modi when the Indian leader visited Washington.Successive US administrations have seen India as a key partner that has like-minded interests with regard to China.India and China are intense rivals competing for strategic influence across South Asia. Indian media has reported that Modi might visit long-time rival China in late August. The trip has not been confirmed by officials but it would be his first visit to China since 2018.Modi and China’s President Xi Jinping last met in Russia in October 2024.

Sri Lanka’s anti-corruption authorities arrested a member of the once-powerful Rajapaksa family on Wednesday, accusing him of illegally claiming reparations for property loss when his uncle was toppled as president three years ago.The Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) said it arrested Shasheendra Rajapaksa, a former minister and nephew of two presidents, Mahinda and Gotabaya, and presented him before a Colombo magistrate.Shasheendra becomes the first Rajapaksa to be arrested since the leftist government of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake came to power in September, promising to investigate corruption.”Mr. Rajapaksa is charged with corruption for coercing state officials into paying him compensation for damage to a property he claimed was his,” CIABOC said in a statement.”However, this asset is located on state-owned land. He misused state land, claimed compensation he was not entitled to, and committed the offence of corruption.”Shasheendra was remanded in custody until a preliminary hearing on August 19.Sri Lanka faced its worst economic crisis when it declared its first sovereign default in 2022 on $46 billion in external debt. Months of consumer goods shortages sparked widespread civil unrest, culminating in the ousting of then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa.Two of Shasheendra’s cousins, Namal and Yoshitha, both sons of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, are facing money laundering charges.Yoshitha has told investigators that he raised a large sum of money from a bag of gems gifted by an elderly grand-aunt, who has since stated that she could not recall who originally gave her the gems.Mahinda’s brother-in-law, Nishantha Wickramasinghe, has been charged with causing losses to the state while he was the head of the national carrier, SriLankan Airlines.Another brother of Mahinda, Basil Rajapaksa, who also served as a minister, is also facing money laundering charges.