According to Chinese officials, China has begun construction of a megadam on Tibet’s Yarlung Zangbo River, which could be the world’s main hydroelectric power source when finished.
Five hydropower stations will be located along the river, which is also known as the Brahmaputra in India and the Jamuna River in Bangladesh, along with five hydropower stations in the foothills of the Himalayas.
Premier Li Qiang reportedly attended a ceremony for the dam’s commencement on Saturday, according to China’s Xinhua state news agency.
Beijing had been working on the project for a while, and in December of last year, the project was approved. It ties the development to Beijing’s efforts to achieve carbon neutrality and economic goals in the Tibet region.
After the groundbreaking ceremony in the city of Nyingchi in southeast Tibet, Xinhua reported that “the electricity generated will primarily be transmitted to other regions for consumption, while also meeting local power needs in Tibet.”
According to Xinhua, the project is expected to cost about 1.2 trillion yuan ($167.1 billion).
India stated in January that it was concerned about the project and would “monitor and take necessary measures to protect our interests” with China.
China “has been urged to ensure that the interests of the downstream states of the Brahmaputra are not harmed by activities in upstream areas,” according to the Indian Ministry of External Affairs at the time.
Beijing’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated in December that the project would not have a “negative impact” downstream, adding that China “will also maintain communication with nations at the lower reaches” of the river.
Tibetans expressed concern about the potential effects on the Tibetan Plateau’s distinctive ecosystems after China annexed Tibet in 1950.
According to Yale’s E360 environmental magazine, Tibet’s vast glaciers, major rivers, and vast glaciers provide fresh water to 1.3 billion people in 10 nations.
The Yarlung Tsangpo, which reaches 5, 000 meters (16,404 feet) above sea level, is considered to be Tibet’s sacred river.
[File Stringer/Reuters] The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River in Yichang, Hubei province, China
Tens of thousands of soldiers are stationed on either side of China’s vast border with India, which is only 30 kilometers (18 miles) away.
The Yangtze River’s Three Gorges Dam, which was constructed in central China, could have three times as much energy as the dam.
Around 1.4 million people were displaced by the Three Gorges Dam, which was completed in 2003, incontrovertibly.
Following Typhoon Wipha, which is currently roiling toward the coast of northern Vietnam as a severe tropical storm, rain and flooding have continued in the Philippines. Five people were killed and thousands of people were displaced over the weekend.
According to Vietnam’s national weather forecasting agency, Wipha was 60 kilometers (37 miles) off the coast of Haiphong City at 6am local time on Tuesday (23:00 GMT).
An estimated 350, 000 Vietnamese soldiers are on standby as the country’s weather agency anticipates up to 500mm (20 inches) of rainfall, which could lead to dangerous flooding and landslides. Neither casualties nor damage have been reported so far.
According to the organization, Wipha is projected to weaken to a low-pressure event on Tuesday night as a result of the anticipated landfall in Hung Yen and Ninh Binh provinces south of Hanoi.
Tens of thousands of people were evacuated from their homes on Tuesday, and at least two people are believed missing. The flooding, which was brought on by torrential rains in the Philippine capital, Manila, brought much of life to a halt.
Following a night of rain that caused the Marikina River to burst its banks, schools and government buildings in Manila and the surrounding provinces remained closed.
More than 23 000 people along the river were evacuated and found refuge in schools, village halls, and covered courtyards. In the cities of Quezon and Caloocan, another 25, 000 people were forced to leave.
According to John Paul Nietes, an assistant supervisor of the emergency operations center, an elderly woman and her driver were swept down a swollen stream in Caloocan as they attempted to cross a bridge.
“It was found last night.” He said that the rescue operation is ongoing, but neither one of them has been found as of right now.
According to the Philippine National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, at least five people have been reported dead as of Monday, according to local news agency Enquirer. reported by . According to the council, seven people are also missing.
Every year, at least 20 storms or typhoons hit or pass the Philippines, with the poorest areas of the country typically suffering the most. As storms become stronger and more destructive, climate change has made their effects worse and worse.
According to Washington, a representative from the US government has been told not to leave China after making a personal trip there.
The US Department of State said on Monday that the employee of the US Patent and Trademark Office, a division of the US Department of Commerce, was subject to an “exit ban” while “visiting China in a personal capacity.
A State Department spokesman said in a statement that “the Department of State has no higher priority than the safety and security of American citizens.”
“We are closely monitoring this case and working with Chinese officials to resolve it as quickly as possible.”
The US Commerce Department’s employee was barred from leaving China after failing to disclose his work for the government on a visa application, according to The Washington Post on Sunday.
The employee had visited family in China several months ago, according to the report, which cited four unnamed individuals with knowledge of the situation.
The man, a naturalized US citizen, was detained in Chengdu, Sichuan, in April over “actions Beijing deemed harmful to national security,” according to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post on Sunday.
An unnamed “source familiar with the matter” was cited in the Post’s report.
Guo Jiakun, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who told journalists he had “no details to share” about the case, made remarks that were reported to Al Jazeera by the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC.
At a regular press briefing, Guo stated that “China upholds the rule of law and conducts entry and exit matters in accordance with the law.”
Beijing on Monday announced it had halted the departure of a US citizen employed by Wells Fargo, prompting Washington’s confirmation of the exit ban.
Chenyue Mao, a managing director with the Atlanta office, was given an exit ban, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s statement.
Beijing and Washington have long exchanged allegations of meddling in one another’s domestic affairs.
A Chinese-born US researcher admitted to stealing trade secrets, including blueprints for infrared sensors used to track ballistic missile launches, on Monday, according to the US Department of Justice.
Chenguang Gong, a dual US citizen, was accused of transferring more than 3,600 company files to his personal storage devices while working for a research and development company in Los Angeles.
Nasir Amin Bhat, 17, was just barely ankle-deep in the water when his friend Adil Ahmad, a neighbor from his school, shouted from the riverbank on a cool May evening.
“Turn back!” Something is in the water, exactly.
A Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra) plunged into the glacial waters in Hugam village in the Indian-administered Kashmir’s Anantnag district and paddled furiously against the current with all four limbs across the Lidder, a tributary of the Jhelum River.
I turned on the camera on my smartphone, but I had no idea what it was,” said Bhat, a student in high school.
The fur-clad creature, which is “near threatened” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, is pictured gliding out of the water and jumping onto the riverbank in the nine-second video.
The semiaquatic animal, which can reach 3, 660 metres (12, 000 feet) in the Himalayas during the summer, disappears behind a dense grove of bushes, bringing the video to an uneventful conclusion.
Eurasian otters once enjoyed a healthy lifestyle along the Lidder River, but growing urbanization [Jehangir Ali/Al Jazeera] forced the semiaquatic animal to leave.
Eurasian otters have been spotted twice in Kashmir since 2023, with three of them identified by Indian wildlife officers as extinct, and they are now resembling to be extinct.
Environmentalists and conservationists are hopeful that the Himalayan region’s fragile freshwater ecosystems, which have been impacted by climate change in recent years, will recover from their initial excitement after seeing the chance sightings.
Habitat has improved, according to the statement.
Otters were spotted in Kashmir, according to Indian wildlife biologist Nisarg Prakash, as an indication of high-quality aquatic habitats.
According to Prakash, whose research focuses on otters in southern India, “the reappearance of otters might mean that poaching has decreased or the habitat has improved, or perhaps both,” he said.
Otters were once common in northern India, including the Himalayan foothills, the Gangetic plains, and some parts of the northeast, protected by the Indian Wildlife Protection Act.
The Eurasian otter, known as “voddur,” was discovered in water bodies in the Lidder and Jehlum valleys, including Wular Lake, one of Asia’s largest freshwater lakes, in a peer-reviewed study conducted by IUCN in November of last year.
[Jehangir Ali/Al Jazeera] Hugam village in the Anantnag district of Indian-administered Kashmir
However, their population has gotten “patchy and fragmented” over time as a result of “habitat loss, pollution, and human disturbances,” according to Khursheed Ahmad, a senior wildlife scientist at the Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology (SKUAST-K).
Eurasian otters retreated and were restricted to areas that were least accessible to humans because of habitat changes caused by human activities and the encroachment of their ideal habitats along riverbanks and other water bodies.
Although they were not extinct, SKUAST-K’s Division of Wildlife Sciences, Ahmad, said, “Sightings and occurrences had become extremely rare and never were documented.
A research team led by Ahmad unintentionally stumbled upon otters in Gurez, a valley of lush meadows and towering peaks split into two by the Kishanganga River, the de facto Himalayan border between India and Pakistan, during a study on musk deer.
Two individual otters were found in a valley near the 330MW Kishanganga Hydro Electric Project, which was constructed by India after a protracted legal battle with Pakistan at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, on August 6, 2023, at an elevation of 2,600 metres (8,530 feet).
The research team concentrated on keeping track of otters’ presence on Kashmir’s Indian side following that sighting.
No additional presence was unfortunately not documented due to the significant disturbances caused by fishing and other local and paramilitary activities, according to the IUCN study.
Ahmed claimed that Bhat’s video is only Kashmir’s second instance of photographic evidence of otters.
Too afraid to go there
Residents of the large farming community of Hugam, which has around 300 families, are both excited and worried.
Muneera Bano, a homemaker, wakes up to the crows chirping furiously on the willow trees lining the tributary’s banks outside her 58-mile (36-mile) south of Srinagar’s main city, to the sound of dawn.
After the discovery of the otter, Bano had been doing this for years, so she has stopped washing clothes and utensils on the riverbank.
It is hiding in one of the underwater caves in the tributary, which there are. Crows see it when it first appears in the morning and scream. She said, “I’m too terrified to go there.”
The teenager who made the video, Bhat, claimed that he frequently took a dip in the tributary’s icy waters and occasionally caught fish. He said, “I can’t even think about going there right now.”
On May 28, 2025, Nasir Amin Bhat was about to take a bath in the Lidder [Jehangir Ali/Al Jazeera] when he discovered the Eurasian otter on his cell phone.
Indian wildlife officials set up a camera trap to confirm that it was an Eurasian otter, which was also visible in Bhat’s video, and not a crocodile, as a result of the grainy video’s conundrums about the presence of crocodiles in the tributary.
Some wildlife officials took a bath in the river while village elders were present, demonstrating that the water was completely safe.
Otters are unpredictable, especially when they are close to humans, even though they are not a threat to them. However, according to scientists, these animals can become used to being around humans.
Wildlife biologist Prakash said curiosity about otters can make them a sight to behold while watching them fish or swim rather than be afraid or afraid.
“Otters are primarily active at dawn, dusk, and after dark, but they can occasionally be seen at night.” He claimed that the majority of Asian otters eat fish, eels, and occasionally waterfowl.
Wasim Ahmad, a farmer in Kashmir, recalls a summer day in the early 1990s when he was returning from school along the banks of the Jhelum River, a significant tributary of the Jhelum River.
As Ahmad, who is now in his 40s, turned the corner and saw a large crowd of people cheering along. One man was walking a dog on a leash while another was pursuing a dead otter.
A group of poachers who, in the past, sold the skins of animals like cats, otters, and other animals to survive in Bagh-e-Mehtab in Srinagar. The community has abandoned the previous profession as more stringent animal welfare laws are now in effect in India.
Our elders had warned us that otters would cut off the children and eat them raw, Ahmad, who was in the ninth grade at the time, said. However, as I got older, I never saw even one person who had an otter bite. In essence, it was a plan to divert the children’s attention away from the river.
The otters’ return to Kashmir was a positive sign, according to Ahmad, the wildlife scientist.
“We should now make sure that the new habitat is protected from unchecked pollution, garbage accumulation, increased carbon emissions, and habitat degradation.” He told Al Jazeera, “These challenges are crucial for their conservation and wellbeing. “Addressing these challenges is.
Tehran’s uranium enrichment program, which was severely damaged by US and Israeli airstrikes last month, cannot be stopped, according to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
In an interview that was broadcast on Monday, Araghchi told the US broadcaster Fox News, “It is now stopped because, yes, damages are serious and severe, but obviously, we cannot give up our enrichment because it is an accomplishment of our own scientists, and now, more than that, it is a question of national pride,” Araghchi said.
Iran and the United States are “open to talks,” according to Araghchi, who stated at the start of the interview, but that they won’t be direct talks for the time being.
I’m prepared to talk with them if they [the US] are seeking a win-win solution, he said.
The foreign minister continued, “We are ready to take any confidence-building measures necessary to demonstrate that Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful and will continue to be peaceful forever, and that it will never obtain nuclear weapons, and that they will also expect to lift their sanctions.”
Therefore, I urge the United States to pursue a nuclear-related negotiated resolution.
The comments made by Araghchi were the subject of a 16-minute Fox News interview that Donald Trump is a closely watched US president.
Our nuclear program has a compromise, according to the statement. We’ve already done it once. “We’re prepared to do it once more,” Araghchi said.
Tehran and Washington had been negotiating about the nuclear program earlier this year, seven years after Trump withdrawn the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which Tehran signed with a number of world powers in 2015. Iran’s nuclear sites were open to comprehensive international inspection in exchange for the lifting of sanctions under the pact.
After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Iran of having a “secret nuclear program,” Trump made the decision to pull the US out of the deal.
Iran has long maintained that its nuclear enrichment program is solely intended for use by people.
Iran and the US had been in talks with one another about a new deal until recently, but that agreement was voided when Israel launched surprise bombings across Iran on June 13 that targeted both military installations and nuclear sites.
Before a ceasefire began on June 24, more than 900 people died in Iran, and at least 28 died in Israel.
The US later claimed that the Iranian nuclear program had been hampered by Israeli nuclear weapons by one to two years as Israel did by attacking Iranian nuclear facilities.
Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (IAEA) will “soon inform” the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of its findings, according to Araghchi on Monday.
He claimed that any request for the IAEA to send inspectors would be “carefully considered.”
He asserted that “we have not abandoned our partnership with the agency.”
After Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian ratified a law limiting cooperation with the IAEA earlier this month, IAEA inspectors fled Iran.
A June 12 board resolution accusing Tehran of breaking its nuclear obligations had harshly criticized Tehran and its leader, Rafael Grossi.
According to Iranian officials, the resolution was one of the “excuses” that Israel used as a pretext to launch its attacks, which started on June 13 and lasted for 12 days.
According to Stephane Dujarric, the UN secretary-general’s representative, the UN welcomed renewed “dialogue between the Europeans and the Iranians,” according to reports earlier on Monday.
Eduardo Bolsonaro, the third son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, may now face arrest for his online activities. Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes has ordered the former president’s third son’s accounts and assets frozen.
Eduardo, a congressman from Brazil who has been active in Washington, DC, sparked by his father’s court battle, described the decision as “an additional arbitrary and criminal decision” by Moraes.
Moraes “relies on deceptive decisions to shield himself from the repercussions of his crimes. Like every dictator, Eduardo Bolsonaro stated in a post on X on Tuesday.
I make it clear that I will not be intimidated and not be silenced if he believes this will prompt me to stop. He said, “I made myself available for this situation.”
He continued, “This is just another example of abuse of power that confirms everything I have been criticizing in Washington and throughout the world.”
The decision in the confidential court case was made on Saturday as part of an investigation into Eduardo Bolsonaro’s behavior in the US, according to CNN Brasil’s first report.
Moraes, the prosecutor in the criminal case where the former president is accused of plotting a coup to overturn the results of the 2022 election, issued a separate ruling on Monday, warning that any attempt to evade a court order enforcing a ban on Jair Bolsonaro’s use of social media, could lead to his arrest.
According to G1 in Brazil, Moraes called Bolsonaro’s attorneys to explain why their client allegedly disregarded his order restricting use of social media.
Moraes, according to G1, gave the lawyers 24 hours to provide an explanation, adding that he may order Bolsonaro’s ex-president’s immediate arrest if the defense fails to adequately justify his online behavior.
Bolsonaro said he would continue to work with the media to make sure his voice was heard after Moraes made the decision to ban his use of social media.
Vera Chemim, a constitutional lawyer based in Sao Paulo, told the Reuters news agency that she thought Bolsonaro’s arrest was a blip. She also noted that even though the court order did not specifically address the country’s former leader, media interviews could still be used to support the arrest.
Bolsonaro has been “fully silenced” since then, she claimed. Any error could lead to preventive arrest, the author says.
Following US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s claim that Brazilian court officials, and more specifically Justice Moraes, were “politically witch-hunting” the former president, the tightening restrictions on Bolsonaro are in effect. In consequence, the US changed their travel visas for “Moraes and his allies on the court, as well as their immediate family members,” according to Rubio.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula quickly criticized Washington’s decision to impose visa restrictions on court officials as “arbitrary” and “baseless,” calling any foreign interference in Brazilian law “unacceptable.”
As he demanded that Lula drop the charges against Bolsonaro earlier this month, US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 50% tariff on Brazilian goods starting on August 1.
