• Congress faces Sept 30 funding deadline amid partisan tensions.
• Senate requires bipartisan support for spending bills.
• DC takeover, Epstein files also on congressional agenda.
  

The US Congress returns on Tuesday with less than a month left to perform one of its core functions — keeping federal agencies funded and averting a partial government shutdown — a job that it has struggled to perform in recent years.

The chamber’s bitter partisan divides have hardened in the first year of President Donald Trump’s new administration, which has angered Democratic lawmakers by deciding not to spend some money previously approved under bipartisan deals, as well as the July passage of a tax-cut bill that nonpartisan analysts said could cause more than 10 million low-income Americans to lose healthcare coverage.

Lawmakers’ work on agreeing on the roughly $1.8 trillion in discretionary spending in the $7 trillion federal budget will be further complicated by expected fights over the release of information related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a former friend of Trump’s, and the administration’s surge of federal agents and National Guard into the capital.

There have been 14 partial government shutdowns since 1981, most of which lasted only a day or two. The most recent stretched over 34 days in December 2018 into January 2019 during Trump’s first term.

Trump’s Republicans hold a 219-212 majority in the House of Representatives and a 53-47 edge in the Senate, though that chamber’s rules require 60 votes to pass most bills, meaning that seven Democrats’ support would be needed to pass a funding bill.

A preemptive blame game started this summer over which party would be faulted if Congress fails and a partial government shutdown occurs.

In the lead up to Republicans’ approving Trump’s request for a $9 billion cut to foreign aid and public media, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a July letter that the majority should not expect Democrats to “act as business as usual” in the bipartisan appropriations process due to the party cutting back on funding already approved by Congress.

Schumer faced howls of outrage from some in his party in March after providing the votes for a continuing resolution to keep the government funded, arguing at the time that allowing a government shutdown would have been more damaging.

The Democrats’ full strategy this time around has not yet been defined, but the Democratic leaders have requested a meeting with their Republican counterparts to discuss the deadline. Some Democrats want assurances by Republicans to not unilaterally cut funding if more requests are made by the administration.

“I hope that the process will continue in a bipartisan way as we move toward the September deadline,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in a floor speech.

Some Democrats, including Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, are betting the conservatives would be blamed and that the funding deadline should be used as leverage.

“In September the Republicans are going to need to get a budget through to keep the government open and to do that they are going to need some Democratic votes,” Warren said at a rally in Nebraska in August. Referring to the sweeping tax-cut bill, she added, “You want my vote — and I hope the votes of the rest of these Democrats — then by golly, you can restore healthcare for 10 million Americans!”

The US federal debt is $37.25 trillion, according to the Treasury Department. It has continued to grow under Republican and Democratic administrations as the US Congress continues to authorise the federal government to spend more money than it takes in.

• Entire village buried in Jebel Marra.
• Only one survivor pulled from disaster.
• SLM appeals for urgent UN assistance.

KHARTOUM: A massive landslide in Sudan’s western Darfur region has flattened an entire mountain village and killed more than 1,000 people, a rebel group said, leaving only one survivor.

The disaster struck Sunday after days of heavy rain, devastating the village of Tarasin in the Jebel Marra area, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM), led by Abdulwahid al-Nur, said in a statement.

“Initial information indicates the death of all village residents, estimated at more than 1,000 individuals, with only one survivor,” the group said, calling the landslide “massive and devastating”.

The group appealed to the United Nations and other aid organisations for help recovering the dead still buried under mud and debris.

Images the SLM published on social media appeared to show huge sections of the mountainside collapsed, burying the village under thick mud, uprooted trees and shattered beams.

Sudan is embroiled in a bloody war between the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has plunged the country into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

The SLM controls parts of the Jebel Marra range and has mostly stayed out of the conflict, but hundreds of thousands of people have fled into SLM-held territory to escape the violence.

Jebel Marra is a rugged volcanic range stretching about 160 kilometres (100 miles) southwest of North Darfur’s besieged capital of El-Fasher, which the RSF is pushing to capture after besieging it for more than a year.

The area is prone to landslides, particularly during the rainy season which peaks in August. A 2018 landslide in nearby Toukoli killed at least 20 people.

‘Tragedy’

Darfur’s army-aligned governor, Minni Minnawi, called the landslide a “humanitarian tragedy that goes beyond the borders of the region”.

“We appeal to international humanitarian organisations to urgently intervene and provide support and assistance at this critical moment, for the tragedy is greater than what our people can bear alone,” he said in a statement.

Much of Darfur — including the area where the landslide occurred — remains largely inaccessible to international aid organisations due to the ongoing fighting, severely limiting the delivery of urgent humanitarian assistance.

The disaster also comes during Sudan’s rainy season, which often renders mountain roads and remote areas impassable.

The relentless rainfall further complicates efforts by humanitarian organisations to access those in need, particularly in conflict-affected regions like Darfur where infrastructure is already fragile or non-existent.

Since April 2023, Sudan has been ravaged by a war that erupted with a power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

In a series of offensives, Burhan’s forces regained central Sudan this year, leaving the RSF with control over most of Darfur — where it has conquered all but one state capital, El-Fasher — and parts of southern Kordofan.

The fighting has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions, including about four million from the capital alone.

The war has decimated the northeast African country’s infrastructure and created what the UN describes as the world’s largest displacement and hunger crises.

About 10 million people are currently displaced within Sudan, while an additional four million have fled to neighbouring countries, according to the UN.

• Late night magnitude-6 quake comes as one of Afghanistan’s worst tremors.
• Rescue efforts focus on remote mountain areas, hindered by terrain, weather.
• WHO highlights overwhelmed local health system and aid delivery challenges.

Rescuers in Afghanistan will try to reach isolated villages in the eastern region of Kunar, the epicentre of an earthquake that killed over 800 people and injured more than 2,800, authorities told Reuters on Tuesday.

Rescue operations were carried out in four villages in Kunar on Monday after the quake struck and efforts will now be focused on reaching more remote mountain areas, said Ehsanullah Ehsan, the provincial head of disaster management.

“We cannot accurately predict how many bodies might still be trapped under the rubble,” said Ehsan. “Our effort is to complete these operations as soon as possible and to begin distributing aid to the affected families.”

One of Afghanistan’s worst earthquakes, with a magnitude of 6, struck around midnight local time on Monday, at a shallow depth of 10 km (6 miles), killing 812 people in the eastern provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar.

Mountainous terrain and inclement weather have hindered rescuers reaching remote areas along the Pakistani border where the quake flattened mudbrick homes.

Gaining access for vehicles on the narrow mountain roads was the main obstacle for relief work, said Ehsan, adding machinery was being brought in to clear roads of debris.

On Tuesday, a line of ambulances was on the damaged mountain road trying to reach Kunar villages, as helicopters flew in, bringing aid supplies and taking the injured to hospitals, according to a Reuters witness.

Some of those injured have been transferred to hospitals in Kabul and the adjacent province of Nangarhar, said Ehsan.

Taliban soldiers were deployed in the area, providing help and security. The disaster has further stretched the war-torn nation’s Taliban administration, already grappling with a sharp drop in foreign aid and deportations of hundreds of thousands of Afghans by neighbouring countries.

“National and international organisations are present in the area, have organised their assistance, and, God willing, aid will be distributed in an orderly manner,” said Ehsan.

Rescue teams and authorities are trying to dispose of animal carcasses quickly so as to minimise the risk of contamination to water resources, a UN official said on Monday.

“Damaged roads, ongoing aftershocks, and remote locations of many villages severely impede the delivery of aid,” the World Health Organisation said in a situation update, adding that over 12,000 people had been affected by the quake.

“The pre-earthquake fragility of the health system means local capacity is overwhelmed, creating total dependence on external actors,” said the update.

Afghanistan is prone to deadly earthquakes, particularly in the Hindu Kush mountain range, where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet.

A 6.1-magnitude earthquake that killed 1,000 people in the eastern region in 2022 was the first major natural disaster faced by the Taliban government.