Global Express | September 1, 2026 Nepal-China floods leave more than 1,000 dead

1. Nepal–China floods leave more than 1,000 dead

Source: AP News

Rescue teams with search dogs combed through mud, rocks and debris across Nepal and China on Tuesday, searching for thousands still missing after catastrophic flooding tore through the Himalayas. The disaster has left more than 1,000 people dead.

Nepal's disaster agency said Tuesday that 987 deaths had been counted there, with 3,916 people missing, including 583 foreigners. Chinese authorities, in their latest update on Sunday, reported 16 deaths and 546 missing, including 261 foreigners. Landslides and destroyed roads have cut off remote areas, hampering rescue efforts.

About 900 workers are missing from 12 hydropower projects, with roughly 500 believed trapped in tunnels. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said a second batch of relief supplies for Nepal was expected to ship Tuesday, including drones, DNA testing and water purification equipment. The Aug. 26 disaster was triggered by a glacial collapse powerful enough to register as a magnitude 5.2 seismic event.

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2. Trump vows to hit Iran 'hard' as oil prices rise

Source: CNBC

Oil prices extended gains on Tuesday as traders weighed the threat of escalation following the resumption of U.S.-Iran military strikes. A tanker was struck by three unknown projectiles while transiting the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, the UK Maritime Trade Operations agency said, with no casualties reported.

Iran launched an attack on two American bases in Jordan on Monday in retaliation for the U.S. attack on Larak Island. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit on Tuesday that Tehran would immediately reciprocate if Washington agreed to return to its commitments under the interim deal signed in June.

"We are going to hit them hard," President Donald Trump told Fox News on Monday, adding that "there will be a response." The hostilities marked the first time the U.S. and Iran traded strikes in over a month. Brent crude soared past $90 a barrel before last trading at $87.84, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate added 2.43% to $87.84 per barrel.

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3. Report: US missile left wide path of civilian deaths in Iranian city

Source: AP News

A new report says the U.S. military's Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) was used in combat for the first time on the opening day of the Iran war, with devastating effect near population centers. According to conflict monitor Airwars, three missiles that struck the southern city of Lamerd on Feb. 28 killed at least 21 civilians, including seven children.

Airwars found the missiles detonated above a sports complex and two residential neighborhoods, killing civilians as far as 50 meters from the detonations and causing damage more than three times farther away. The PrSM is designed to explode midair and propel tens of thousands of dense tungsten pellets in all directions.

The U.S. military has confirmed firing PrSMs into Iran but denied attacking Lamerd. U.S. Central Command said footage suggested the strike involved an Iranian Hoveyzeh cruise missile. Six weapons experts, however, told AP they believe PrSMs struck Lamerd, and warned the weapon should not be fired near civilian areas.

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4. Carney's Liberals sweep 3 Canadian special elections

Source: AP News

Canada's Liberals swept three special elections Monday, a result showing voters backing Prime Minister Mark Carney for standing up against U.S. President Donald Trump. The Canadian Press projected Liberal victories in Chicoutimi-Le Fjord in Quebec, Beaches-East York in Toronto and North Vancouver-Capilano in British Columbia.

The Quebec result was the most dramatic. Liberal Daniel Gobeil was projected to win big in Chicoutimi-Le Fjord, a district held by the Conservatives since 2018. The sweep would bring the party to 173 seats in the 343-seat House of Commons.

U.S.-Canada trade talks collapsed Aug. 21, after which Trump imposed 50% tariffs on roughly $20 billion in Canadian goods and signed an order renaming Lake Ontario "Lake America." McGill University professor Daniel Béland said the results showed Carney retaining strong support across regions, with the Quebec outcome the most significant.

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5. Russian jet-powered drones batter Kyiv, emptying supermarket shelves

Source: AP News

Russian forces relentlessly battered Kyiv and surrounding cities for a fifth straight day on Monday, leaving some supermarket shelves bare after repeated strikes on warehouses as Ukraine reels from jet-powered drone attacks.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia's tactic is "to wear down Ukraine and Ukrainians." Between Thursday and Sunday, Russia fired almost 1,500 drones at Ukraine, around 800 of them jet-powered, he said. Warehouses in Brovary and Boryspil were struck, wounding four people.

Zelenskyy also said he had "a good call" Monday with U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, describing the conversation as "detailed and constructive." Adviser Serhii Beskrestnov urged the public not to panic, saying Ukraine won't go hungry and European countries would be ready to fill any food supply shortfall.

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6. Shein shares fall in long-awaited stock market debut

Source: BBC

Fast-fashion brand Shein was valued at $26.2 billion after its first day of public trading on Tuesday, following a long quest to list on the stock market. The company was once estimated to be worth nearly $100 billion.

Shein priced its shares at HK$48.56 each on Monday, raising HK$13.6 billion ($1.7 billion). Its shares fell as much as 10% in early trading before the losses eased, closing at $48.50 and leaving it valued at $26.15 billion, down just 0.12%.

The listing marks the largest new share sale in Hong Kong so far this year. Founded in China and headquartered in Singapore since 2021, Shein saw its planned listings in the U.S. and UK scuppered by supply chain and environmental concerns. It reported a $99 million quarterly loss in July after the U.S. ended a duty exemption on small packages.

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7. John Ternus takes over as Apple CEO, facing AI and geopolitics

Source: Al Jazeera

John Ternus took over as Apple's chief executive on Tuesday, inheriting a company that leads the smartphone market but trails its rivals in artificial intelligence. The handover ends Tim Cook's 15-year run.

Ternus, 51, joined Apple's design team in 2001 and rose to senior vice president of hardware engineering, leading the teams behind the company's entire product lineup. He gets barely a week to settle in, with Apple holding its annual iPhone event on Sept. 9, where it is expected to unveil its first foldable handset.

One of his biggest challenges will be balancing the company's dependence on China while parrying political pressure from the White House. Trump has repeatedly demanded Apple build iPhones on U.S. soil, threatening tariffs on those made overseas. Ternus also becomes executive chairman of Apple's board the same day.

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8. UN: 6 million Afghans deported in under three years

Source: BBC

In a little under three years, six million Afghans have been forced to return from Pakistan and Iran — a population the size of a small country, according to the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR. The number forced to return this year has already reached another million.

At the Torkham crossing, known as "Zero Point," many returnees have never set foot in Afghanistan. Nazia, 35, who was born in Pakistan, said it felt good to be in her own country, but added that many people there "don't even have enough bread to eat."

The UN estimates 21.9 million people — nearly half the country — need assistance this year to survive, and UNICEF said last week that one million children face "life-threatening" malnutrition. Pakistan confirmed Sunday that 16,000 vulnerable Afghans have been granted a temporary exemption from deportation.

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9. China-linked 'Fire Ant' hackers hijack Cisco routers

Source: The Hacker News

A China-nexus cyber espionage actor tracked as Fire Ant has expanded a long-running campaign beyond VMware hypervisors to compromise Cisco IOS XR routers, TACACS servers and Linux management hosts, according to incident response firm Sygnia.

Sygnia said the actor turned the compromised routers into collection platforms, capturing network traffic, harvesting credentials and suppressing the logs and telemetry that defenders rely on. The investigation began with an anomaly on a Cisco router where a GRE tunnel interface was operating with no configuration or commit history.

The firm assessed the activity strongly overlaps with UNC3886, a China-nexus espionage group, though it made no conclusive attribution. Researchers also recovered a credential-collection toolset called TacTap that injected a malicious library into the tac_plus authentication process — a technique not previously publicly described.

10. Beijing warns of 'consequences' over Taiwan at Pacific forum

Source: Lianhe Zaobao

After Taiwan attended the Pacific Islands Forum leaders' annual meeting in the diplomatic ally Palau, Beijing warned the move would bring consequences. China's special envoy for Pacific island affairs, Qian Bo, said Monday after the forum's opening that Taiwan's attendance "will always have consequences," though he stressed "this is not a threat."

Qian said "everyone opposes this, so this situation should not have happened." Asked about Qian's remarks, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said what happens here is decided by the Pacific Islands Forum, not by any other country.

The forum runs from Aug. 30 to Sept. 4, hosted by Palau, one of Taiwan's 12 remaining diplomatic allies. Taiwan's foreign minister Lin Chia-lung attended meetings and side events, but Taiwan is a development partner rather than a formal dialogue partner, while China is a dialogue partner. The forum has 18 members.

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