live U.S. to apply measures 'never seen before' on Iran, Trump official says
The U.S. will impose "never seen before" measures on Iran in order to economically isolate the country, Washington's Treasury Secreta...
Swollen rivers and torrential rains triggered deadly landslides and widespread flooding across China on Monday, killing at least four people and forcing thousands from their homes, as authorities warned of further extreme weather in the coming days.
Forty-one rivers have flooded nationwide, according to state broadcaster CCTV, citing the Ministry of Water Resources, which issued flood warnings for small and midsize rivers and mountain torrents.
Heavy rain intensified across northern and central China, including in Beijing, Hebei, Hunan, and Inner Mongolia.
In northern Hebei, four people were killed in a landslide and eight remain missing.
In Beijing’s suburban Miyun district, flash floods and landslides inundated villages, displacing more than 4,400 people.
At an elderly care centre, water rose nearly to the roof, trapping residents. Rescue teams swam into the building and used ropes to evacuate 48 people, CCTV reported.
Images on the Chinese social media platform WeChat showed submerged roads in Miyun, with cars and trucks floating and water reaching up the sides of residential buildings. Power outages affected more than 10,000 residents.
Beijing issued its highest-level flood alert on Monday.
The capital’s meteorological observatory warned rainfall could exceed 150 mm in six hours across much of the city, and top 300 mm in some areas. Rain was expected to intensify after 8 p.m. (12:00 GMT), particularly overnight.
The severe weather is part of a broader East Asian monsoon pattern affecting much of the country. Northern China, which has seen record rainfall in recent years, faces growing flood risks—an effect some scientists link to climate change.
In Shicheng Town, near the Miyun Reservoir, floodwaters surged to a peak of 6,550 cubic metres per second—an all-time high, Beijing officials said.
Xiwanzi Village was among the hardest-hit areas, with 100 residents evacuated to a nearby school. Two high-risk road sections were closed in Beijing’s Pinggu district.
Neighbouring provinces are also reeling from the floods.
In Shanxi, state media shared videos of roads turned into rivers and submerged crops and trees. Shaanxi province, home to the historic city of Xi’an, issued flash flood warnings. Search and rescue efforts were underway in Datong, where a driver went missing in the floods.
In Hebei, where two more people died over the weekend, the city of Baoding recorded a record hourly rainfall of 145 mm in Fuping. In Hunan’s Liudiequan Grand Canyon, a tourist was swept away on Sunday as water levels rose suddenly.
China’s National Development and Reform Commission said it had urgently allocated 50 million yuan ($6.98 million) in relief funds for Hebei.
The money will go toward repairing damaged infrastructure, including roads, embankments, schools, and hospitals.
Authorities are on high alert as extreme rainfall increasingly tests China’s flood defences, threatens agricultural production, and displaces vulnerable communities in densely populated areas.
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Flights at Catania airport in Sicily will remain suspended until early Friday as ash from Mount Etna continues to disrupt air travel, following hundreds of cancellations and diversions over the past week.
Iran says the Strait of Hormuz remains under its control, rejecting U.S. President Donald Trump’s claim of “total control” over the strategic waterway and insisting it will not reopen until Washington fulfils its commitments under an interim deal.
Iran and the United States remain at loggerheads over efforts to agree a permanent end to the war in the Gulf, according to a senior Iranian source who said there had been no progress in talks to revive the interim deal agreed in June and define a timeframe to implement it.
Russia has accused Ukraine of threatening global grain supplies after recent strikes on Black Sea agricultural infrastructure, while Moscow carried out a new overnight attack on Ukraine’s major Danube port of Izmail.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) Ebola outbreak has spread to a sixth province. A man died of the virus in Bas-Uélé in the north, the African Union’s health agency said.
President Donald Trump has ordered the U.S. Navy to abandon its next planned electromagnetic aircraft launch system and return to steam-powered catapults on a future aircraft carrier, while also authorising limited overseas ship construction to help address naval capacity shortfalls.
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U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Thursday that reports about poor conditions aboard aircraft carrier the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Middle East were "completely misrepresented."
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