Global News

By Gopal Sharma and Navesh Chitrakar Reuters and agencies Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli resigned on Tuesday as anti-corruption demonstrators defied an indefinite curfew and clashed with police, a day after 19 people died in violent protests triggered by a social media ban. Protesters in Nepal’s capital defied a curfew on Tuesday to continue venting their rage at the government a day after the deadly crackdown. Oli, 73, quit shortly after protesters set fire to his house, writing in his resignation letter that he hoped it would help “towards a political solution and resolution of the problems” in the country. Protesters also set fire to parliament on Tuesday, and Oli’s whereabouts were not immediately clear. The unrest is the worst in decades in the poor Himalayan country that is wedged between India and China and has struggled with political instability and economic uncertainty since protests led to the abolition of its monarchy in 2008. “In view of the adverse situation in...

Ethiopia officially inaugurates Africa’s largest hydroelectric dam on Tuesday, a project that will provide energy to millions of Ethiopians while deepening a rift with downstream Egypt that has unsettled the region. Ethiopia, the continent’s second most populous nation with a population of 120 million, sees the $5 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on a tributary of the River Nile as central to its ambitions for economic development. Begun in 2011, the dam’s power generation should eventually rise to 5,150 MW from the 750 MW that its two active turbines are already producing. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has said Ethiopia will use the energy to improve Ethiopians’ access to electricity while also exporting surplus power to the region. ‘BLOWING UP THAT DAM’ Ethiopia’s downstream neighbours, however, have watched the project advance with dread. Egypt, which built its own Aswan High Dam on the Nile in the 1960s, fears the GERD could restrict its water supply during periods ...

Gopal Sharma Reuters Unrest killed at least 19 people in Nepal on Monday, authorities said, as police in the capital fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters trying to storm parliament in anger at a social media shutdown and corruption. Some of the mainly youth protesters forced their way into the parliament complex in Kathmandu by breaking through a barricade, a local official said, setting fire to an ambulance and hurling objects at lines of riot police guarding the legislature. “The police have been firing indiscriminately,” one protester told the ANI news agency. “(They) fired bullets which missed me but hit a friend who was standing behind me. He was hit in the hand.” More than 100 people including 28 police personnel were receiving medical treatment for their injuries, police officer Shekhar Khanal told Reuters. Protesters were ferrying the injured to hospital on motorcycles. Another two people were killed when protests in the eastern city of Itahari turned violent, p...

By KANIS LEUNG ,Associated Press  Schools closed, flights were disrupted and tens of thousands of people were evacuated in southern China as Tropical Storm Tapah made landfall Monday. The economic hub of Guangdong province near Hong Kong halted some train and ferry services ahead of the storm, according to the official Xinhua news agency. Dozens of scenic areas were closed and some 60,000 people were evacuated across the region by Sunday afternoon, state broadcaster CCTV reported. CCTV said the storm made landfall around the coastal area of Taishan city in Guangdong at around 8:50 a.m. local time, with maximum sustained winds near its center reaching 30 meters (98 feet) per second. Hong Kong’s observatory raised its No. 8 storm signal on Sunday night, the third-highest in the city’s weather system. It said Tapah was packing maximum sustained winds near the center of about 68 miles (110 kilometers) per hour at 9 a.m. Before the observatory lowered its storm signal Monday a...

Boko Haram militants killed more than 60 people, including seven soldiers, in a nighttime assault on a village in northeastern Nigeria’s Borno State to which people had returned only last month following years of displacement, residents told Reuters. Nigeria’s military says it has stepped up counterinsurgency operations in recent months in Borno state to try to contain militias as well as militants from Boko Haram and its splinter group, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). Analysts and residents say the operations have failed to stem attacks. Northwest Nigeria has also been plagued by violence. The attack on Darul Jamal, near Banki in the Bama local government area, occurred around 8:30 p.m. on Friday, when armed fighters stormed the community, shooting indiscriminately and setting homes ablaze. Babagana Mala, a resident who fled with soldiers to Bama town, about 46 km (29 miles) away, said Darul Jamal had been resettled last month after years of displacement. “We had been...

BY Nader Durgham AFP The Lebanese military will begin implementing its plan to disarm Iran-backed Hezbollah, the government said on Friday following a cabinet meeting, amid opposition from the group and its allies. The cabinet discussed the plan on Friday despite a walkout by Shiite ministers in protest at the proposals. In August, the Lebanese government ordered the military to draw up plans to disarm the once-dominant militant group by the end of the year, having come under pressure from the United States and Israeli strikes. In a statement after Friday’s meeting, information minister Paul Morcos said that Beirut welcomed the army’s proposed measures “to extend the state’s authority through its own forces and to restrict the possession of weapons to legitimate authorities”. Responding to questions from journalists, Morcos said “the Lebanese army will begin implementing the plan, but in accordance with the available capabilities, which are limited in terms of logistics, material ...

BY Montira RUNGJIRAJITTRANON AFP Thai conservative construction magnate Anutin Charnvirakul on Friday won a parliament vote to serve as the nation’s next prime minister, according to an AFP tally of lawmakers’ ballots. Since 2023 elections, the Pheu Thai party of the powerful Shinawatra family has monopolised Thailand’s top office, but a court ruling last week saw dynasty heiress Paetongtarn Shinawatra sacked from the post. Rushing into the power vacuum, construction magnate Anutin Charnvirakul has cobbled together a coalition of opposition blocs to shut Pheu Thai out of the premier’s office. In the still-underway ballot Anutin has won more than 247 votes, according to an AFP tally, securing the majority backing of the 492 MPs sitting in the National Assembly’s lower house. “It’s normal to feel excited,” Anutin told a scrum of reporters as he arrived for the vote. The Shinawatra dynasty patriarch, Thaksin Shinawatra, flew out of the country in the hours ahead of Friday’s vote and...