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‘Everything has been lost’: Kashmir floods, landslides kill dozens

‘Everything has been lost’: Kashmir floods, landslides kill dozens

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir — Forty-year-old Ruksana wails as she looks at her home, a desolate one-storey structure stripped of windows and doors next to the raging Tawi river in Jammu’s rundown neighbourhood of Gujar Nagar. A coarse coating of mud drips down the outer walls of the house. “My husband is handicapped, and I have built this home by working at people’s homes,” she wails. “I could only rescue my two children and husband. Everything else, their clothes, their books, food has been lost.” For dozens of families, the loss is even graver. At least 40 people have died and scores have been injured as torrential rains in Indian-administered Kashmir triggered major landslides this week, with flash floods sweeping away homes and knocking down telecommunication networks and powerlines. The majority of those killed were pilgrims travelling to the Vaishno Devi temple in Jammu’s Katra. The shrine, one of the most popular Hindu pilgrimage spots, is located about 60km from Jammu city. Devotees trek about 12–13km uphill from the base camp to reach it. “There was chaos. Death had never seemed [so] close. Some people are still missing,” said Rakesh Kumar, 42, who had come to Katra from Madhya Pradesh, a central Indian state. “The internet and phones were dead, which created a lot of panic.” Jammu recorded its heaviest-ever 24-hour rainfall on Tuesday – 380mm, compared with the previous record of 270.4mm in 1988 – triggering widespread devastation across the region. Some of the deceased pilgrims visiting the Vaishno Devi shrine have been identified as residents of Punjab, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh states. A woman stands in front of houses damaged by the deadly flood caused by sudden, heavy rain in Chasoti town of Kishtwar district, Indian-administered Kashmir, August 15, 2025 [Stringer/Reuters] ‘We hope they are alive’ Mohan Das, another devotee from the state of Uttar Pradesh, said that he was looking for five friends who were missing. “We don’t know where they are. It has been 12 hours since we last saw them,” Das said. Advertisement Jammu abuts the mountains that girdle the Kashmir Valley. The latest crisis came days after a series of flash floods in the remote regions of Kishtwar and Kathua districts killed dozens in Indian-administered Kashmir. The regional administration has set up relief camps and announced compensation for affected families. The region’s Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and the federally appointed Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha have toured the worst-hit areas. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised the central government’s assistance, and the authorities said they evacuated more than 5,000 people stranded in the floods. In Jammu, the floods surged through the city and swept away bridges on the Tawi, a major lifeline for the region. Images showed policemen in Jammu desperately trying to halt traffic approaching a damaged bridge before a side of it collapsed. Along the steep mountainous routes that trace a winding path through the craggy hills of Jammu, roads caved in under landslides, forcing the only land route from the rest of India to the region to shut temporarily. The Indian government also mobilised a fleet of military transport aircraft to fast-track the delivery of aid and other essential supplies into the region, where air traffic was closed on Tuesday before operations resumed the following day. India’s National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and police personnel carry a dead body on a stretcher during rescue operations after flash floods in Chasoti village, Kishtwar district, Indian-administered-Kashmir, Saturday, August 16, 2025 [Channi Anand/AP Photo] ‘Waters close in on Kashmir’ Bashash Mahmood, 23, a university law student, was abruptly awakened by a midnight call while sleeping at his hotel in Srinagar. On the line was his cousin, calling from Anantnag—58 kilometres away. Floodwaters on Wednesday knocked down mobile and electricity towers and severed optical fibre cables, crippling the region’s entire telecommunications infrastructure. So Bashash could only hear a jumble of crackling words as he tried to make sense of what his cousin was saying. He finally managed to catch an urgent SOS message: floodwaters had surged outside his home in Bijbehara, Anantnag, and his family was in danger. He took his car and raced along empty roads in the middle of the night, past the Indian army garrison at Badambagh, and through the sprawling saffron fields of Pampore. When he arrived at Sangam, a canyon where two major rivers in Anantnag join, he rolled down his windows, the rain pelting against his face. “I realised that water had risen dangerously close to the embankment.” Advertisement Once he reached home, Bashash got to work and carried household items such as a fridge, furniture and utensils to the second storey of their house, emptying the ground floor. In the morning, videos went viral showing people paddling rafts through the streets, as water had submerged large parts of South Kashmir, especially Anantnag district. In Srinagar, the region’s biggest city, panic reached a crescendo on Wednesday afternoon – reinforced by public memories of apocalyptic floods that had struck in 2014. Back then, floodwaters from swollen rivers had breached the banks, burying large parts of the Kashmir valley. As Bashash recalls, when the waters finally receded 11 years ago, the floods had left two feet of sludge residue that locals scooped up with their bare hands before cleaning their homes to make them livable again. “Just the thought of how hard it was for us to defecate terrifies me. We would rather refuse to eat anything to get ourselves constipated because there were no toilets,” he says. Haunted by those memories, residents across Kashmir were seen assembling sandbags and plugging gaps to prevent breaches through which the swelling river might come. If it was the Tawi in Jammu, it was the Jhelum river – also a lifeline-turned-threat – that poses the danger in Kashmir. The river crisscrosses its way through the entire length of the Kashmir valley before crossing over into Pakistan. The floods have revived memories of the devastating floods of 2014. Here, a Kashmiri man rows

Top US senators arrive in Taiwan to discuss security amid China threat

Top US senators arrive in Taiwan to discuss security amid China threat

Roger Wicker, head of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, says trip is focused on security ties with island. Published On 29 Aug 202529 Aug 2025 Two senior Republican senators known for their strong advocacy on Taiwan have arrived in the island’s capital, Taipei, to discuss security amid a rising military threat from China. US Senator Roger Wicker, chairman of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, and Senator Deb Fischer said on Friday their visit was to reinforce and emphasise the “great partnership” between the United States and Taiwan. “We stand here to re-emphasise the partnership and the security, friendship agreement that the United States has had with Taiwan for some decades,” Wicker told reporters ahead of meetings with President William Lai Ching-te and other government officials. The visit comes as the US Senate is due to consider next week the National Defence Authorisation Act, or NDAA, a nearly $1 trillion bill that sets policy for US national defence. Wicker said that this year’s NDAA would “add to the provisions again” when it came to Taiwan, though he gave no details. Before the trip, Senator Fischer issued a statement, saying she looked forward to the visit “to see firsthand how we can strengthen our posture in the region in order to safeguard American interests and our allies”. Fischer is also a member of the powerful Armed Services Committee, which is responsible for legislative oversight of the US military. The Chinese embassy last month urged Wicker and other lawmakers to cancel plans to go to Taiwan. Beijing, which views the island as its own territory, regularly denounces any shows of support for Taipei from Washington. China has increased its military activities around Taiwan in recent years, including staging war games, and Beijing has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control. Advertisement The senators’ trip also takes place as some members of Congress – both Republicans and Democrats – have expressed concern that US President Donald Trump is de-emphasising security issues as he works on negotiating a trade deal with China. The Trump administration reportedly denied permission for Taiwan’s Lai to transit in New York as part of a planned official trip to Latin America after Beijing objected. Lai reportedly then cancelled the trip. Administration officials, however, said Trump remains fully committed to Asia Pacific security matters as he pursues his trade agenda as well as a good personal relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The US is Taiwan’s most important international backer and supplier of arms despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties. On Saturday, the US-based Naval News reported that the US is considering new sites in Palau and Australia for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to boost its military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Asia Pacific. The US also announced it is rebuilding a dock in Palau, which is one of Taiwan’s closest diplomatic allies. Adblock test (Why?)

Microsoft fires four workers over protests against firm’s ties to Israel

Microsoft fires four workers over protests against firm’s ties to Israel

Microsoft says the terminations followed serious breaches of company policies amid claims that its software is used by Israeli army in Gaza. Published On 29 Aug 202529 Aug 2025 Microsoft has fired four employees who participated in protests on company premises over the firm’s ties to Israel, including two who took part in a sit-in this week at the office of the company’s president. Anna Hattle and Riki Fameli received voicemails informing them that they were fired, the protest group No Azure for Apartheid said in a statement on Wednesday. It added on Thursday that two more workers, Nisreen Jaradat and Julius Shan, were also sacked. They were among demonstrators who had recently set up encampments at Microsoft headquarters to protest against the company’s support for Israel as it wages its war on Gaza. Microsoft said the terminations followed serious breaches of company policies. In its statement on Thursday, it said recent on-site demonstrations had “created significant safety concerns”. No Azure for Apartheid, whose name references Microsoft’s Azure software, has demanded that the company cut its ties to Israel and pay reparations to Palestinians. “We are here because Microsoft continues to provide Israel with the tools it needs to commit genocide while gaslighting and misdirecting its own workers about this reality,” Hattle said in a statement. Hattle and Fameli were among seven protesters who were arrested on Tuesday after occupying the office of company President Brad Smith. The other five were former Microsoft workers and people outside the company. Smith has said Microsoft respected “freedom of expression that everyone in this country enjoys as long as they do it lawfully”. Claims on Microsoft’s Azure app A joint media investigation published this month found that an Israeli military surveillance agency was making use of Microsoft’s Azure software to store a large volume of recordings of mobile phone calls made by Palestinians living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza. Advertisement The investigation, conducted by The Guardian, +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, said Israel relied on Microsoft cloud for expansive surveillance of Palestinians. In response, Microsoft said it was turning to law firm Covington & Burling LLP to conduct a review. Other Microsoft workers have also protested against the company’s ties to Israel. In April, Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman’s remarks were interrupted by an employee who protested against the firm’s ties with Israel during the technology company’s 50th anniversary celebration. That employee and another protesting employee were also subsequently fired. Firms and educational institutions have faced protests over ties with Israel as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza from Israel’s military assault has mounted, and images of starving Palestinians, including children, have caused global outrage. Israel has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, caused a famine and forced the displacement of almost all of Gaza’s population since it launched its war in October 2023. Adblock test (Why?)