Ethiopia has inaugurated Africa’s largest hydroelectric dam on the Blue Nile, as the $5bn project continues to sow dismay with downstream neighbours Sudan and Egypt.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has hailed the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) as a “shared opportunity” for the region that is expected to generate more than 5,000 megaWatts of power and allow surplus electricity to be exported.
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A handful of regional leaders, including Kenya’s President William Ruto and Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, attended the festivities in person on Tuesday, which kicked off the night before with lantern displays and drones writing slogans such as “geopolitical rise” and “a leap into the future”.
But Sudan and Egypt – who rely heavily on the Nile for water supplies – have expressed fears that the dam will threaten their water security and even breach international law. Their leaders did not attend the inauguration of the dam.
The Blue Nile, one of the Nile’s two main tributaries, flows north into Sudan and then Egypt. The dam is located just 14km (9 miles) east of the Sudanese border, measuring 1.8km (1.1 miles) wide and 145 metres (0.1 mile) tall.
“I understand their worries, because of course, if you look at Egypt from the sky, you see that the street of life is existent” thanks to the Nile, Pietro Salini, the CEO of Italian company Webuild that constructed the dam, told Al Jazeera. But “regulating the water from this dam will create an additional benefit” to neighbours, he added.
(Al Jazeera)
‘Continuous threat to stability’
GERD has spawned regional tension since it was launched in 2011, with years of cooperation talks between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt still stalled.
Last week, Sudan and Egypt released a joint statement calling Ethiopia’s actions “unilateral” and saying the dam posed a “continuous threat to stability”.
Sudan’s Roseires Dam, located about 110km (70 miles) downstream of GERD, faces potential future effects if Ethiopia were to perform large water releases without coordination, reports Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Vall.
“Roseires is the closest, it’s 60 years older, and when constructed was 25 times smaller – and will likely bear the brunt of the fallout if anything goes wrong at the Ethiopian dam,” Vall said.
But GERD may also provide benefits such as regulating the annual flow of the river and reducing potential flooding in villages on the banks of the Nile.
Abdullah Abderrahman, Roseires Dam administration manager, told Al Jazeera that GERD has helped to control overflow at Roseires that “used to be extremely big”.
“Then there is the reduction of the huge amounts of silt and trees that the rainy season used to bring into Roseires, causing its storage capacity to shrink by a third,” Abderrahman added.
Dessalegn Chanie Dagnew, associate professor of water resources at Bahir Dar University in Ethiopia and a member of the Ethiopian parliament, told Al Jazeera the dam’s benefits could eventually reach beyond assuaging flooding and silt.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said at least 20 civilians were killed when a Russian glide bomb struck an eastern Ukrainian village, in the latest barrage from Moscow undermining any diplomatic momentum to end the war, now in its fourth year.
Zelenskyy said on Tuesday the attack struck people waiting to collect pension payments in the village of Yarova, north of the urban areas of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk in the eastern region of Donetsk, where some of the war’s fiercest fighting has been taking place recently.
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“A brutally savage Russian airstrike,” he said in a post on X. “Directly on people. Ordinary civilians… There are no words.”
A video in the post showed numerous bodies strewn on the ground, next to a damaged vehicle.
Russia has claimed Donetsk as its own despite not having complete control of the region, and Kyiv says the Kremlin has concentrated 100,000 troops at a key part of the front line for a renewed offensive.
There was no immediate comment from Moscow. Both Russia and Ukraine deny targeting civilians in the war that Russia launched in February 2022, but thousands of civilians have been killed in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian.
Zelenskyy said the latest attack on civilians required a strong response from the international community, calling on Kyiv’s allies in the United States, Europe and other G20 nations to act.
“The Russians continue to destroy lives, but avoid new strong sanctions and new strong strikes,” he said. “Strong action is needed to stop Russia from bringing death.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has escalated attacks in Ukraine in the period following his summit with US President Donald Trump, who has been pushing for a peace deal to end the war,
Trump has threatened further sanctions on Russia if it does not comply, but so far has little to show for his efforts to end the war.
On Sunday, Russia battered Ukraine with the largest air attack since the war began, killing at least four people across the country and setting dozens of buildings on fire in the capital, Kyiv, including the main seat of the government, according to officials.
The strike was the first time the government headquarters had been hit in the three-and-a-half-year war, officials said.
Russian forces launched 810 drones and 13 missiles in the overnight attack on Sunday, Ukraine’s air force said, causing damage across the north, south and east of the country, including the cities of Zaporizhzhia, Kryvyi Rih and Odesa, as well as in the Sumy and Chernihiv regions.
Kyiv has come under heavy attacks in the last month, with large numbers of civilians being killed.
Kathmandu, Nepal – Pabit Tandukar was shouting slogans against Nepal’s government outside the country’s parliament building in the capital Kathmandu when he felt sharp pain cutting through his leg.
The 22-year-old university student was taken to the trauma centre of Kathamandu’s Bir Hospital on Monday, where doctors confirmed he had been hit by a live copper bullet.
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“We were there for a peaceful protest. They were initially firing tear gas at us and we were pushing back. Suddenly, I was shot,” Tandukar told Al Jazeera.
At least 19 protesters were killed, and hundreds – like Tandukar – were injured after security forces fired live ammunition, rubber bullets and tear gas shells at youth agitators on Monday, after what began as a peaceful protest descended into violent clashes with law enforcement officers.
The killings have pushed Nepal into a political crisis. Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak resigned from the position on Monday evening, claiming moral responsibility, and on Tuesday, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli resigned.
But the thousands of young people who hit the streets of Kathmandu and other cities in Nepal on Monday, as part of what the organisers have called a Gen-Z movement, are demanding more – a dissolution of parliament and new elections.
The protests have erupted amid growing criticism of alleged corruption, and anger over perceptions that the families of the country’s ruling elite – including leading politicians – live lives of relative luxury while Nepalis struggle with a per capita income of less than $1,400 a year.
Then, the government last week banned 26 social media platforms, including Facebook, YouTube and X, after they missed a September 3 deadline to register with the country’s authorities under a controversial new law. That ban further raised anger against the government among young, digitally native Nepalis, though the government said it was trying to stop the use of fake online identities to spread rumours, commit cybercrimes, and disturb social harmony.
By Tuesday, though, that simmering anger and the protests it led to had exploded into even more violence, with the killings of civilians by security forces becoming the lightning rod galvanising youth, who returned to the streets for a second day in a row.
“The government should not have fired bullets at students,” Tandukar said.
A protester marching with the national flag on a Kathmandu street [Samik Kharel/ Al Jazeera]
‘This one is for KP Oli’
Joining the protest near parliament on Monday, Megraj Giri* aimed a stone at a CCTV placed on the northern wall of the legislature building in New Baneshwor, in the heart of Kathmandu.
The government had imposed a curfew – which was extended on Tuesday – but Giri was defiant. “This one is for KP Oli,” he shouted, referring to the prime minister, as his missile shattered the camera.
That’s not how the organisers of the protest had imagined things would turn out.
“We planned a peaceful protest with cultural events and fun,” said Anil Baniya of Hami Nepal [translated as We Nepal], one of the organisers, speaking to Al Jazeera.
“During the first few hours, it went as planned, until some external forces and political party cadres joined in the protest and agitated the armed forces and pelted stones.”
Organisers have not named specific parties or external agents whom they blame for instigating the violence. But it was when some protesters began to climb the walls of the parliament complex to enter that security forces fired back, Baniya said.
Some of the protesters who were hit were schoolchildren still in their uniforms – it is unclear whether they were among any of the 19 who were killed.
The Kathmandu District Administration Office imposed curfew in that part of the city, and Nepal deployed its army. Armed forces also entered the Civil Service Hospital near Parliament to capture protesters, and shot tear gas, causing chaos in the facility. Toshima Karki, a doctor turned member of parliament, was at the hospital helping the injured when she witnessed the attack.
“No matter what, the government should not have used bullets. They murdered young people,” added Baniya.
Until late on Monday night, videos also emerged showing armed police officers carrying out search operations in houses near the protest area.
Among those killed was Sulov Raj Shrestha, who was studying civil engineering in Kathmandu.
“He was always smiling and had a friendly behaviour,” Sudhoj Jung Kunwar, a friend of Shrestha, recalled, speaking to Al Jazeera. “I just found out; he had his GRE exams today.”
Kathmandu Engineering College, where Shrestha studied, posted on Facebook: “We mourn, we protest, we condemn…… Sulov…..your nation has failed you…”
Political analyst Krishna Khanal blames “sheer negligence” on the part of the government for the killings.
“The young people should have been handled well; even if they crossed the parliament building, there were other ways to control them,” Khanal told Al Jazeera.
The UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and Amnesty International have both condemned the killings and called for transparent investigations into the events of Monday.
Speaking to the press late Monday night, Prithvi Subba Gurung, Nepal’s communications and information technology minister, announced the social media ban was being lifted.
But while the ban might be over, it is the killings on Monday that have now emerged as the principal issue inflaming passions on Nepal’s streets.
High school students at Monday’s protest in Kathmandu [Samik Kharel/ Al Jazeera]
‘We demand mass resignation’
While the social media ban drew global attention, many protesters said their grievances run much deeper.
“We need to kick these old leaders out of power. We are tired of the same old faces,” said 27-year-old Yugant Ghimire, an artificial intelligence engineer who took part in Monday’s protest.
“The government is on a power trip, there is rampant corruption, no one is accountable,” Ghimire told Al Jazeera.
The movement has found support from sections of the political class, including Balen Shah, the mayor of Kathmandu, who is also a popular rapper.
Posting on social media on Sunday, Shah wrote, “Tomorrow, in this spontaneous rally, no party, leader, worker, lawmaker, or activist will use it for their own interest. I will not attend due to the age limit, but it is important to understand their message. I give my full support.”
Meanwhile, before Monday’s protest, Oli was largely dismissive of the movement. “Just by saying Gen Z, one is free to do anything, just by saying you don’t like it,” Oli said to an audience of his party cadres on Sunday.
That approach appears to have backfired on the government. On Tuesday, as the government imposed an indefinite curfew in Kathmandu, protesters defied those restrictions to set the homes of several politicians on fire.
Organisers of the protests have now released a set of “non-negotiable demands” which include the dissolution of the parliament, mass resignation of parliamentarians, immediate suspension of officials who issued the order to fire on protesters, and new elections.
Protest leader Baniya said the movement would continue “indefinitely until our demands are met”.
United States Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has told US Marines on board a warship stationed in Puerto Rico that their deployment to the Caribbean was “not training” in the latest sign that Washington intends to escalate its aggressive posture in the region.
Hegseth visited troops on the USS Iwo Jima warship on Monday, where, in reference to the administration’s push to curtail drug trade into the US, he said: “What you’re doing right now is not training; this is a real-world exercise on behalf of the vital national interests of the United States of America to end the poisoning of the American people.”
Hegseth, whose department was recently renamed by Trump from the Department of Defense to the Department of War, paid a surprise visit to the warship alongside Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In a post on X, Jenniffer Gonzalez, Puerto Rico’s governor, welcomed Hegseth and Caine and thanked Trump for “recognizing the strategic value Puerto Rico has to the national security of the United States and the fight against drug cartels in our hemisphere, perpetuated by narco-dictator Nicolas Maduro”, the president of Venezuela.
Tensions with Venezuela have seen a sharp escalation after the US sank a boat from the country in the Caribbean, killing 11 people, which President Donald Trump claimed was carrying illegal narcotics.
In a post on Truth Social after the strike, Trump said, “Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE!”
The action has been condemned by rights groups as an “unlawful extrajudicial killing”, and has inflamed already roiled relations between Washington and Caracas.
Members of the US Congress criticised the decision, asking what the legal basis of the strike was. Adam Smith, the most senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said: “There is no way on God’s green earth you can say that whatever was in this boat presented any sort of imminent threat to the United States in a military sense of the word.”
Rand Paul, a Republican senator who sits on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, slammed Vice President JD Vance, who defended the strike in a post on X, saying: “What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial.”
The Trump administration has repeatedly accused Venezuela of trafficking illegal drugs to the US, but has not presented evidence for its claims. Venezuela’s Maduro, who has historically had fraught ties with the US, has denied the allegations.
“How can there be a drug cartel if there’s no drugs here?” said Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez on Monday.
Trump has adopted a more stridently aggressive posture against Caracas since coming to power earlier this year, evoking his term in the White House when the administration heavily backed an opposition leader and was on the cusp of effectively supporting a coup.
Last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has long advocated for the US to adopt a more confrontational relationship with Venezuela, refused to rule out the possibility of strikes against drug cartels inside Venezuela, even as Trump ruled out the possibility of regime change.
“We are going to take on drug cartels wherever they are, wherever they are operating against the interests of the US,” Rubio said.
The US has reportedly deployed 10 F-35 stealth jets to Puerto Rico as part of operations against Latin American drug cartels.
Trump also warned that the US would shoot down Venezuelan jets flying too close to US ships, following reports in US media of two such incidents.
Last week, Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar welcomed the increased US deployment in the region and praised the strike against the vessel allegedly carrying drugs. “The pain and suffering the cartels have inflicted on our nation is immense. I have no sympathy for traffickers; the US military should kill them all violently,” Persad-Bissessar said.
However, Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva expressed alarm about the US naval build-up during a virtual speech at the BRICS summit on Monday, saying: “The presence of the armed forces of the largest power in the Caribbean Sea is a factor of tension.”
A New Zealand father who was killed by police while on the run with his three children had been hiding at a makeshift bushland campsite stocked with weapons and ammunition, police have said.
Tom Phillips, who absconded with his three children in 2021 amid a custody dispute with his former partner, was killed on Monday after being confronted by police following a burglary in the rural town of Piopio.
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Police say they shot Phillips dead after he opened fire on officers, leaving one with critical injuries.
Phillips’ children – aged 12, 10 and nine – were safely recovered by authorities.
New Zealand Police on Tuesday released images of the campsite where they say Phillips and his children had been holed up before his fatal encounter with police.
Police said “several” firearms were recovered from the campsite located in “dense bush” in Waitomo, a rural community located about 190km (120 miles) south of Auckland, along with three guns that were found at the scene of the shootout.
Two quad bikes were also recovered at the campsite.
Zealand Police Commissioner Richard Chambers said officers had spent years considering how to best handle the situation as they were aware that Phillips was “armed,” “dangerous” and “motivated”.
“We were confident that, irrespective of how hard we tried to bring it to a peaceful conclusion, that with a motivated person that was always going to be a challenge,” Chambers told a news conference.
“And that has informed the way that we have dealt with this matter over the four years.”
Chambers said Philips, who was facing robbery and other charges, and his children had moved about frequently, making it difficult to pin down their whereabouts.
Police Minister Mark Mitchell said officers had been at pains to bring the situation to a conclusion without any loss of life.
“You had a father, in Mr Phillips, who, in my view, had no regard for the safety of those children. He seemed to be solely motivated in terms of what he wanted to do and how things were impacting him,” Mitchell said.
Philips’s disappearance from the remote community of Marokop with his children in December 2021 gripped New Zealand and generated headlines worldwide.
Despite sightings over the years and appeals by his family, Philips was able to repeatedly frustrate the efforts of police to bring him into custody.
Nepal has lifted its social media ban one day after protests turned deadly, with at least 19 people killed by security forces as demonstrators rallied against internet restrictions and government corruption.
Police fatally shot 17 people in Kathmandu, according to spokesman Shekhar Khanal, with two additional deaths reported in eastern Nepal’s Sunsari district. Officers deployed rubber bullets, tear gas, water cannons and batons when protesters broke through barbed wire barriers attempting to reach Parliament.
Approximately 400 people sustained injuries, including more than 100 police officers. Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak resigned following the violence.
“I had been there for a peaceful protest, but the government used force,” said 20-year-old Iman Magar, who was struck in his right arm. “It was not a rubber bullet but a metallic one, and it took away a part of my hand. The doctor says I need to undergo an operation.”
Emergency vehicles rushed the wounded to hospitals throughout the city. “I have never seen such a disturbing situation at the hospital,” said Ranjana Nepal, information officer at the Civil Service Hospital. “Tear gas entered the hospital area as well, making it difficult for doctors to work.”
The social media ban triggered widespread anger, particularly among younger Nepalis who depend on these platforms for communication. Amnesty International reported that authorities used live ammunition against protesters, while the United Nations called for a transparent investigation.
Millions of Nepalis use platforms like Instagram for entertainment, news, and business purposes. “This isn’t just about social media – it’s about trust, corruption, and a generation that refuses to stay silent,” wrote the Kathmandu Post newspaper. “Gen Z grew up with smartphones, global trends, and promises of a federal, prosperous Nepal. For them, digital freedom is personal freedom. Cutting off access feels like silencing an entire generation.”
![High school students at Monday's protest in Kathmandu [Samik Kharel/ Al Jazeera]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/1-1757411209.jpeg?w=696&ssl=1)
