标签： Asia

A deadly flash flood event that hit the border region between Nepal and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China has triggered a separate development involving online content control, as visual recordings of the disaster have largely disappeared from China’s tightly regulated internet ecosystem.

Multiple sources familiar with China’s online content policies confirm that footage capturing the flood’s damage and human impact has been systematically removed from major domestic social media platforms, search engines, and video-sharing sites. As a result, users accessing the internet through China’s mainstream network infrastructure now face extreme difficulty locating any user-uploaded or independent recordings of the cross-border natural disaster.

Flash floods in the mountainous Nepal-Tibet border region are a recurring seasonal hazard, fueled by intense monsoon rainfall or sudden glacial lake outburst events that can sweep through river valleys with little warning, causing widespread destruction to local communities and infrastructure. This latest event has already been confirmed to have resulted in fatalities on both sides of the border, according to initial regional reports.

China’s national internet regulatory framework is designed to restrict the spread of what authorities classify as “disruptive information” or content that could spark public unease, leading to routine removal of unapproved coverage of natural disasters, accidents, and other sensitive events. This latest incident of content removal highlights the ongoing operation of that censorship system in the context of a cross-border natural disaster.

Six months into the US-Israeli military conflict with Iran and amid a crippling US naval blockade disrupting its key oil exports, Tehran has hit nearly all of its first four-month oil revenue projections for the current Iranian calendar year, transferring $7.5 billion in oil earnings to the country’s central bank, Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency reported Saturday. Citing official data from Iran’s oil ministry, Fars noted that the accumulated $7.5 billion will cover all of the Iranian government’s planned foreign currency expenses for the six-month period from July through December.

Between March 21 and July 22, the opening four months of Iran’s 1404 calendar year, total oil revenue reached 99 percent of the target outlined in the country’s annual national budget, the outlet confirmed. The milestone comes as Washington’s naval blockade has severely disrupted Tehran’s oil exports and broader maritime trade, with the status of the Strait of Hormuz — the strategic waterway that carries roughly a fifth of the world’s daily oil consumption — emerging as the core flashpoint in ongoing tensions between the US and Iran.

Iran has restricted transit through the key chokepoint since the conflict began, while the US has demanded full reopening to guarantee unimpeded navigation. A landmark June Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) reached to de-escalate the US-Israeli war on Iran included two core provisions: lifting the US naval blockade and reopening the Strait of Hormuz to full commercial traffic. But Iranian officials have repeatedly emphasized that Tehran will not fully reopen the waterway until Washington fulfills all its commitments under the MoU, which also include releasing billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets and rolling back sweeping international sanctions.

In recent comments, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian acknowledged the heavy toll US sanctions have inflicted on Iran’s domestic economy, pushing back against public claims that the restrictions have had no meaningful impact. “Some say sanctions have no effect at all; to those people, I really don’t know what to say,” Pezeshkian told Iranian state television in an interview. “We are in a war situation, and we must accept these wartime conditions.”

Tehran Governor Mohammad Sadeq Motamedian echoed that assessment Saturday, telling a televised panel that the combined pressure of the naval blockade, intensified sanctions, and targeted attacks on critical domestic infrastructure have created unprecedented challenges for governing the country, per remarks carried by the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA). “The blockade imposed on our country in the maritime domain meant that managing the country took place under truly exceptional and unique conditions,” he said.

Motamedian added that US-Israeli strikes have heavily focused on infrastructure across Iran, particularly in the capital Tehran, but quick response teams have restored most damaged services rapidly. More than 1,200 electricity infrastructure sites across Tehran province have been targeted in attacks, he confirmed, though power services were restored within a short timeframe after each strike. Water infrastructure also sustained damage but was quickly repaired, while telecommunications and natural gas distribution facilities also suffered disruptions, he added. Intensified international sanctions imposed during the conflict have piled additional economic pressure on the country, the governor noted.

The US-Israeli military campaign against Iran launched on February 28, with initial strikes targeting military sites, nuclear facilities, and critical civilian infrastructure across the country. Tehran responded with coordinated missile and drone strikes targeting Israeli territory and US military bases across the Middle East, escalating the regional conflict. The June MoU was designed to open negotiations for a permanent ceasefire and broader peace agreement, but those talks have since stalled over intractable disagreements on security guarantees and rules for navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.

As the standoff continues, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) released an update Friday warning that hundreds of commercial vessels and thousands of seafarers remain stranded in the Persian Gulf six months after the conflict began. “While some ships and their crews have been able to leave the Gulf, up to 400 ships carrying around 6,000 seafarers have been unable to depart safely since the conflict began,” IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez said in a statement. Dominguez also warned that the ongoing disruption to global fuel and fertilizer supply chains stemming from the closure carries “grave” consequences for vulnerable communities and national economies around the world. This report is compiled from original independent coverage by Middle East Eye.

Four days have passed since catastrophic flash floods tore through mountainous border regions shared by Nepal and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, leaving hundreds dead and thousands more unaccounted for, and adverse weather conditions on Saturday brought a halt to critical aerial rescue efforts that have been running nonstop since the disaster struck.

The deadly disaster, triggered by a sudden glacier collapse that unleashed torrents of water and debris across the high Himalayan landscape on Wednesday, has already claimed an overwhelming number of lives. As of Friday, Nepal’s official disaster management authority recorded 579 fatalities, while local police later updated the confirmed death toll to 553. On the Chinese side of the border, official reports raised the confirmed death count to seven by Friday, with large-scale village evacuations underway and top political leaders leading on-the-ground relief coordination.

Across Nepal alone, the number of people listed as missing has nearly doubled in recent days to 1,924, after registration officials added hundreds more unaccounted-for local residents to the official tally. China’s official state media has reported 554 people missing on its side of the border. Among the missing are hundreds of foreign nationals, who were in the region for work on infrastructure projects, high-altitude trekking, or religious pilgrimage to the area’s sacred mountain peaks. To date, more than 3,700 people trapped by the floodwaters have been pulled to safety across Nepal.

Brigadier General Raja Ram Basnet, spokesperson for the Nepali Army, confirmed Saturday that all helicopter rescue operations would remain suspended until inclement weather clears enough to allow safe flight operations. Even before the pause, search and rescue teams faced extreme, overwhelming obstacles to reach trapped survivors. At the Upper Trishuli-1 Hydropower Project, a major infrastructure construction site in Nepal’s Rasuwa District, authorities believe more than 100 workers remain trapped inside a construction tunnel that has been completely filled with thick, heavy mud. Rescuers have only been able to reach a small number of people at the site using makeshift systems of baskets and ropes, but progress remains glacial: up to 1.5 meters (5 feet) of dense mud covers the entire area, and there are almost no suitable landing spots for rescue helicopters to deploy personnel and equipment.

Search operations are ongoing across multiple high-risk sites on both sides of the border, including the flood-ravaged Gyirong border crossing, which suffered extensive damage in the initial disaster. On Saturday, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV released new on-site footage showing rescue teams reaching the damaged Gyirong Port crossing, with crews accessing remote cut-off areas on foot, via inflatable rafts, and even by being lowered from drones deployed into the disaster zone. The footage showed rescuers calling out “Anyone, anyone?” as they searched rubble and debris for any trapped survivors, with no immediate confirmation of how many people were in the border checkpoint compound when the floods hit.

In addition to challenging terrain and bad weather, rescue teams have also faced persistent secondary risks: authorities have been on high alert for a second catastrophic flood, triggered by a new glacial lake that formed high in the Himalayas after the initial glacier collapse that sparked Wednesday’s disaster. Experts issued urgent warnings that the new lake was at risk of overflowing, which would send a second wave of floodwaters down into the already devastated valley. However, latest monitoring data from China’s Ministry of Water Resources, released late Friday, showed the lake has shrunk considerably, with water levels dropping more than 10 meters (32 feet) from their peak Thursday morning, reducing the risk of a repeat disaster. Even so, Basnet noted that rescue teams have had to temporarily relocate operations multiple times as new flood warnings are issued for at-risk areas.

The disaster has sparked urgent international attention, with United Nations agencies warning that more than 17,000 children in affected areas are in immediate need of life-saving assistance, and families of missing foreign nationals — including dozens of relatives of missing people from the United States — have publicly called for accelerated rescue efforts to locate their loved ones. This reporting was a collaborative effort by Associated Press journalists across multiple locations in South Asia and the United States.

A transgender Israeli woman with a background in elite Israeli military intelligence is set to be deported from the United States following a conviction on felony kidnapping charges, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed this week.

ICE announced in a public statement Thursday that agents took Eliyahu Alon, identified by the agency as a “criminal illegal alien from Israel”, into custody during a targeted enforcement operation in Concord, New Hampshire. ICE referenced Alon by her previous given name, Avishay, a decision that comes amid Alon’s longstanding legal fight over gender recognition during her criminal proceedings.

According to ICE’s public disclosure, Alon’s criminal record includes three separate felony convictions: making criminal threats with a deadly weapon, kidnapping, and unlawful possession of controlled substances. Before relocating to the United States, Alon served in Unit 81, one of the Israeli Defense Forces’ most sensitive classified divisions, which develops cutting-edge technology for special operations run by Israeli military intelligence. Following her military service, Alon transitioned gender and went on to hold senior engineering positions at major U.S. tech giants Amazon and Microsoft, court records and legal representatives confirmed to The Jerusalem Post.

Alon’s offense stemmed from a 2024 incident: she was arrested in September that year for abducting a male acquaintance whom she suspected had spiked her water bottle with GHB, the so-called “date rape drug” linked to sexual assault. Court indictment documents show that the plan to abduct and interrogate the man originated with a friend of Alon’s, Brian Levy, who pushed Alon to confront the suspect. When law enforcement arrived at Alon’s Dover, New Hampshire, residence to investigate a report of a suspicious vehicle parked outside, they inadvertently uncovered the kidnapping: officers heard the victim screaming for help from inside the home. At the time of the raid, Alon had two loaded handguns on the property, one of which was fitted with an illegal silencer, and she had pointed one of the weapons at the victim during his detention, the indictment confirms.

Alon was tried and sentenced as a male despite her public gender identity as a woman, receiving a prison sentence of 2 to 6 years in state custody in early July. Following her sentencing, Alon launched a legal challenge to her placement in a male correctional facility, requesting access to gender-affirming medical care and a transfer to a women’s prison. Instead of ruling on her correctional placement appeal, New Hampshire authorities transferred Alon to federal immigration custody on August 20 to begin deportation proceedings, clearing the way for her removal from the U.S. once her sentence concludes.

Two and a half years into Sudan’s brutal civil conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), civilian communities across the country have been left with no choice but to take up arms to defend their homes, families and lives. As fighting shifts to the resource-rich Kordofan region south of Darfur, this pattern of civilian mobilisation has repeated – drawing in pro-democracy activists, former regime opponents, and ordinary people united by the shared threat of RSF violence, even as political divisions over the movement persist.

This wave of civilian self-defence is not a new development. From the earliest months of the war, which broke out in April 2023, communities have risen up to repel RSF incursions when central military defences failed. In summer 2023, Masalit fighters in Darfur’s al-Geneina launched a counteroffensive against advancing RSF and allied militias that were rampaging through the city. Villages in al-Jazira state, south of Khartoum, fought off invading RSF fighters even as surrounding neighbourhoods and towns fell. Most infamously, residents of el-Fasher – the besieged capital of North Darfur – helped hold RSF forces at bay for more than 550 days, until defensive lines collapsed in October 2025, leading to a massacre that killed an estimated 60,000 people.

Today, the epicentre of the conflict has moved south to Kordofan, and civilians here too have joined the fight. Most have aligned with Popular Resistance units, organised to fight alongside the SAF. The Popular Resistance was formally established by SAF chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan in June 2023, with the military providing tens of thousands of civilian volunteers with weapons and basic combat training. Its ranks include a diverse cross-section of Sudanese society, even counting pro-democracy revolutionaries who once opposed Burhan and his military government.

But the movement has not escaped political controversy. Sumood, a bloc of civilian political parties led by former Sudanese prime minister Abdalla Hamdok, argues that the Popular Resistance is dominated by religious conservatives who seek to use the movement as a vehicle to restore political figures from the authoritarian regime of former president Omar al-Bashir to power.

For civilians on the frontlines in North Kordofan, however, politics have been set aside in the face of existential violence. Mustafa Karam al-Din, a pharmacist from the strategic city of Bara, joined the Popular Resistance under SAF command after RSF fighters killed his brother and ransacked his family home in 2024. “They raided our house, killing my brother and others in my neighbourhood, so I had no option other than taking up weapons to protect myself and my family and neighbours,” Karam al-Din explained in an interview with Middle East Eye in el-Obeid, capital of North Kordofan. “The RSF was very brutal with everybody when they entered the city. That wasn’t just against armed people but against all citizens, including the civilians.”

According to Karam al-Din, the RSF launched a campaign of collective revenge when it recaptured Bara in 2024, after the SAF briefly seized control of the city and residents celebrated the RSF’s expulsion. “They had videos and lists of some people, including the agents of the Popular Resistance,” he said. For civilian communities across Bara and wider Kordofan, this brutality made clear that self-defence was a necessity. “They entered police stations and weapons stores and took up weapons. They also got others from the SAF. Then the Popular Resistance was organised, including in Bara, el-Obeid and other areas in Kordofan,” Karam al-Din added.

Bara has been one of the hardest-hit areas in the latest phase of the war, changing hands between the SAF and RSF multiple times over the past three years due to its position along Kordofan’s critical Export Road. Since July 2025, the city has been held by the SAF. “Since October last year we have been fighting with the SAF against the RSF until we liberated our city, and I’m very proud of that,” Karam al-Din said.

Karam al-Din frames the conflict not just as a domestic civil war, but as a fight against foreign intervention: the RSF has been widely backed by the United Arab Emirates, which has continued to supply the paramilitary with weapons and foreign mercenaries despite global condemnation and widespread accusations of RSF war crimes, including genocide in Darfur – a charge already formally leveled by the U.S. government and multiple leading human rights organisations. “This conflict has become a war against the UAE’s foreign invasion, which is using the RSF as a tool,” said Karam al-Din, who now mans frontline checkpoints. He added that SAF forces recovering Bara found evidence of UAE-origin weapons and supplies in captured RSF positions, and that resistance fighters have arrested foreign mercenaries from Colombia, South Sudan and other countries fighting alongside the RSF in towns including Um Syala and Gabrat al-Shiekh.

Godat Abdul Hadi, a senior Popular Resistance leader, told MEE that the organisation now runs military training programs for hundreds of young people displaced from Bara to el-Obeid. “The Popular Resistance in el-Obeid, Bara and other areas began at the start of the war and even before the SAF officially declared and expanded it under SAF command,” he explained. “The number was initially small, but it has hugely increased in response to the RSF invasion of the majority of North and West Kordofan and with the widespread atrocities it committed.”

Not all civilian activists in Kordofan have embraced armed resistance alongside the SAF, however. Mohammed Adam, a pro-democracy activist and member of the Resistance Committees network that led the 2019 revolution that ousted Bashir, long questioned whether aligning with the military was the right response to RSF aggression. When the RSF overran Bara in October 2024, Adam was sheltering a group of armed young resistance fighters in his home, and faced immediate danger when the paramilitary advanced.

“I can never forget that day. Some of the armed youths were with me in my house, and they were unable to join their units because of intensive RSF fire. So, we lay under beds for hours, and when the crossfire stopped, we realised the SAF had been defeated and RSF fighters were starting to attack civilians,” Adam recalled. The group quickly hid all weapons and military uniforms, and Adam provided civilian clothes for the fighters before they attempted to flee. Even after RSF fighters entered the home, accused the group of being associates of the former “deep state” and searched the property, they did not discover the hidden arms, allowing Adam and the fighters to escape that night to el-Obeid.

Looking back on the chaos, Adam described scenes of widespread carnage: dozens of civilian bodies left in the streets, with wounded and displaced residents relying on help from nearby village communities for basic food, water and emergency medical care. He recalled a particularly brutal incident that turned even hesitant residents in Bara completely against the RSF: paramilitary fighters killed a local neighbour, then opened fire on his funeral the same day, killing dozens more unarmed civilians for no reason.

Critics within Kordofan’s pro-democracy movement share the concern that the Popular Resistance has been co-opted by allies of the old Bashir regime. One anonymous Resistance Committees activist from Bara told MEE that former regime associates are leading the Popular Resistance in the region to pave the way for an authoritarian comeback. “Former regime associates are leading the so-called Popular Resistance in Bara and other places in order to pave the way for the old regime to exploit the war and return to power,” the activist said. “This war has to be stopped by all means and concessions. It destroyed the country and enabled the old regime to come back through the SAF.”

Even Adam, who has reservations about aligning with Burhan’s military, acknowledges that ordinary civilians have no other viable option to protect themselves from RSF brutality. “The RSF has attacked everybody: civilians or military, young or old, men or women. They take revenge on everybody in Bara,” he said. “Those who took up weapons in self-defence were our brothers, cousins and neighbours. Any previous political disagreements are not an issue at the moment. Let me tell you: I prefer not to carry weapons under the SAF, but I can’t tell those who have been attacked and humiliated by the RSF not to defend themselves by all means.”