The arch-rivals have been ravaged by intense rain and flooding in recent weeks

International News via Reuters:

Pakistan evacuated at least 150,000 people in areas along three rivers in its agricultural heartland under threat of flooding after neighbouring India warned it plans to release excess water from a dam, officials said on Tuesday. 

The arch-rivals have been ravaged by intense rain and flooding in recent weeks. The release of excess water threatens to further inundate part of Pakistan’s Punjab province, which serves as the country’s breadbasket and accounts for a large part of its food supply.

The nuclear-armed nations have been in a tense stand-off since a brief conflict in May, their worst fighting in decades, and any flooding blamed on New Delhi could inflame ties. 

Pakistani officials said they received a surprise warning from India on Monday that it intends to release water from the rapidly filling Madhopur Dam, on its side of Punjab province.  

India routinely releases water from its dams when they get too full, with the excess flowing into Pakistan. 

An Indian government source said they had not mentioned a specific dam but the intense rain led them to share a second warning with Pakistan through diplomatic channels. Asked if more warnings could be issued as rain continues, he said it was possible. 

New Delhi had said on Sunday that it warned Pakistan that large volumes of water would flow into its waterways due to the heavy rainfall.

Three rivers – Ravi, Sutlej and Chenab – flow into Pakistan from Indian territory. Those rivers are seeing medium to high flooding, Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority said on Tuesday.

Mazhar Hussain, a Pakistani disaster management official, said India will release a controlled amount of water from dams in the coming days. Hundreds of villages situated on the embankment of the three rivers have been evacuated, he said. 

AGRICULTURAL HEARTLAND

Pakistan’s northwest has been hammered by intense floods, accounting for half of the 799 people killed this monsoon season. 

The northern region of Gilgit Baltistan has suffered accelerated glacial melting, while the southern city of Karachi was partly submerged last week. 

Now the worst of the flooding is threatening the eastern province of Punjab, home to half of Pakistan’s 240 million people. 

The province produces the majority of Pakistan’s staple crops and the areas along the three rivers boast large tracts of fertile agricultural lands.

The warning from India on Sunday came after New Delhi put in abeyance a decades-old treaty with Islamabad on sharing water from the Indus river network. India suspended the treaty after blaming Pakistan for a deadly attack on Hindu tourists in Indian Kashmir, which sparked the hostilities in May. 

Islamabad denied any involvement.     

An Indian official said on Sunday that the warning was shared with Pakistan’s foreign ministry on “humanitarian grounds”, and not under the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, following heavy rains in the northern Jammu and Kashmir.

Floods in the region have killed at least 60 people this month. 

Pakistan’s foreign ministry said the warning was issued through diplomatic channels “rather than through the Indus Waters Commission as required under the Indus Waters Treaty”.

Reporting by Mubasher Bukhari in Lahore and Asif Shahzad in Islamabad; Additional reporting by Krishna N Das in New Delhi; Editing by Saad Sayeed

The storm damaged nearly 7,000 homes, inundated 28,800 hectares of rice plantings and felled 18,000 trees

International News via Reuters:

Typhoon Kajiki killed at least three people and injured 10 others in Vietnam, authorities said on Tuesday as they warned that heavy rains could cause flooding and landslides.

The storm damaged nearly 7,000 homes, inundated 28,800 hectares of rice plantings and felled 18,000 trees, the government said in a statement. It also brought down 331 electricity poles, causing widespread blackouts in Thanh Hoa, Nghe An, Ha Tinh, Thai Nguyen and Phu Tho provinces.

Streets in the capital Hanoi were severely flooded as heavy rains fell on Tuesday morning, paralysing traffic. Cars were seen submerged up to their roofs in water.

Flood water also surrounded residential areas in the city, which is preparing to host the country’s largest National Day parade in decades next week as it celebrates the 80th anniversary of its founding.

Video clips on state media showed that water at the West Lake, the largest lake in Hanoi, has overflowed its bank, as rain continued to fall.

Several villages in Bac Ninh province have also been isolated due to flooding, state media reports said.

After making landfall on Vietnam’s north central coast on Monday afternoon, Kajiki has since weakened into a tropical depression as it moved across to Laos on Tuesday morning, the national weather agency said. 

The agency warned that rain will continue in several parts of northern Vietnam, with some areas likely to get up to 150 millimetres (6 inches) in six hours, potentially causing flash floods and landslides.

Before making landfall in Vietnam, Kajiki skirted the southern coast of China’s Hainan Island on Sunday, forcing Sanya City on the island to close businesses and public transport.   

Reporting by Khanh Vu; Additional reporting by Francesco Guarascio; Editing by John Mair

Switzerland was this month hit with one of the highest U.S. tariff rates worldwide

International News via Reuters:

Faced with a strong Swiss franc and a drop in U.S. business due to tariffs, 31% of Swiss mechanical and electrical engineering companies plan to transfer some operations to the European Union, industry association Swissmem said on Tuesday.

Switzerland was this month hit with one of the highest U.S. tariff rates worldwide – 39%, compared with 15% in the neighbouring European Union – while the safe haven Swiss franc has strengthened around 13% this year against the U.S. dollar.

Many Swiss tech companies are gearing up to streamline and transfer businesses, Swissmem President Martin Hirzel said, based on a poll of member companies conducted after the levy came into effect on August 7 in which 385 firms participated.

“Dismissals are inevitable,” he told reporters in Bern, adding that the scale of layoffs would depend on how quickly politicians could bring down the U.S. tariff rate.

Goods exports of the Swiss tech industry in the first half of 2025 dropped 0.9% year-on-year, driven by negative rates in Asia and stagnating demand in Europe, Swissmem said, calling the business trend in the second quarter particularly worrying.

While Swiss tech exports to the U.S. rose sharply in the first quarter, they slumped after the U.S. threatened tariffs in April, bringing overall order intake down 13.4% year-on-year in the second quarter, added Swissmem.

Reporting by Ariane Luthi, Editing by Miranda Murray

Brent crude futures were up $1.20, or 1.77%, to $68.93, and West Texas Intermediate crude futures gained $1.29 cents, or 2.03%, to $64.95

International News via Reuters:

Oil prices climbed on Monday as traders anticipated more U.S. sanctions and Ukrainian attacks targeting energy infrastructure in Russia could disrupt supplies.

Brent crude futures were up $1.20, or 1.77%, to $68.93 by 1:41 p.m. EDT (1741 GMT), and West Texas Intermediate crude futures gained $1.29 cents, or 2.03%, to $64.95.

“There seems to be a sense the peace talks are dragging on,” said Phil Flynn, senior analyst with Price Futures Group. “There could be sanctions on Russia if these talks don’t go well,” Flynn said. 

U.S. President Donald Trump said again on Friday that he would impose sanctions on Russia if there was no progress toward a peaceful settlement in Ukraine in two weeks.

He has also said he may hit India with harsh tariffs over its purchases of Russian oil. 

Over the weekend, U.S. Vice President JD Vance said Russia had made “significant concessions” toward a negotiated settlement in the 3-1/2-year war.

Ukraine, which has stepped up attacks on Russian energy infrastructure, launched a drone attack on Sunday that caused a huge blaze at the Ust-Luga fuel export terminal, Russian officials said.

A fire at Russia’s Novoshakhtinsk refinery, following a Ukrainian drone attack, was burning for the fourth day on Sunday, the region’s acting governor said.

The refinery sells fuel mainly for export and has an annual capacity of 5 million metric tons of oil, or about 100,000 barrels per day.

The market impact of possible Russian supply disruptions was offset by OPEC+’s reversal of a series of production cuts, which is adding millions of barrels to the market, said Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank.

Eight members of the oil exporters’ group are scheduled to meet on September 7, when they are set to approve another boost.

Investors’ risk appetite increased after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Friday signaled a possible interest rate cut at the U.S. central bank’s meeting in September. 

Both oil benchmarks, however, appear to lack momentum, said Priyanka Sachdeva, senior market analyst at brokerage Phillip Nova, adding that markets seem increasingly convinced that Trump’s tariffs will hit economic growth, which would limit fuel demand.

Reporting by Anna Hirtenstein in London;Additional reporting by Sam Li in Beijing and Florence Tan in Singapore; Editing by Helen Popper, Clarence Fernandez, Paul Simao and Barbara Lewis