At least 32 people have died in Nigeria’s northern Niger state after a boat sank in a river, an official has told the BBC.
The boat was reportedly overloaded, carrying about 100 passengers including women and children, capsized when it struck a submerged tree stump on the River Niger in the Borgu area on Tuesday morning.
They were on their way to a nearby village to pay their respects to the family of someone who had recently died.
Abdullahi Baba Ara, the spokesman of the National Emergency Management Agency (Nema) in the state, told BBC Hausa on Thursday that more than 50 other people had been rescued, with eight still missing.
Search operations are continuing.
Mr Ara said the government had set up a team of “water marshals” to stop boat operators from overloading their vessels and ensure passengers wear life jackets.
“Perhaps the water marshals were not on duty when this boat took off,” he said, adding that investigations had started.
A local district head told the Reuters news agency that he had been at the scene soon after the accident.
“I was at the scene yesterday around 12 pm until 4 pm. The boat carried more than 100 people. We were able to recover 31 corpses from the river. The boat was also recovered and removed,” Reuters quoted Sa’adu Inuwa Muhammad as saying.
Boat accidents are fairly common in Nigeria, often due to overloading, poor regulation and inadequate safety precautions.
About 25 people went missing last month after a boat accident in Sokoto state.
In December last year, 54 bodies were recovered from the River Niger after a boat that may have been carrying more than 200 passengers capsized.
The government has made it mandatory for water travellers to always wear life jackets, but this is often not enforced.
In February, the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola, set up a “Special Committee on the Prevention of Boat Mishaps in Nigeria”, and in May the ministry announced that it would be distributing 42,000 life jackets across 12 riverine states in the country.
Later in the month, the National Inland Water Ways Authority (NIWA) kicked off a campaign they called “No Life Jacket, No Travel”, and “No Night Travelling” in Niger and Kwara states where boat accidents have occurred regularly in the recent past.
Niger state is Nigeria’s largest by land mass and people tend to travel a lot by water as it is often the fastest and cheapest means of getting around.
Donald Trump has asked the US supreme court to overturn a lower court decision that most of his sweeping trade tariffs were illegal.
The US president filed a petition late on Wednesday to ask for a review of last week’s federal appeals court ruling in Washington DC, which centred on his “liberation day” border taxes introduced on 2 April that imposed levies of between 10% and 50% on most US imports and sent shock waves through global trade and markets.
The court found in a 7-4 ruling last Friday that Trump overstepped his presidential powers when he invoked a 1977 law designed to address national emergencies to justify his “reciprocal” tariffs.
The decision was the biggest blow yet to Trump’s tariff policies but the levies were left in place until 14 October, giving the administration time to ask the supreme court to review the decision.
Trump has now appealed and the supreme court is expected to review the case, although the justices must still agree to do so. The administration asked for that decision to be made by 10 September.
The appeal calls for an accelerated schedule with arguments being heard by 10 November, according to filings seen by Bloomberg. Justices could then rule by the end of the year.
The ruling that the tariffs were unlawful upheld a previous decision by the US court of international trade.
The federal appeals court said last Friday that US law “bestows significant authority on the president to undertake a number of actions in response to a declared national emergency, but none of these actions explicitly include the power to impose tariffs, duties or the like, or the power to tax”.
It said many of Trump’s steep tariffs were “unbounded in scope, amount and duration” and “assert an expansive authority that is beyond the express limitations” of the law his administration has leaned on.
The president swiftly hit back. “If allowed to stand, this Decision would literally destroy the United States of America,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
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On Tuesday he called for an “expedited ruling” from the supreme court. Addressing reporters at the White House, Trump claimed the US “could end up being a third-world country” without tariffs.
A defeat for Trump’s levies would at least halve the current average US effective tariff rate of 16.3%, and could force the US to pay back tens of billions of dollars, according to Chris Kennedy, an analyst at Bloomberg Economics. It could also derail the preliminary trade deals the president has struck with some countries, including the UK and the EU.
Tariffs typically need to be approved by Congress, but Trump claims he has the right to impose tariffs on trading partners under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which in some circumstances grants the president authority to regulate or prohibit international transactions during a national emergency.
Earlier this week, the US clothing brand Levi’s said “rising anti-Americanism as a consequence of the Trump tariffs and governmental policies” could drive British shoppers away from its denim. Other brands, such as Tesla, have also suffered in Europe and in Canada, while protests against US goods have led to a slump in sales of Jack Daniel’s whiskey.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un have sat down for formal talks in Beijing, a day after the pair and Russia’s Vladimir Putin put on an unprecedented show of unity against the West at a massive military parade.
Xi and Kim began their meeting at the Great Hall of the People on Thursday, Chinese state media reported, in their first formal sit-down in six years. The two leaders last met in Pyongyang in 2019, during Xi’s first state visit to North Korea.
Xi, Putin and Kim took center stage at China’s military parade marking 80 years of the end of World War II on Wednesday.
The trio – who had never appeared together in public before – formed the defiant face of an emerging bloc of illiberal leaders determined to push back against Western rules and tilt the global balance of power in their favor.
The parade – attended by leaders of 26 countries including Iran, Pakistan and Belarus – gave the heavily sanctioned Kim a rare chance to stand alongside political heavyweights on the global stage.
The staggering show of China’s military might capped days of diplomacy and pageantry by Xi to tout his country as an alternative global leader to the United States, at a time when President Donald Trump is upending American alliances and waging a trade war.
After the parade, Kim and Putin met for two and a half hours on the sidelines, where they discussed “long-term” cooperation plans, according to North Korean state media. Putin praised North Korean troops fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, invited Kim to visit Russia, and saw him off with a hug.
China has been the main political and economic patron for North Korea for decades, accounting for over 95% of its total trade and providing a crucial lifeline for its heavily sanctioned economy. North Korea is also China’s only formal ally, with a mutual defense treaty signed in 1961.
But as Pyongyang has greatly expanded its missile and nuclear programs since the early 2000s, some foreign policy analysts in Beijing increasingly saw North Korea as more of a liability than strategic ally.
In recent years, North Korea has moved closer to Russia as Putin turned to Kim for weapons and troops to sustain his war on Ukraine. Last year, the two leaders signed a landmark mutual defense pact in Pyongyang, committing to provide immediate military assistance to each other if under attack – a move that has rattled the US and its Asian allies.
Analysts say Xi was likely watching warily as Putin and Kim forged a new alliance that could complicate East Asia’s fragile security balance, draw more US focus to the region, and undercut Beijing’s efforts to manage stability on the Korean Peninsula.
Beijing is worried that Moscow’s assistance to Pyongyang in return for its weapons and troops – especially on military technology – would further enable and embolden the erratic Kim regime, which has drastically accelerated the buildup of nuclear weapons and missile programs.
Edward Howell, a lecturer in politics at the University of Oxford, said China is not “angry” at the rapprochement between North Korea and Russia, but “emetic, nauseous, and uneasy.”
“After all, prior to the Russia-North Korea (mutual defence) treaty…North Korea was the only country with whom China had a mutual defence pact, and vice versa,” he said.
Were China truly angry about the deepening cooperation, it could put an end to it by no longer helping North Korea evade sanctions or no longer enabling Russia’s war through trade in dual-use goods, Howell noted.
“China has done neither of these things, and will only continue to assist North Korea in evading sanctions whilst refraining from getting involved in any Russia-North Korea dynamics,” he said. “China wants to ensure that North Korea knows of Beijing’s desire to maintain influence over the Peninsula, but on the part of Pyongyang, it will keep trying to extract benefits from both Moscow and Beijing.”
China defended on Thursday its decision to invite the leaders of Russia and North Korea to World War II commemorations, which President Donald Trump accused them of using to conspire against the United States.
Trump wrote a testy Truth Social post addressing his Chinese counterpart after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russia’s Vladimir Putin flanked Xi Jinping at a massive parade in Beijing showcasing Chinese military hardware.
“Give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against The United States of America,” Trump wrote.
Asked about Trump’s post, Beijing’s foreign ministry said on Thursday “foreign guests” had been invited to commemorate 80 years since the end of World War II.
“It is to work together with peace-loving countries and peoples to remember history, cherish the memory of the martyrs, cherish peace, and create the future,” spokesman Guo Jiakun told reporters.
“China’s development of diplomatic relations with any country is never directed against any third party,” he said.
The Kremlin, meanwhile, said on Wednesday it thought Trump’s allegation was “not without irony”.
Beijing had much stronger words for the European Union’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas, who also criticised the parade.
Kallas said on Wednesday that Xi, Putin and Kim appearing together was part of efforts to build an anti-Western “new world order” and was “a direct challenge to the international system built on rules”.
“The remarks made by a certain EU official are full of ideological bias, lack basic historical knowledge, and blatantly stir up confrontation and conflict,” Guo said on Thursday.
“Such statements are profoundly misguided and utterly irresponsible,” he said, adding, “We hope that those people will abandon their frog-in-the-well prejudice and arrogance … and do more things that are conducive to world peace and stability and China-Europe relations.“
Xi holds talks with Kim in Beijing
State media reported that Xi and Kim have had talks in Beijing while the North Korean leader is in China on a rare foreign visit.
China is North Korea’s most important ally, their relationship forged in the bloodshed of the Korean War in the 1950s.
Chinese state media said Kim and Xi met for talks in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People today. The foreign ministry said earlier that the talks would be “an in-depth exchange of views on China-DPRK relations and issues of common concern”, using the acronym for North Korea.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping as they attend a military parade marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two in Beijing, China on September 3. — Reuters
“China is willing to work with the DPRK to strengthen strategic communication… (and) deepen the exchange of experience in governance,” spokesman Guo Jiakun said.
Kim arrived in Beijing on Tuesday accompanied by his daughter Kim Ju Ae, his second reported trip abroad in six years and his first to China since 2019.
In this photo provided by the North Korean government, from second left in front, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrive for a reception marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: “KCNA” which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)
Leaders pose for a group photo during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit in Tianjin. September 01, 2025 (AFP)
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit held in the Chinese city of Tianjin this week placed the Arab region, particularly the Gulf, at the heart of the processes reshaping the balance of power in Eurasia. Presided over by Chinese President Xi Jinping and attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other leaders, the summit further consolidated the new geopolitical realities in the Middle East, strengthening the diversification of alliances that allows states to avoid reliance on the US alone.
More than any other summit since the organization’s founding as a security framework in 2001 and its gradual expansion over a quarter of a century — it now represents nearly 40 percent of the world’s population — the Tianjin conference underscored the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s growing relevance for the Middle East. Indeed, Iran became a full member in 2023 and Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt obtained “dialogue partner” status in 2022.
This shift has effectively made the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf a natural extension of the Eurasian bloc, positioning the region at the center of future trade routes, logistics and energy flows. In one sign of this new reality, 10 Gulf ports were ranked among the world’s 70 most efficient in 2024.
Most importantly, the principles of the Tianjin Declaration clearly resonate with the current mood in the Arab world, particularly on questions of sovereignty, noninterference and global governance reform.
Most importantly, the principles of the Tianjin Declaration clearly resonate with the current mood in the Arab world
Nadim Koteich
The declaration was unequivocal in rejecting tutelage or unilateral sanctions, positions deeply familiar to most Arab capitals, which have long been wary of Western pressure framed as a defense of democracy or human rights. The statement also made a striking call for granting developing countries, including Arab states, more weight within international institutions such as the UN Security Council and the International Monetary Fund.
These themes are inseparable from the summit’s long-standing push for equitable development, particularly debt relief. Yet, this year, the statement went further: calling for regulation of the field of artificial intelligence and technology transfers, while freeing them from political constraints that hinder many nations’ progress and exacerbate their economic crises.
In this context, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s calls to accelerate de-dollarization, coupled with proposals to establish a development bank managed by the organization, were not merely slogans of a confrontation with the West. Rather, they reflect the emerging economic and geopolitical realities that have placed Gulf oil and gas at the heart of a multicurrency financial framework and a multipolar political order.
Nonetheless, this effort presents both challenges and opportunities for the Gulf states, which hold massive dollar-denominated surpluses exceeding $6 trillion in sovereign wealth fund assets and which export most of their energy in US dollars. However, it is one component of a deliberate repositioning strategy led by Gulf governments: diversifying their economies through multipronged initiatives, foremost among them linking China’s Belt and Road Initiative to maritime corridors through the Suez Canal and the Arabian Sea, thereby enhancing the strategic position of Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia as pivotal hubs in the emerging global trade map.
From this perspective, the summit’s rejection of what the leaders called a “Cold War mentality” is particularly significant, emphasizing the economic dimension of security in today’s world and underscoring the need for a shared security framework that addresses the concerns and interests of all parties. While the message was aimed primarily at Washington and NATO, it is also relevant for the Middle East, as the conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen and Iran are intertwined with global power struggles and the multipolar contest around the US security umbrella in the region.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s rejection of a ‘Cold War mentality’ is particularly significant
Nadim Koteich
In this sense, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, alongside BRICS, brings Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iran to the same table at a non-Western platform. It thereby offers space for creating a new framework for managing disputes without Western mediation, with all its biases, shortcomings and declining efficacy.
If Afghanistan has been a testing ground for the organization’s intentions, the Middle East will be the ultimate test of its ability to translate principles into material shifts that reshape spheres of influence and open the door to new actors to play a role in shaping regional security. All of that could pull Arab security out of the web of entrenched polarization.
The summit’s outcomes and its aspiration to affirm the end of US unipolarity are not merely academic abstractions to Arab states. They reflect the material realities that Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Cairo are navigating as they seek to balance relations with Washington, Beijing and Moscow.
Still, divergences within the organization persist, especially between China and India. Moreover, whether it has the capacity to evolve by translating statements into robust institutional frameworks remains an open question. These challenges do not, however, take anything away from the summit’s success in shaping a new geopolitical climate that lays the groundwork for an institutional alternative to the Western-dominated order.
The Tianjin summit is yet to develop a new global system but it has placed the Middle East at the center of this process, meaning that Arab actors’ roles, interests and choices are key to shaping the balance of the new era. From the ports of the Red Sea to the oil fields of the Gulf and from investment forums to negotiating tables, the region is asserting itself as an indispensable partner in crafting the world of tomorrow.
Nadim Koteich is the general manager of Sky News Arabia. X: @NadimKoteich
Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News’ point of view
