Total number of missing Britons between Tibet and Nepal at 48 as Beijing mobilises more than 2,100 rescue workers

Fifteen British nationals are reported to be missing in China as the search continues for survivors of the devastating flooding in Nepal and Tibet.

Nepali and Chinese authorities confirmed an updated death toll of at least 810 on Sunday. More than 3,000 people are believed missing after flash floods triggered by a massive glacier collapse in the Himalayas on Wednesday engulfed Gyirong port on the Nepal-China border.

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© Photograph: China Daily/Reuters

© Photograph: China Daily/Reuters

© Photograph: China Daily/Reuters

Outsourcing the industry to China cannot continue, but Europe knows it can no longer count on the US for a solution

The alarm sounded 16 years ago. In 2010, China blocked exports of key rare earths to Japan in a row over disputed islands in the East China Sea. The critical minerals are essential to everything from advanced weaponry and iPhones to electric vehicle batteries and wind turbines, so the rest of the world took note. But it didn’t take much action. China still accounts for about 70% of rare-earth mining globally and 90% of separation and processing.

Then, last year, Beijing forced Donald Trump to back away from his trade war – not with its retaliatory tariffs, but the curbing of rare-earth exports. A scramble for new supplies began in earnest. The year-long trade truce is due to expire in November. The price of erbium, an element essential to communications infrastructure, has already jumped because of fears that export controls will soon be renewed.

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© Photograph: Imaginechina Limited/Alamy

© Photograph: Imaginechina Limited/Alamy

© Photograph: Imaginechina Limited/Alamy

Total of 804 confirmed dead and more than 3,000 missing amid threat of fresh inundation

• ‘Their whole village has disappeared’: frantic hunt for survivors in Kathmandu hospital

Rescuers in Nepal and Tibet have battled through leg-sucking mud amid the threat of fresh flooding to search for thousands of people still missing after a deadly wall of water swept through the Himalayan border zone, engulfing entire villages.

The latest updates on Sunday put the number of missing at 3,048, including hundreds of foreigners. There was a total of 804 confirmed deaths across Nepal and Tibet, and reports of some bodies swept downstream possibly as far as India.

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© Photograph: Ezra Acayan/Getty Images

© Photograph: Ezra Acayan/Getty Images

© Photograph: Ezra Acayan/Getty Images

When I testified against Mladić at his trial in The Hague, I saw the unrepentant face of a mass murderer. That face and his legacy still haunt Serbia today

Men age and die, but in the Balkans, time stands still and is stuck. General Ratko Mladić, who died in prison in The Hague on Thursday aged 84, remains a hero in the Republika Srpska statelet – the Serbian half of dismembered Bosnia that he carved out with a hurricane of violence between 1992 and 1995 – and in Serbia itself.

Too many Serbs in whose name Mladić carried out his mass murder of other ethnicities – mainly Muslim Bošniak and Roman Catholic Croats – adore him and mourn his passing.

Ed Vulliamy is an author who reported on the Balkan war for the Guardian and Observer

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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© Photograph: Reuters

© Photograph: Reuters

© Photograph: Reuters

The players, the rivalries and the dramas to follow at this year’s tournament.

© Al Bello/Getty Images

As with its approach to Hormuz, the US has mistaken applying pressure for an actual strategy. But Tehran has chips of its own to play

Donald Trump has found a new way to promise victory over Iran. After months of war have failed to force Iran’s capitulation or collapse, his administration has unveiled what the US Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, calls Operation Economic Outcast: an effort to cut it off from what remains of the global economy and threaten foreign governments, banks and companies with sanctions if they continue doing business with Tehran.

There is no question that Iran is vulnerable. Its economy has been battered by years of sanctions, war and a months-long US naval blockade. Iranian officials acknowledge that oil exports and access to foreign currency have been severely constrained. Ordinary Iranians are already enduring high inflation, currency depreciation and worsening living standards. Further economic strangulation will inflict significant additional hardship.

Sina Toossi is a senior non-resident fellow at the Center for International Policy, where his work focuses on US-Iran relations, US policy toward the Middle East and nuclear issues

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© Photograph: Mark Schiefelbein/AP

© Photograph: Mark Schiefelbein/AP

© Photograph: Mark Schiefelbein/AP

The disclosure offered one of the clearest pictures yet of the disaster on the Chinese side of the border, where authorities have released few details.

© Atul Loke for The New York Times

Total of confirmed 797 dead and more than 3,000 missing amid threat of fresh inundation

• Nepal-Tibet flash flood – latest updates

• ‘Their whole village has disappeared’: frantic hunt for survivors in Kathmandu hospital

Rescuers in Nepal and Tibet have battled through leg-sucking mud amid the threat of fresh flooding to search for thousands of people still missing after a deadly wall of water swept through the Himalayan border zone, engulfing entire villages.

The latest updates on Sunday put the number of missing at 3,048, including hundreds of foreigners. There was a total of 797 confirmed deaths across Nepal and Tibet, and reports of some bodies swept downstream possibly as far as India.

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© Photograph: Ezra Acayan/Getty Images

© Photograph: Ezra Acayan/Getty Images

© Photograph: Ezra Acayan/Getty Images

In deep red South Carolina, the president helped stoke apprehension of a deeper red surge ahead of November’s US midterm elections

After casting his vote in South Carolina, a man who introduced himself as Chestnut was unwilling to give his full name. “You don’t have a need to know,” the air force veteran declared. He was, however, happy to share his views.

“I’m a true American. I believe in the USA,” said the man, outside Christ the Servant Lutheran church in Conway. “And I don’t believe in communism or socialism.”

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© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

Nepal requests foreign ⁠help in identification and storing of bodies, DNA testing and rescuing people from tunnels

• Visual guide: how the deadly flooding unfolded

• New flood fears and a race to free group trapped in tunnel

Poor weather temporarily hampered aerial rescue operations in Nepal on Saturday as the search for thousands of missing people in areas devastated by catastrophic flash floods along the border with China continued.

The combined toll in Nepal and Tibet rose to 691 dead and more than 3,000 people missing after China’s latest update on Sunday. Chinese authorities reported 16 deaths and 546 missing, while Nepal’s disaster agency said late Saturday that the death toll had climbed to 675 with 2,498 people missing.

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© Photograph: China News Service/Getty Images

© Photograph: China News Service/Getty Images

© Photograph: China News Service/Getty Images

The loss of power-generating capacity has raised questions about an ambitious expansion of renewable energy in one of the world’s most hazard-prone mountain regions.

© Atul Loke for The New York Times

At 78, the cookbook author and Food Network host knows what she likes, knows what she wants and isn’t stopping anytime soon.

© Philip Montgomery for The New York Times

As rescue efforts entered their fourth day, the scale of destruction came into focus, signaling a daunting recovery for the vulnerable nation.

© Atul Loke for The New York Times

Their videos have proliferated on social media, but the payments are frequently hidden from viewers.

Nepali government says India and China are sending expert tunnel rescue teams, as minister estimates cost of rebuilding could be billions of dollars

• ‘The flood took everything I have’: survivors grieve for relatives and homes swept away in Nepal

• Chinese rescuers find ‘nothing but ruins’ at border crossing as Nepal seeks help to ID and store the dead

Outside the army camp in the Nuwakot district of Nepal, people run their fingers down the sheets of paper pinned to the wall, scanning the growing list of those reported missing for news of loved ones. Nepali authorities said nearly 3,000 people are missing, while China reported more than 550 people unaccounted for.

Nepal’s foreign minister, Shisir Khanal, has appealed for international support to help rebuild the country after the floods, saying reconstruction efforts could run into “billions of dollars” AFP reports.

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© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

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• ‘The flood took everything I have’: survivors grieve for relatives and homes swept away in Nepal

• Chinese rescuers find ‘nothing but ruins’ at border crossing as Nepal seeks help to ID and store the dead

Outside the army camp in the Nuwakot district of Nepal, people run their fingers down the sheets of paper pinned to the wall, scanning the growing list of those reported missing for news of loved ones. Nepali authorities said nearly 3,000 people are missing, while China reported more than 550 people unaccounted for.

Nepal’s foreign minister, Shisir Khanal, has appealed for international support to help rebuild the country after the floods, saying reconstruction efforts could run into “billions of dollars” AFP reports.

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© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Five-day showcase reveals leaps Beijing has made in humanoid tech, but also its limitations as US rivals come up from the rear

With exploding pelvises, enough comic pratfalls for a Buster Keaton show reel and the odd moment of ruthless violence, the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing gripped the world this week with an unsettling mixture of hilarity, trepidation and relief.

The five-day showcase staked out China’s claim to undisputed leadership in humanoid robotics as android martial artists landed knockout roundhouse kicks and robot teams marched into the arena heralded by flag-waving captains astride giant robotic dogs. The games’ blue-riband event, the 100m, did not disappoint when the robot-sprinters ran quicker than Usain Bolt before slamming mindlessly into a padded wall in a blaze of sparks, flames and flying mechanical limbs.

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© Composite: Alex Mellon for the Guardian : Getty Images

© Composite: Alex Mellon for the Guardian : Getty Images

© Composite: Alex Mellon for the Guardian : Getty Images

Architect of Srebrenica genocide is dead but those scarred by his atrocities say his ideology is still shockingly pervasive

To most of the world, he was and will always be the “Butcher of Bosnia”, a grim epithet but one that still fails to fully convey the evil and horror inflicted on its people by Gen Ratko Mladić, who died in prison on Thursday.

As commander of the Bosnian Serb forces, Mladić was responsible for the killing of an estimated 100,000 men, women and children during the savage breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. He was most notoriously the architect of ethnic cleansing and the genocide at Srebrenica in which at least 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were slaughtered.

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© Photograph: Family handout

© Photograph: Family handout

© Photograph: Family handout

Fraudsters are exploiting enterprise chat apps like Teams and Webex to trick Chinese victims into transferring large sums of money, fueling a wave of complaints.

Given the challenges in forecasting and detecting such calamities, researchers advised banning construction on floodplains and marking out clear evacuation routes.

© Atul Loke for The New York Times