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Nepal’s Gen Z Reckoning

10 19
10.09.2025

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Nepal’s descent into political instability, Israel targeting Hamas leadership in Qatar, and the sentencing of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

As mass anti-government protests swept Nepal, Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli announced his resignation on Tuesday, following in the footsteps of several high-ranking cabinet ministers. Oli will lead a caretaker government until a new one is implemented, though it is unclear how much power he may wield as well as where he is currently located.

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Nepal’s descent into political instability, Israel targeting Hamas leadership in Qatar, and the sentencing of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

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As mass anti-government protests swept Nepal, Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli announced his resignation on Tuesday, following in the footsteps of several high-ranking cabinet ministers. Oli will lead a caretaker government until a new one is implemented, though it is unclear how much power he may wield as well as where he is currently located.

Still, Oli’s resignation appears to have had little effect on Nepal’s nationwide protests, with tens of thousands of people remaining on the street late into the day.

Protests first erupted Monday following a government ban on 26 social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, WeChat, WhatsApp, X, and YouTube. Legislation targeted these sites for reportedly failing to register and submit to government oversight; however, the policy was widely criticized as a state-sponsored tool to censor and punish the country’s political opposition. TikTok was not included in the ban, as the app’s executives promised last year to comply with local laws, including a ban on pornographic sites.

Young people largely led Monday’s protests, which quickly broadened to encapsulate wider criticism of Oli’s government and accusations of corruption, particularly nepotism. Youth unemployment in Nepal hit nearly 21 percent last year, with more than 2,000 young people leaving the country every day to seek work in the Middle East or Southeast Asia.

The so-called Gen Z protests quickly

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