Katmandu: The death toll from flooding and landslides in Nepal has reached at least 100, with dozens of people still missing.
Police on Sunday morning warned the death toll was expected to rise further as reports come in from villages across the mountainous country.
The weather in Nepal was improved on Sunday and rescue, recovery and clean-up efforts were underway.
Rescuer workers recovered 14 bodies overnight from two buses headed to Katmandu that were buried in a landslide on a highway near the capital city.
At least one other bus and other vehicles were still buried at the same spot, and rescuer workers were digging through rocks and mud trying to find people.
Katmandu remained cut off Sunday as the main highways out of the city were blocked by landslides. Three highways, including the key Prithvi highway that connects Katmandu to the rest of the country, have been blocked by landslides.
Residents in the southern part of Katmandu, which was inundated by water, were cleaning up their houses as water levels began to recede.
At least 34 people were killed in Katmandu, which was the hardest hit by Saturday’s flooding.
Police officers and soldiers were assisting with rescue efforts, while heavy equipment was used to clear the landslides from the roads.
The government announced it was closing schools and colleges across Nepal for the next three days.
The heavy rains, which started on Friday, slowed on Saturday night, but were expected to continue through the weekend.
Last week, the government issued flood warnings across the Himalayan nation warning of massive rainfall. Buses were banned from traveling at night on highways and people were discouraged from driving cars.
The monsoon season began in June and usually ends by mid-September.
Death toll in Nepal flooding and landslides reaches at least 100, with dozens still missing
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Death toll in Nepal flooding and landslides reaches at least 100, with dozens still missing
- The weather in Nepal was improved on Sunday and rescue, recovery and clean-up efforts were underway
Muslim women break taboos navigating east London’s waterways
- The initiative has grown in the last two years from a pilot project with 18 women to a group of around 70
London: Paddle dipped gently below mossy water, Dilruba Begum guided the kayak and a trainee sat in front of her down a canal in east London.
“Out here, you can be anyone,” she whispered as she lifted the paddle up to allow the kayak to drift with the current.
Two years ago, when Dilruba, 43, was swamped with mothering duties, a friend told her about a free, women-only program to learn paddle sports near her home.
Now she is a qualified paddle sport instructor, after taking part in the program run by local housing and community regeneration body Poplar HARCA.
Dilruba and her fellow paddlers are breaking new ground, encouraging women from London’s less advantaged eastern neighborhoods to embrace water sports that many felt were inaccessible to ethnic minorities like them with stretched resources and limited leisure time.
The initiative has grown in the last two years from a pilot project with 18 women to a group of around 70.
Among them are women who are “working, some are full-time mums, some haven’t been out of the house in years,” Dilruba told AFP.
Nine of them, including Dilruba and Atiyya Zaman, 38, have qualified as instructors and started London’s first boat club with an all-female, Muslim committee.
On a rain-soaked September afternoon, the pair led their first session, teaching a small group of women how to use kayaks and inflatable paddle boards.
Life vests secured, they demonstrated different maneuvers to participants on a small pontoon before lowering themselves into kayaks to begin the session on Limehouse Cut.
The canal runs through Poplar and Bow in Tower Hamlets, one of the city’s most deprived and densely populated boroughs.
One aim of the initiative is to improve local people’s access to “blue spaces” in Poplar, which lies at the heart of 6.5 kilometers (3.7 miles) of uninterrupted waterways.
“I live next to the canal, and I used to see people going (on it) all the time. I did always wonder how it would feel if I could do that?” said Atiyya, bobbing up and down on an orange kayak.
Jenefa Hamid, from Poplar HARCA, said many people from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds that make up most of the local community “thought water sport was not something that’s typically for them.”
This could be due to a fear of drowning, as well as cultural and religious reasons. “I think it is just feeling socially excluded,” she added.
According to Sport England data from 2017 to 2019, less than one percent of Asian (excluding Chinese) adults participated in water sports, and all BAME communities were under-represented in swimming activities.
Some of the women in the group “haven’t even been in the water before,” said Atiyya.
“When I started, especially women within this community, we would never do this sort of thing.”
Making the program women-only and allowing different attire made it welcoming to local Muslim women.
Naseema Begum, 47, who was part of the initial cohort and is now an instructor, said there was a “taboo” preventing Asian women and those wearing headscarves from taking part in water sports.
Wearing a niqab, Naseema wanted to show that “you can wear anything and go in the water. As long as you’ve got the right equipment... anyone can take part.”
Women were also attracted by the affordability. Private boating clubs are “quite unaffordable if you’ve got a family to maintain,” said Naseema, adding that she could not justify spending the amount on her own “leisure.”
Naseema now chairs the “Oar and Explore” boat club. With Atiyya and Dilruba, they hope to raise enough funds to acquire their own boats and a storage space by a new pontoon planned for the area.
“The way I felt, the enjoyment and the confidence that I’ve built from this, I want to pass it on to others and tell them there’s more to life,” said Dilruba.
Part of the enjoyment for her was a rare chance to “just sit down with your thoughts, not think about anything else.”
Atiyya agreed. “During Covid, it was quite hard with three young children at home, and then with work, it was very stressful. This was a way to escape,” she said.
Dilruba credits the instructors for helping her become one herself — and opening up a new world.
“They have lifted us up and made us into some new people, with new experiences... new skills we never thought we would have,” she said.
More than 60 dead from storm Helene as rescue, cleanup efforts grow
Helene slammed into Florida Thursday as a Category 4 hurricane and surged north, gradually weakening but leaving in its wake toppled trees, downed power lines and mudslide-wrecked homes.
Federal emergencies were declared in six states — Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee — with more than 800 personnel from the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) deployed.
Now classified as a “post-tropical cyclone,” the remnants of the storm are expected to continue inundating the Ohio Valley and central Appalachians through Sunday, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC).
In affected communities across the eastern coast and midwest, storm victims and volunteers toting trash bags, mops and hammers tried to repair what they could and clean up the rest.
“There’s only a couple businesses open. They have limited supply. So I’m just worried about families that have kids and stuff like that, getting somewhere to stay and have something to eat,” said Steven Mauro, a resident of Valdosta, Georgia.
At least 24 people died in South Carolina, 17 in Georgia, 11 in Florida, 10 in North Carolina and one in Virginia, according to local authorities and media tallied by AFP.
The National Weather Service said conditions would “continue to improve today following the catastrophic flooding over the past two days.”
But it warned of possible “long-duration power outages.”
“Main issue is the electrical power,” said another man from Valdosta who declined to give his name. “With the whole town down, the traffic lights are out. So driving around... people should just stay home.”
More than 2.6 million customers were still without electricity across 10 states from Florida in the southeast to Indiana in the midwest as of early Sunday morning, according to tracker poweroutage.us.
Helene blew into Florida’s northern Gulf shore with powerful winds of 140 miles (225 kilometers) per hour. Even as it weakened into a post-tropical cyclone, it has wreaked havoc.
Record levels of flooding threatened to break several dams, but Tennessee emergency officials said Saturday that the Nolichucky Dam — which had been close to breaching — was no longer in danger of giving way and people downriver could return home.
Massive flooding was reported in Asheville, in western North Carolina. Governor Ray Cooper called it “one of the worst storms in modern history” to hit his state.
There were reports of remote towns in the Carolina mountains without power or cell service, their roads washed away or buried by mudslides.
In Cedar Key, an island city of 700 people off Florida’s Gulf Coast, several pastel-colored wooden homes were destroyed by record storm surges and ferocious winds.
“I’ve lived here my whole life, and it breaks my heart to see it. We’ve not really been able to catch a break,” said Gabe Doty, a Cedar Key official, referring to two other hurricanes in the past year.
In South Carolina, the dead included two firefighters, officials said.
Georgia’s 17 deaths included an emergency responder, according to state officials.
In the Tennessee town of Erwin, more than 50 patients and staff trapped on a hospital roof by surging floodwaters had to be rescued by helicopters.
In a statement Saturday, President Joe Biden called Helene’s devastation “overwhelming.”
Biden was briefed by FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell and Homeland Security Adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall on “the tragic loss of life across the region,” the White House said.
Criswell, who went to Florida on Saturday to survey damage, will visit Georgia on Sunday and North Carolina on Monday.
September has been an unusually wet month around the world, with scientists linking some extreme weather events to human-caused global warming.
The North Atlantic hurricane season runs from the beginning of June to the end of November, with most of the severe storms historically forming around the end of August or beginning of September.
Forecasters are carefully watching two more named storm systems expected next week: Joyce and Hurricane Isaac.
Isaac is expected to weaken into a powerful post-tropical cyclone by Sunday night or early Monday, while Joyce is expected to be a tropical storm for a couple more days, according to the NHC.
Russia says destroyed 125 Ukrainian drones
Moscow: Russia downed 125 Ukrainian drones over its territory overnight, the defense ministry said Sunday, with regional governors reporting some damage but no casualties from the attack.
“125 Ukrainian fixed-wing UAVs were destroyed and intercepted by air defense systems on duty,” the ministry said on Telegram.
Sixty-seven were destroyed over Volgograd region in southern Russia, where governor Andrey Bocharov said falling debris from the drones sparked grass fires but no casualties or damage.
Another 17 were downed over Belgorod region and 17 over Voronezh region, where governor Aleksandr Gusev said several fell on Voronezh city and its suburbs causing fires in two residential buildings but no casualties.
Another 18 drones were destroyed over Rostov region where governor Vasily Golubev said on Telegram: “According to operational information, there are no casualties or damage on the ground.”
Single drones were intercepted over the Bryansk and Kursk regions and Krasnodar, which neighbors Crimea, and three over the waters of the Sea of Azov, the defense ministry said.
Russia has recently announced shooting down Ukrainian drones almost daily in response to what Kyiv says are retaliatory strikes for Russian attacks during its offensive launched in February 2022.
UK lawmaker quits Labour Party over PM’s ‘hypocrisy’
- The row over the free gifts from rich donors had already cast a shadow over the party’s first conference since they returned to government
LONDON: The new government of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer reeled from its first resignation Saturday, as lawmaker Rosie Duffield quit the Labour Party, accusing him of “hypocrisy” over his acceptance of free gifts.
In a blistering resignation letter, Duffield denounced Starmer for pursuing “cruel and unnecessary” policies.
“The sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale,” she wrote, after it emerged earlier this month that Starmer had accepted more than £100,000 in gifts and hospitality while cutting an annual £300 winter heating payment to some 10 million pensioners.
“I am so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to tarnish and humiliate our once proud party.”
Duffield said the “hypocrisy” of a leader enjoying expensive free clothing and outings while asking others to tighten their belts was “staggering.”
She also attacked the prime minister’s decision to maintain a cap on a benefit aimed at supporting families with children.
“Someone with far-above-average wealth choosing to keep the Conservatives’ two-child limit to benefit payments which entrenches children in poverty, while inexplicably accepting expensive personal gifts of designer suits and glasses costing more than most of those people can grasp — this is entirely undeserving of holding the title of Labour Prime Minister,” she wrote.
Duffield said that she would in the future sit as an independent MP “guided by my core Labour values.”
The row over the free gifts from rich donors had already cast a shadow over the party’s first conference since they returned to government.
Labour ousted the Conservatives in a landslide election win in July after 14 years in opposition.
But instead of toasting their victory at the conference earlier this week, ministers found themselves on the backfoot and facing anger from the normally supportive unions.
All of the gifts accepted by Starmer had been declared and none fall foul of parliamentary rules.
But records show that Starmer accepted more than £100,000 ($132,000) in gifts and hospitality since December 2019, more than any other lawmaker.
It also emerged that Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner accepted the loan of a New York apartment for a holiday and that Chancellor Rachel Reeves accepted around £7,500 worth of clothing.
Reeves and the Labour party have defended the abolition of the £300 payment to many pensioners to help them heat their homes, citing a need to fill a “£22 billion black hole” they say was left by the Conservatives.
Attacking Starmer’s “managerial and technocratic approach” in her letter, first reported in The Sunday Times, Duffield also reproached Starmer for poor politics.
His “lack of basic... political instincts” had “come crashing down on us as a party after we worked so hard, promised so much, and waited a long 14 years to be mandated by the British public.”
Starmer lost a symbolic vote at the conference demanding that he reverse the contentious policy.
The vote was non-binding but its outcome was nonetheless embarrassing for the premier.
It highlighted the strength of feeling among activists and union backers.
Delegates narrowly backed a union motion calling for the cut to be reversed.
“I do not understand how our new Labour Government can cut the winter fuel allowance for pensioners and leave the super rich untouched,” said the Unite union general secretary Sharon Graham.
World’s path to peace should no longer be blocked by one or two countries, Kuwait’s ambassador to UN tells Arab News
- Tareq AlBanai highlights problem of ability of single veto-wielding UNSC permanent member to obstruct action even when majority supports a motion
- Landmark Pact for the Future adopted this week at 79th UNGA session commits world leaders to reform Security Council to better reflect today’s realities
NEW YORK: Decades of debate on reforming the UN Security Council reached what some are calling a turning point this week with the adoption of a “groundbreaking” pact that commits member states to implementing long-demanded changes.
For Tareq AlBanai, Kuwait’s permanent representative to the UN, the pact was the culmination of two years of work built on the belief that no single member state should be able to obstruct action on a matter of global urgency.
Since 2022, AlBanai and Austria’s ambassador to the UN have spearheaded the inter-governmental negotiations to reform the Security Council, whose five permanent members have retained their veto power since the UN’s formation in 1945.
AlBanai described his time co-chairing the inter-governmental negotiations on Security Council reforms as a “labor of love.”
“The Security Council is the only body charged with the maintenance of international peace and security,” he told Arab News. “It is the cornerstone of the multilateral system and the UN when it comes to peace and security. The everyday man around the world — when he thinks of the UN, he thinks of the Security Council.
“And when we see the Security Council unable to act on the most pressing situations around the world that threaten international peace and security, you lose faith in this institution.
“And that is not a good thing. It is the only, truly, universal, multilateral system that we have.”
The mounting calls to reform the council are decades in the making.
Countries such as India, Brazil, Germany and Japan have renewed their appeal for permanent seats to better reflect the geopolitical realities of the 21st century. Meanwhile, the Permanent 5 members (US, UK, France, Russia and China) have urged caution, highlighting the need for “consensus and stability.”
UN SecurityCouncil Members
Permanent members
• China
• France
• Russia
• United Kingdom
• United States
Non-permanent members elected every 2 years
(Until 2024)
• Ecuador
• Japan
• Malta
• Mozambique
• Switzerland
(Until 2025)
• Algeria
• Guyana
• South Korea
• Slovenia
• Sierra Leone
* Elected for two-year terms by the General Assembly
(Source: UN.Org)
The intergovernmental negotiations led by Kuwait and Austria have included discussions on regional representation, the criteria for new permanent members and the balance of power within the Security Council.
“A reformed Security Council, in my opinion, needs to be a place where we can secure collective action through the collective understanding of the members,” AlBanai said.
“No member state should have the ability to stop the majority of the world from taking decisive action on any matter at hand.
“And if they decide to use a prerogative, then there must be ways that we can, as an international community, through the General Assembly or through any other mechanisms we agree on in the future, find an alternative path.
“The path to peace cannot be (stymied) by one, two or even three member states when the majority of the world believes that the way forward is in a specific manner.”
Opinion
This section contains relevant reference points, placed in (Opinion field)
The Pact for the Future — adopted this week at the 79th session of UN General Assembly after nine months of negotiations — offers a consensus vision for cooperation among countries in tackling challenges ranging from climate and artificial intelligence to escalating conflicts and increasing inequality and poverty.
But, more importantly for those eying Security Council reform, the pact also commits world leaders to reform the 15-member organ to better reflect today’s world, “redress the historical injustice against Africa,” which has no permanent seat, and correct the underrepresentation of the Asia-Pacific region and Latin America.
Austria and Kuwait led the negotiations on council reform with vigor, holding a series of televised debates on the topic. Alongside discussions on the main pact, UN members hosted isolated Security Council reform talks, recognizing that the topic could complicate agreements on other issues included in the document.
Guy Ryder, the UN’s under secretary-general for policy, called the language in the pact “groundbreaking,” highlighting the commitment to develop a consolidated model of Security Council reform.
“Now, this might sound rather esoteric, and this would be one of the most difficult things to explain to the person in the street, but for those engaged in this type of process since the 1960s, and the co-facilitators of negotiations, Austria and Kuwait, this is groundbreaking language,” Ryder told Arab News.
AlBanai agreed, highlighting the avenue to substantial reform that the pact has opened.
“Is it groundbreaking? Well, it’s the first time since 1963 that we have a commitment at the head of state and government level to further enhance the Security Council,” he said, calling for a council that is representative, transparent, effective, inclusive, democratic and accountable.
This is essential for the operation of a functioning multilateral system, according to Al-Banai.
“If we can manage through this process to enhance not only the capacity of the Security Council, but the actual shape, form and actions of the council by increasing its membership, by making it more representative of the world we live in today in 2024, and not the world of 1945, then we have achieved something,” he said.
With only the first step on a long journey ahead having been taken, AlBanai is acutely aware that reform has been a painstakingly slow process.
In the months after the UN was founded in 1945, some member states had already recognized the need for a more flexible Security Council. It was only in the late 1970s that some brought the issue of council reform to the attention of the General Assembly.
Yet substantial progress has remained elusive. One of the most significant barriers to reform has been the frequent turnover of diplomats and experts at the UN, which can stifle continuity in discussions.
To address this, AlBanai and his co-chair, Austrian Ambassador Alexander Marschik, prioritized transparency in negotiations.
Through initiatives like webcasting meetings and creating a comprehensive repository of documents, they aimed to make the reform process accessible to a broader audience, including NGOs and academic institutions. That decision has opened the doors for new stakeholders to engage with the reform process, fostering a more inclusive atmosphere for discussion.
One of the most controversial results of the Security Council’s existing format has been the increasingly liberal use of veto power by some permanent members.
In recent years, lone members of the P5 have paralyzed and undermined the credibility of the council, in a pattern that risks damaging the reputation of the entire organization, according to representatives from a wide spectrum of countries.
AlBanai highlighted the troubling reality of a single veto-wielding permanent member being able to obstruct action, even when the majority of the council supports a motion.
This gridlock has been most evident in discussions surrounding the war in Gaza, with repeated vetoes preventing meaningful action on a ceasefire and urgent humanitarian issues.
“(The veto’s) use or misuse have been a central focus of member states because, unfortunately, one member, or a combination of members, with that ability can stop the movement of the wider international community toward addressing an issue as important as the genocide currently happening in Gaza or any other matter that is under consideration in the Security Council,” AlBanai said.
While many member states advocate for the abolition of the veto, such a change is complex, requiring the agreement of the existing veto holders, he added.
“It’s unrealistic to expect that the current P5 will agree to eliminate their own power.”
To sidestep this quandary, discussions have shifted toward giving new permanent members — should they be added — veto power, but the proposal has proved contentious among member states.
Those in opposition argue for the need to reduce veto use entirely, with calls to ban use of the veto power in cases of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
There remains broad support, however, for expanding council membership, in both permanent and non-permanent categories, and for unrepresented or underrepresented regions and continents, such as Africa and Asia, to have a “meaningful seat” at the table.
One notable development in the reform discussions came in the form of a recent US proposal to add two permanent seats for Africa in the council, though without veto power.
“What I like about the American proposal is that it invites conversation,” said AlBanai, highlighting the importance of moving from abstract discussion to concrete action.
As part of their efforts, Kuwait and Austria introduced “model discussions,” which invited member states and country blocs to present their models of a reformed Security Council.
“That allows the opportunity to move from a conceptual kind of conversation into an actual, almost 3D conversation, where member states sit at the podium with the co-chairs and present, and then all other member states are given the opportunity to actually ask questions and to, if you will, poke holes in this model,” said AlBanai.
He welcomed the US proposal as a positive step and encouraged other member states to do the same: “The Americans have moved from one African member to now two African members. Maybe they’ll move to two permanent African members with a veto in the future. Who knows? But we have to have that conversation, and we have to inject new blood into it.”
READ MORE:
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• Bahrain supports UN reform that ‘reflects current geopolitical realities’: Crown prince
• Reform of UN can ‘give Africa a voice,’ Mauritanian president says
• Algerian FM calls for UN reform to meet ‘dangers lurking all over the world’
The discussions on UNSC reform have also included a focus on regional representation.
One longstanding proposal that has been almost universally accepted is adding a permanent seat for the Arab world, which has long been advocated by the Arab League.
Cross Regional Groups have also introduced the idea of permanent seats for themselves, such as Small Island Developing States, known as SIDS, as well as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
“We have to consider these ideas,” said AlBanai.
“I don’t know what the criteria is. Is it the number of agenda items that are discussed in the Security Council? Is it your population? Is it the fact that you have the biggest army? The biggest economy? Could it be the number of international treaties that you’ve signed? Your compliance with international law? There are so many criteria out there, and the discussions should help us narrow in on who is deserving of this seat and how that could be in the future.
“But, surely, the most important thing is that we have a Security Council that reflects the realities of today.”
