Kathmandu (AFP) – Clean-up operations are underway in Nepal after torrential rains triggered landslides and flash floods that blocked major roads connecting the capital, Kathmandu. At least 43 people have been killed, according to a disaster official, with parts of the country inundated since Friday.
Lqliaa (AFP) – A funeral is held for Abdessamad Oubella, a 25-year-old film student who was killed overnight on October 1 in Lqliaa, near Agadir in southern Morocco. Two other people were also shot dead by police amid protests led mostly by young people demanding reforms in the North African country’s struggling health and education systems. Authorities said a group had tried to attack the security forces to “steal” ammunition and weapons. Oubella was “going there to document the situation”, says his brother Ayoub Oubella during the funeral held in the village of Adouz Oussaoud, near Lqliaa.
Damaskus (AFP) – Members of Damascus’s local electoral committee cast their votes to select Syria’s new transitional parliament. The process has been criticised as undemocratic, with a third of the members appointed by interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa. The parliament’s formation is set to consolidate the power of Sharaa, whose Islamist forces led a coalition that toppled longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December after more than 13 years of civil war.
Jerusalem (AFP) – Israeli defence minister Israel Katz says that the military’s offensive in Gaza City has so far displaced approximately 900,000 Palestinians. Israeli forces have carried out a sweeping air and ground assault in recent weeks around the city.
Pjöngjang (AFP) – North Korean state media releases images of leader Kim Jong Un attending the opening ceremony of the Defence Development-2025 in Pyongyang on October 4. During his address, Kim reportedly said North Korea had deployed “special assets” in response to what he called Washington’s arms build-up in the South.
Mumbai (AFP) – Bulldozers are expected to soon rumble into Dharavi, in the heart of the Indian megapolis of Mumbai, flattening its labyrinth of alleyways to make way for a brand-new neighbourhood. The $8 billion reconstruction plan promises new homes and infrastructure, but it also runs the risk of uprooting hundreds of thousands of residents.
Luxor (AFP) – The tomb of Pharoah Amenhotep III, one of the largest in southern Egypt’s Valley of the Kings and Queens, is officially opened to the public, after years of restoration. Decades of deterioration had left the structure at risk of collapse. Carved into the hillside on the west bank of the Nile, opposite the city of Luxor, the tomb is “decorated with wall paintings that are among the most exquisite of those surviving in the royal tombs of the Eighteenth Dynasty”, according to Japan’s UNESCO mission.
Prag (AFP) – Czechs head to the polls for the second and final day of a general election in which the party of self-described “Trumpist” billionaire Andrej Babis is a frontrunner — something that could weaken Prague’s support for Ukraine and affect ties with the European Union. Babis looks set to win the election, scoring 37.6 percent of the vote with over 60 percent counted, according to interim official results.
Nuseirat (AFP) – Gazans and Israelis are hopeful after Islamist group Hamas said it is ready to start talks to resolve all outstanding issues under US President Donald Trump’s Gaza ceasefire deal. The group said Friday that it was ready to release all hostages held in the Gaza Strip, but did not address calls for its disarmament and its exile from the Palestinian territory after the war’s end.
Antananarivo (AFP) – Police fire tear gas at protesters in Madagascar, who flee and take refuge inside a maternity hospital in Antananarivo. Addressing the president, protester Ricardo Rakotomalala says: “Get out, we’re really fed up with you. We’re not joking.” The United Nations says at least 22 people have been killed and hundreds injured since near-daily demonstrations called by a movement known as Gen Z Mada started.
Washington (AFP) – US President Donald Trump pledges in a brief video that all sides will be treated fairly in Gaza talks, as he hails Hamas’s apparent agreement to free hostages as a “special day”. “Everybody was unified in wanting this war to end,” Trump says in the message on his Truth Social network.
Rabat (AFP) – Youth-led protests demanding reforms to public healthcare and education take place in Morocco’s capital Rabat for a seventh day in a row. The protests, called by the online-based GenZ 212 group whose organisers remain unknown, also call on the kingdom’s premier to resign.
