When floodwaters from across the Indian border surged into her village in Pakistan’s Punjab this month, Shama knew what to do: gather her four children and prepare to leave. It was the second time this year she has had to flee, after abandoning her home during cross-border fighting between India and Pakistan in May. “How many times do we need to evacuate now?” the 30-year-old mother said, her husband away ferrying their 10 cows to higher ground on a boat. “We lost out on so much during the war like school days for the children, and now the water is forcing us out again. Trouble is trouble.” A Rescue 1122 boat evacuates people from the flooded area past partially submerged houses, following the monsoon rains and rising water level of the Sutlej River, in Chanda Singh Wala village near the Pakistan-India border in Punjab’s Kasur district, on August 29. — Reuters Shama’s ordeal is echoed across flood-hit Kasur, where families say they are exhausted by repeated displacements within months, first from the fighting...
A new $250 “visa integrity fee” imposed on travellers to the United States risks piling more pressure on the struggling travel industry, as overseas arrivals continue to fall due to President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration and hostility to many foreign countries. Overseas travel to the US fell 3.1 per cent year-on-year in July to 19.2 million visitors, according to US government data. It was the fifth month of decline this year, defying expectations that 2025 would see annual inbound visitors finally surpass the pre-pandemic level of 79.4m. The new visa fee, set to go into effect on October 1, adds an additional hurdle for travellers from non-visa waiver countries such as Mexico, Argentina, India, Brazil and China. The extra charge raises the total visa cost to $442, one of the highest visitor fees in the world, according to the US Travel Association, a membership organisation. “Any friction we add to the traveller experience is going to cut travel volumes by some amount,” said Gabe Rizzi, President ...