Franz Josef, a South Island town visited by over a million tourists a year, sits beside the Waiho River, which carries huge loads of gravel down from the Southern Alps. Naturally the river would spread that gravel across a wide bed and shift course over time. Since the 1980s stopbanks, artificial levees, have confined it to about a third of its natural bed, so the same gravel piles up in less space and the riverbed rises about 20 centimetres a year, three times the natural rate. Meanwhile the river has been spilling north into the Tatare Stream, which is about ten metres lower. Between March 2025 and March 2026 the spill point moved a kilometre upstream and the new channel cut down two metres, eroding the wall protecting the town's wastewater ponds.

Indonesian Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka handed his resignation to parliament after questions were raised about his eligibility for office and his academic credentials. Gibran is the son of former president Joko Widodo, and his resignation came as Widodo publicly backed the president, Prabowo Subianto. Gibran had been elected vice president in 2024 as Prabowo's running mate. His candidacy was made possible by a 2023 Constitutional Court ruling on the minimum age for candidates, which was itself controversial. Parliament will now consider the resignation.

Angkor, near Siem Reap in northern Cambodia, was the capital of the Khmer Empire, which ruled much of mainland Southeast Asia between roughly the 9th and 15th centuries. At its height the city spread across about 3,000 square kilometres, making it the largest pre-industrial city on Earth by area. Its growth depended on water: huge reservoirs called barays, along with canals and embankments, stored monsoon rain and carried it to rice fields. That system let farmers harvest more than once a year and fed a very large population through the dry season. The temple complex of Angkor Wat, built in the early 12th century, is the best-known monument and still stands at the heart of the park.