Kathmandu (AFP) – People stick up notices of missing people on a wall in Nepal’s Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu, as emergency response teams continue their searches 10 days after catastrophic flooding. So far 1,331 bodies have been recovered in Nepal, according to the national disaster agency. Around 5,000 people remain missing in the country.
Vereinte Nationen (AFP) – “The resolution adopted today reaffirms African reality,” says Togo’s foreign minister Robert Dussey, as the United Nations General Assembly votes to adopt a map that makes the continent bigger while shrinking North America and Europe. The resolution, which aims at “a more accurate representation” of continental landmasses, was supported by 164 countries while the United States voted against it and six other states abstained.
Aného (AFP) – On the waters of Lake Togo, a canoe advances slowly. On board, the mystical tam-tam Aklima is led towards a sacred forest where it will resonate to give the signal of a major step: the release of the 363rd sacred stone. Each year, the Guins of Aneho, Togo’s second city, wait attentively for the release of this stone whose colour is interpreted as a sign of what awaits the next 12 months. This year’s stone, white in colour, announces a year of “purity, peace and prosperity,” says a Voodoo priest.
Nuwakot (AFP) – Rescuers in Nepal pull alive a Chinese national from a tunnel and a local woman from her partially submerged home, as emergency response teams search with renewed vigour for thousands missing since catastrophic flooding 10 days ago. A tsunami-like wall of water and mud swept through the China-Nepal border following a vast glacial and rock collapse on August 26, killing at least 1,362 people and leaving more than 5,500 missing.
Venedig (AFP) – Liam and Noel Gallagher arrive by boat to the Venice Film Festival ahead of the premiere of ther tour documentary “Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger”. Screaming fans greet the once feuding brothers as they dock on the pier while others are already camping out at the red carpet — over 10 hours ahead of the premiere.
Austin (AFP) – Electric vehicle-maker Tesla rolls out its fully self-driving taxi, a gold car named “Cybercab,” which the Elon Musk-owned company hopes will compete with Uber and Waymo in the driverless market. Unlike Tesla’s previous driverless release, last year’s Model Y SUV and “Robotaxi service”, “Cybercab” is specifically designed to be an autonomous vehicle and has been built without pedals or a steering wheel. “I think it’ll change transportation from owning your own car to actually just getting transportation as a service,” says Australian tourist Graham Sprigg, “which is fantastic for disabled people and old people.”
Unknown (AFP) – Footage released by US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) shows US forces intercepting and destroying a vessel that US officials say was supporting at-sea drug trafficking by an Ecuadorian criminal organization. According to a SOUTHCOM post on X, the boat was “operating as a floating refueling station” in support of Los Choneros, one of Ecuador’s main drug trafficking and extortion groups. The interception comes after a similar operation that destroyed a vessel linked to the gang.
Banteay Meanchey (Cambodia) (AFP) – Rows of green roofs stretch into the distance at a Cambodian “waiting village”, that houses thousands of people displaced during last year’s deadly border clashes with Thailand. For those who lived in tents for months in the wake of the fighting, the huts are a marked improvement, and residents have set up coffee shops, salons and grocery stores in an effort to rebuild their lives. But most just want to return home, to land now held by Thai forces. “I still miss my home,” says one of those living in the new settlement, “because what I built for 20, 30 years is all there.” Bangkok says it has merely reclaimed Thai land that Cambodians had been occupying for years.
Bristol (United Kingdom) (AFP) – In a Bristol basement, animators painstakingly reposition small clay models, preparing the latest frame of Aardman Animations’ latest stop-motion movie, a Halloween offering titled “Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom.” The company — also behind favourites Wallace and Gromit — has perfected the technique over five decades, during which time it has won four Oscars. “Essentially, the shot that you do is a live performance,” says the film’s director Steve Cox, “so the animators are like our actors, really.” The upcoming “Beast of Mossy Bottom” is the third full-length film starring the mischievous, savvy Shaun the Sheep, and is due to be released in the UK on 18 September.
Buenos Aires (Argentina) (AFP) – Argentina’s President Javier Milei says that “any new advance on the Falkland Islands will be considered a threat to our national security.” Britain and Argentina fought a war over the South Atlantic archipelago, which Argentines refer to as Las Malvinas, in 1982. The fate of the islands hit headlines again in recent days, with US President Donald Trump threatening to wade into the dispute and an British-Israeli oil project near the islands causing anger in Argentina.
Baringo (Kenya) (AFP) – Wildlife officers have ramped up their efforts to capture and relocate crocodiles in Kenya’s Lake Baringo, where rising waters have pushed the creatures closer to homes. The lake has expanded by 70 percent since 2010, according to an AFP analysis of satellite imagery. Scientists attribute this to heavy rainfall linked to climate change, with authorities pushed to act on the crocodile problem by the impending El Nino weather pattern that threatens to create even more extreme conditions.
Rasuwa (Nepal) (AFP) – Two hydropower workers have been pulled alive from a tunnel buried by debris in Nepal, a rare ray of hope on the tenth day of rescue efforts after catastrophic Himalayan flooding.
