Category: 2. World

Through AP’s support, he secured $10,000 in funding to purchase professional tents, sleeping bags and stoves, moving from improvised to structured services. Sunny Hostel has now begun working with tour operators such as OshTrips and Visit Alay, and involves young people: students volunteer as city guides to practise English before moving into jobs in tourism. “Sustainability is not just a word for us. We want to preserve nature, avoid artificial experiences and focus on real culture,” he says.

Local entrepreneurs, lasting impact

Other entrepreneurs have followed similar paths. Support from AP helped Meergul Karakozueva plan her project, set prices and establish a yurt camp in the Alay mountains. In 2019, she received two yurts and a solar panel that remain central to the camp. Electricity was added only recently, and water supply is the next priority. She later expanded her business by opening the Art Hotel in Osh city, and in 2023 received in-kind technical assistance (washing machine, built-in dishwasher, steam generator) after pitching at the Women CUP incubation programme.

Baktybek Nuridinov and his friends began by leading informal tours in Osh, introducing friends and visitors to Kyrgyz landscapes and culture. As demand grew, they joined AP’s acceleration programme, receiving training, mentorship and financing. This support helped them move from “amateur to professional tourism”, expand their tours, hire more guides and improve service quality, turning Around.kg. into a rising force for community-based travel in the region.

From high-altitude domes and mountain cottages to yurt camps, hostels and locally led tours, these and other entrepreneurs supported by AKDN are transforming the Kyrgyz mountains. Their ventures are creating jobs, preserving cultural heritage and offering lasting opportunities for communities in some of the country’s most remote regions.

A crowded ferry boat has capsized in Nigeria’s Niger State, drowning at least 32 people, rescuers said on Thursday, raising the toll from the country’s latest fatal boat tragedy.

The vessel, which had nearly 100 men, women and children on board, reportedly hit a tree stump.

It capsized on Tuesday morning on the Malale River in the North Central region of the country, Red Cross representative Abubakar Idris told AFP.

“The cause was attributed to overloading and collision with a tree stump,” the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) said.

Read More: Afghanistan earthquake death toll surges past 2,200 as rescuers recover bodies

Raising an earlier toll, SEMA said 32 people were known to have died.

“After a thorough search and rescue operation, our men at Borgu (local district) have discovered three more bodies.

“Eight (people) are still missing and 50 survivors have been rescued,” SEMA representative Abdullahi Baba Arah told AFP.

Search operations are continuing, he added.

The passengers were travelling by river to the village of Dugga, around 15-20 kilometres (nine to 12 miles) away to pay their respects to someone who had died a few days earlier, rescue services said.

It reportedly hit the tree stump and capsized near the village of Gausawa.

Accidents are common on Nigeria’s busy rivers, often caused by overloaded boats, poor maintenance or failure to comply with safety regulations.

In late August, a boat carrying around 50 people overturned in the northwestern state of Sokoto, killing three people. Twenty-five others are missing, presumed dead.

Also Read: 17 killed in Lisbon’s Gloria funicular accident

A month earlier, six young girls drowned when the boat taking them home from a day’s work in the fields overturned in the middle of a river in northern Jigawa State.

Police said the boat was travelling in the dark, the water level was high and there were strong winds. Security regulations were not followed and the passengers did not have life jackets.

The restrictions come after the social media giants failed to meet state registration requirements, says government.

Nepal’s government has said it will shut off access to major social media platforms, including Facebook and X, after they failed to comply with authorities’ registration requirements.

The move, announced on Thursday, is part of what the government says is an effort to curb online hate, rumours and cybercrime.

Recommended Stories

list of 3 itemsend of list

Companies were given a deadline of Wednesday to register with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and provide a local contact, grievance handler and person responsible for self-regulation – or face shutdown.

“Unregistered social media platforms will be deactivated today onwards,” ministry spokesman Gajendra Kumar Thakur told AFP.

Communications and IT Minister Prithvi Subba Gurung said, “We gave them enough time to register and repeatedly requested them to comply with our request, but they ignored [this], and we had to shut their operations in Nepal.”

Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, YouTube parent Alphabet, X, Reddit, and LinkedIn were asked to register by Wednesday’s deadline.

AFP reported that the platforms remained accessible on Thursday.

‘Directly hits fundamental rights’

The online restrictions follow a 2023 directive requiring social media platforms – which have millions of users in Nepal with accounts for entertainment, news and business – to register and establish a local presence.

Only five, including TikTok and Viber, have since formally registered, while two others are in the process.

Bhola Nath Dhungana, president of Digital Rights Nepal, said that the sudden closure shows the “controlling” approach of the government.

“This directly hits the fundamental rights of the public,” Dhungana said. “It is not wrong to regulate social media, but we first need to have the legal infrastructure to enforce it. A sudden closure like this is controlling.”

Nepal has restricted access to popular online platforms in the past.

Access was blocked to the Telegram messaging app in July, with the government citing a rise in online fraud and money laundering.

In August last year, Nepal lifted a nine-month ban on TikTok after the platform’s South Asia division agreed to comply with Nepali regulations.

Governments worldwide, including the United States, European Union, Brazil and Australia, are also tightening oversight of social media and big tech, citing concerns over misinformation, data privacy, online harm and national security. India has mandated local compliance officers and takedown mechanisms, while China maintains strict censorship and licensing controls.

BEIJING — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of festivities commemorating the end of World War II, state media reported Thursday.

Kim attended a Chinese military parade in Beijing a day earlier, alongside other foreign leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kim is making a rare trip outside North Korea.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said that the two leaders would conduct in-depth exchanges of views on bilateral relations and issues of mutual concern.

He said that Kim’s attendance at the parade and the talks with Xi “carry great significance.”

The North Korean leader, who arrived in Beijing by train on Tuesday, was among 26 foreign leaders who watched the parade marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. It was the first time that he joined an event with a large group of world leaders since taking office in late 2011.

Kim, on his first visit to China in six years, brought his young daughter, adding to speculation that she’s being primed as the country’s next leader.

Experts say Kim likely hopes to restore ties with China, North Korea’s biggest trading partner and aid provider, as there have been questions about the bilateral relationship.

In recent years, Kim’s foreign policy has focused heavily on Russia. He has sent combat troops and ammunition to back Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in return for economic and military assistance. At a meeting with Kim in Beijing after the parade, Putin praised the bravery of North Korean soldiers in the fighting.

But experts say that Kim would feel the need to prepare for the possible end of the Russia-Ukraine war.

Some observers say Kim’s trip could also be meant to increase leverage in potential talks with U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly expressed his hopes to resume diplomacy between the two countries.

China, which is North Korea’s biggest trading partner and main provider of aid, wants its neighbor to return to negotiation and give up its nuclear weapons development.

North Korea has reached out to Russia, raising some concern in Beijing, which has long been North Korea’s most important ally.

The joint appearance of Kim, Xi and Putin at the parade has sparked speculation about a joint effort to push back at U.S. pressure on their three countries. Trump said as much in a social media post, telling Xi to give his warmest regards to Putin and Kim “as you conspire against The United States of America.”

Putin dismissed that idea at a news conference in Beijing on Wednesday, saying no one has expressed anything negative about the Trump administration during his trip to China.

“The President of the United States is not without a sense of humor,” he said.

Though China, North Korea and Russia are embroiled in separate confrontations with the U.S., they haven’t formed a clear three-way alliance so far.

Zhu Feng, the dean of Nanjing University’s School of International Relations, said that “ganging up” with North Korea would damage China’s image, because the former is the most closed and authoritarian country in the world.

“It should not be overinterpreted that China-North Korea-Russia relations would see reinforcement,” he said.

China used this week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) to drive new energy investment and collaboration.

The SCO summit, held in Tianjin from 31 August to 1 September 2025, brought together more than 20 national leaders, including the presidents of Russia and India, alongside 10 heads of international organisations. 

A series of initiatives were announced, including the launch of SCO energy and green-industry cooperation platforms, and the creation of a new development bank. China pledged CNY 2 billion (USD 280 million) in grants to member states this year, with an additional CNY 10 billion (USD 1.4 billion) in loans over the next three years. Beijing also committed to jointly adding “tens of gigawatts” of solar and wind power capacity with SCO members over the next five years.

Beyond financing, China also plans expand technical training. Xi announced that 10 new “Luban workshops” will be set up in SCO countries within five years to provide training opportunities in renewable energy, rail and automotive technologies.

The day after the summit, the SCO energy and green-industry platforms were formally launched. Li Sheng, head of the China Renewable Energy Engineering Institute, told Science and Technology Daily that solar and wind account for around 70% of China’s renewable cooperation with SCO states, and that meeting the gigawatt-scale targets by 2030 was “highly feasible.”

Founded in 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, the SCO has since expanded to 10 member states and 26 partner countries across Asia, Africa and Europe. This year’s summit, the largest in the bloc’s history, also underscored Beijing’s bid to deepen alliances through investment and technology cooperation, at a time of escalating tariff tensions with the United States.

Read Dialogue Earth’s recent analysis on China’s investment in the Global South.

Chandigarh: Punjab agriculture minister Gurmeet Singh Khudian accompanied Union agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Thursday to survey flood-hit areas in the Amritsar, Gurdaspur, and Kapurthala districts. During the visit, Khudian appealed for an immediate and substantial financial relief package from the Centre.Upon his arrival at Amritsar’s Sri Guru Ram Dass Jee International Airport, Khudian received Chouhan, who was in Punjab to assess the destruction and meet with local farmers. Khudian highlighted that over 4 lakh acres of the state’s agricultural land had been submerged, a devastating impact that threatens both state and national food security. He noted that paddy fields had been the worst affected, with the devastation occurring just weeks before the harvesting season. This resulted in significant losses for farmers and the state’s agricultural economy. The minister added that the rural economy had been further hit by substantial damage to livestock.Expressing concern over the current compensation for flood victims, Khudian stated that the crop damage compensation of Rs 6,800 per acre is insufficient given the extensive losses farmers have suffered. He urged the govt to increase the compensation to at least Rs 50,000 per acre. “Punjab’s contribution to the nation’s food security cannot be overlooked,” he said, emphasizing the state’s pivotal role as an agrarian state that contributes to the central food pool. Khudian also demanded the immediate release of Rs 8,000 crore of Rural Development Fund (RDF) and Market Development Fund (MDF) stalled by the govt. Apart from this, Punjab requires a special package to mitigate the impact of the floods and support the state’s economy, he said.The paddy crop of farmers has been destroyed by the floods in many areas and even where water has receded there is fear of damage to the grains that could result in rejection of the crop at the time of procurement by the Food Corporation of India (FCI). MSID:: 123699811 413 |

How we verified the first images at the scene of the funicular crash in Lisbonpublished at 11:33 British Summer Time

11:33 BST

Emma Pengelly and Sherie Ryder
BBC Verify

As soon as the news broke last night about the funicular crash in central Lisbon our late shift was tasked with finding and verifying images and footage from the scene.

We started looking for social media posts showing what happened that could be fed into the BBC News live page and passed to producers working on TV news.

Here are some steps we take to verify material

When we find social media posts purporting to be from the scene of a breaking news story we first check that the images or footage are current by carrying out reverse image searches.

This means taking a series of grabs from the video and putting them into Google Images.

If it doesn’t find any matching images then we can be confident it’s new, not old material being reused.

Once this is done, we can check the location from where the footage was filmed or picture taken.

This may already be incorporated in a post but we need to check to be absolutely sure it’s from where it claims to be from.

We do this by using Google Maps in the first instance.

If we have a good idea where the incident took place we can check street level imagery using tools like Google Street View.

Image source, Eric Packer

Israeli bombardment of Gaza City is pushing more Palestinians out of their homes, residents have said.

Gaza health authorities said Israeli fire had killed at least 28 people on Thursday, most of them in Gaza City, where Israeli forces have advanced through the outer suburbs and are now only a few miles from the centre.

Israel launched its latest offensive in August with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying it was designed to defeat Hamas militants in the city, but the campaign has prompted international criticism because of the dire humanitarian crisis in the area.

It has also provoked unusual concerns within Israel, including accounts of tension over strategy between some military commanders and political leaders.

A number of Israelis took part in nationwide demonstrations on Wednesday to protest against the call-up of 60,000 reservists for the expanded operation amid fears it could endanger hostages still held in Gaza.

Residents said Israel bombarded Gaza City’s Zeitoun, Sabra and Shejaia districts from ground and air. They said tanks pushed into the eastern part of the Sheikh Radwan district, situated northwest of the city centre, destroying houses and causing fires in tent encampments.

There was no immediate Israeli comment on the reports, but its military has previously said it is operating on the outskirts of the city to dismantle militants’ tunnels and locate weapons.

Much of Gaza City was destroyed in the conflict’s initial weeks in October-November 2023. About a million people lived there before the war. Hundreds of thousands are believed to have returned to live among the ruins, and since Israel ordered people out of other areas and launched offensives elsewhere.

Israel has told civilians to leave Gaza City for their safety and, says 70,000 have done so, but Palestinian officials say less than half that number have left, and many thousands are still in the path of Israel’s advance.

Nelson Mandela’s grandson has said Palestinians’ lives under Israeli occupation are worse than anything Black South Africans experienced under apartheid, and he urged the global community to come to their aid.

Mandla Mandela, 51, told Reuters news agency on Wednesday: “Many of us that have visited the occupied territories in Palestine have only come back with one conclusion: that the Palestinians are experiencing a far worse form of apartheid than we ever experienced.

“We believe that the global community has to continue supporting the Palestinians, just as they stood side-by-side with us.”

Read more:
‘At night we don’t sleep’: The West Bank family facing harassment
Inside the conflict forcing Palestinians from their homes

Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates has warned any Israeli move to annex the occupied West Bank would be a “red line”.

The UAE was the driving force behind the 2020 Abraham Accords brokered by US President Donald Trump, in which it and three other Arab countries forged ties with Israel.

Lana Nusseibeh, assistant minister for political affairs and envoy of the minister of foreign affairs of the UAE, told Reuters “annexation in the West Bank would constitute a red line for the UAE”, as it would severely undermine “the vision and spirit” of the Abraham Accords and end the pursuit of regional integration.