KATHMANDU,
The process of enacting a separate air carriers’ liability and insurance legislation for domestic carriers has stalled yet again.
On March 1, the Cabinet approved the tourism ministry’s proposal to prepare a draft bill on domestic air carriers’ liability and insurance.
This was done years after Nepal adopted the Montreal Convention
of 1999, which makes international airlines liable in case of death or
injury to passengers. Nepal adopted the Montreal Convention of 1999 on December 15, 2018.
The tourism ministry officials say that the process stalled this time after Buddhi Sagar Lamichhane, the chairman of the panel appointed to prepare the draft bill, was automatically suspended on April 5. This happened after the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority filed a case against 32 individuals, including Lamichhane, at the Special Court over their alleged involvement in corruption in the April 2017 Airbus A330s deal.
Mukesh Dangol, an official at the tourism ministry, said the ministry has appointed Indu Ghimire, its joint-secretary, to head the panel. “With this latest development, the process will now move ahead.”
He said that after a round of consultation with the stakeholders, the draft will be sent to the finance and law ministries seeking their consent. “Following their nod, the draft will be tabled at the Cabinet before it is registered in Parliament.”
The draft, however, is already ready. Officials expect the registration process to be completed in at least two months.
The draft of the air carriers’ liability and insurance bill from domestic carriers, which proposes a five-fold increase in compensation for death or injury, has been in the making since Nepal ratified the Montreal Convention.
The draft bill was extensively discussed with the stakeholders before it was finalised in 2020.
However, successive tourism ministers failed to table the bill in Parliament. The draft bill was then kept on hold without much
explanation.
The long-delayed air carriers’ liability and insurance draft bill proposes a fivefold increase in compensation for death or injury.
As per the planned law, domestic airlines have to pay a minimum compensation of $100,000 for the injury or death of a passenger. Currently, the minimum compensation for passenger death on a domestic flight is $20,000.
Under the Montreal Convention of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), carriers have to pay 128,821 Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) or ($171,018) if the damage is due to the carrier’s negligence or a wrongful act or omission.
SDRs are an interest-bearing international reserve asset used by the International Monetary Fund.
Under the Montreal Convention 1999, in any crash, the victims’ families have the right to claim unlimited compensation if there is a wrongful death.
The draft bill says that the carrier should make an advance payment when it is necessary to meet the immediate economic needs of passengers or the families of victims.
According to the proposed law, a compensation claim should be filed with the airline or its agents within 60 days of the incident or accident. The carrier’s liability limitation for cargo lost, damaged or delayed shall be $20 per kg if the damage was caused or contributed to by the negligence of the carriers, it says.
Under the Montreal Convention 1999, effective as of December 28, 2019, a carrier’s liability limitation for cargo lost, damaged or delayed shall be 22 SDRs per kg ($29.21 per kg) in the case of destruction, loss, damage or delay concerning cargo carriage.
Similarly, carriers must pay 1,288 SDRs ($1,709.90) for each passenger in case of baggage destruction, loss, damage, or delay.
Likewise, 5,346 SDRs ($7,097.16) should be compensated for each passenger in relation to damage caused by delay in the carriage of persons.
The domestic carriers, however, have been objecting to a few clauses, such as the carrier’s liability for delays and unlimited compensation, which, according to them, is not practical in a country like Nepal.
Airlines officials say that, given Nepal’s geographical terrain, climatic behaviour, and airport facilities, Nepali airlines cannot afford to be liable for delays.
According to tourism ministry officials, the proposed legislation is a modified version of the Montreal Convention 1999 as there are several clauses that domestic airlines would not be able to comply with.
Frequent ministerial changes have slowed it down, they say. Some ministers held their positions for long enough but were not bothered about pushing the bill.
The bill could not be registered as Parliament was prorogued several times in the past.
As a result of the delay, passengers who died in the Yeti Airlines plane crash in January 2023 missed out on compensation in millions of rupees.
The Yeti Airlines tragedy in Pokhara was Nepal’s 104th crash and the third biggest in terms of casualties.
According to Nepal’s civil aviation body, more than 900 people have died in air crashes in the country since the first disaster was recorded in August 1955.
The biggest air accident took place on September 28, 1992, when an Airbus A310 belonging to Pakistan International Airlines slammed into a hillside at Bhattedanda near Kathmandu Valley, killing 167 people on board.
Earlier, on July 31, 1992, an Airbus A310 of Thai Airways crashed in Ghyangphedi, killing 113 on board.
Nepal’s domestic airlines—nine fixed-wing operators and 12 helicopters—flew 4.15 million passengers in 2023.

ACHHAM,
A 16-year girl has been reportedly raped in a chhaugoth (menstrual shed) at ward 2 of Panchadewal Binayak Municipality, Achham.
According to Deputy Superintendent of Police Santosh Pathak, chief at the District Police Office in Achham district, a 17-year-old boy raped the victim at midnight on Monday. The girl had been staying in her maternal uncle’s house.
Police arrested the suspect, a distant relative of the victim, for investigation on Tuesday. The victim, who was found in an unconscious state, was taken to the district hospital in Mangalsen on Tuesday afternoon. “The relatives and neighbours took the victim to the hospital stating that she was epileptic and had fainted. The crime was revealed after she regained consciousness,” said Pathak.   
The girl regained consciousness three hours after arriving at the hospital. “It seems the victim was unconscious for around 12 hours. She was so traumatised that she could not talk for a long time even after regaining consciousness,” said Ganga Budha Magar, information officer at the hospital.  
During a counselling session at the ‘One-stop Crisis Management Centre’ of the hospital, the victim revealed that the perpetrator raped her as she came out of the shed at around 2am to answer nature’s call. The victim’s relatives and the locals, however, remained tight-lipped, apparently, to conceal the crime.
The victim, who is now at the One-stop Crisis Management Centre, sustained injuries in her private parts, according to Budha Magar.
“We had to visit the incident site with the victim as the locals were reluctant to disclose information about the incident,” said a police officer involved in the investigation. “We found damaged maize plants just outside the chhau shed, and there were blood stains at the incident site,” he added.
An employee at the hospital quoted the victim as saying that the perpetrator covered her mouth and committed the crime. “She said that she heard two other people talking near to the incident site, but could not identify them,” the employee said.
The family members found the victim unconscious in the chhau shed when they went to check on her. She had not gotten out of bed till late in the morning. The locals did not go near the victim thinking that she fell unconscious due to the epilepsy and they would also catch the disease.
“I was informed about the incident when we were preparing to hold a municipal council meeting at around 10 am. We postponed the meeting and all the people’s representatives hurried to the incident site immediately,” said Ambika Chalaune, mayor of Panchadewal Binayak Municipality.
There was apparently a birthday party at her neighbour’s house. “The victim also went to the neighbour’s house, participated in the fanfare and returned late at night. She might have her monthly period after she returned from the party and went to the chhau shed. The perpetrator took advantage of the situation,” said Chalaune.
Chalaune further said that when she arrived at the shed the victim was lying unconscious. “When I inquired with the women, men and elderly people about the incident they univocally said that she had for long been suffering from epilepsy. The villagers were silent as if they did not know about the rape,” said the mayor.
The investigating officers later met the victim’s relatives and neighbours. Even the victim’s maternal grandmother and other relatives remained tight-lipped about the incident, reiterating that she lost consciousness due to epilepsy.
The chhaupadi tradition—an outdated social practice in which menstruating girls, women, and postpartum mothers are deemed impure and banished into seclusion for three days—is still prevalent in various districts of the Sudurpaschim and Karnali provinces. Incidents of sexual assaults and deaths caused by asphyxiation (during winter when they make woodfire to keep warm) and snakebite in chhau sheds are frequently reported.  
As per the data available at the District Police Office, a total of 14 women and girls died in chhau sheds in Achham, a hill district of Sudurpaschim Province, since 2006. Two women died in Doti and three in Bajura under similar circumstances.
Four years ago, Parbati Budha Rawat, a 20-year-old woman from Siddheshwari in ward 3 of Sanphebagar Municipality of the district, died in a chhau shed due to asphyxiation from a woodfire she had lit to keep warm before sleeping.
After Parbati’s death, her brother-in-law Chhatra Rawat was arrested by the police. He had forced her to stay in the shed during her menstruation. But the police failed to build a strong case against him as nobody from the family or outside filed a complaint. Based on the police report, Chhatra was produced at the Achham District Court and was sentenced to just 45 days in prison for forcing the victim to live in the shed, said police.
The civil and criminal codes enforced in 2017 have criminalised chhau tradition. The practice is not only discriminatory against women, but also life-threatening. Reports of girls and women dying in chhau sheds from cold, suffocation, snakebites, and wildlife attacks surface regularly. Clause 168 (3) of the Civil and Criminal Code provisions three-month jail and a fine of Rs3,000 for anyone who forces a woman to live in a chhau shed during menstruation. The punishment is more severe if the perpetrators hold public positions.
In 2020, the federal Ministry of Home Affairs directed administrations in 19 districts of Sudurpaschim and Karnali provinces to dismantle chhau sheds.
According to the District Administration Office of Achham, under the instruction of the federal Ministry of Home Affairs, more than 10,000 chhau sheds were torn down in 91 wards of ten local units of the district over a period of a month. Local people’s representatives, police, and local residents came forward to support the campaign, but it was stopped after a couple of months. Neither the police administration nor the local units gave continuity to the campaign.

KATHMANDU,
Diarrhoeal cases have declined threefold in Nepal, multiple reports, including a recent one by the Nepal Statistics Office, show. The Nepal Demographic Health Survey-2022 and a report of the Ministry of Health and Population suggest the same.
Improvements in water and sanitation conditions, personal hygiene and awareness levels are credited with the decline in infection from waterborne diseases, including diarrhoeal infections. “A decline is observed in diarrhoea from 17 percent in 1995-96 to 6.6 percent in 2022-23, potentially indicating improved sanitation and hygiene practices,” reads a report by the Nepal Statistics Office.
Diarrhoeal disease is a common and seasonal public health concern usually triggered by food and water safety or hygiene issues. It is one of Nepal’s leading causes of morbidity and mortality among young children.
The Nepal Demographic and Health Survey-2022, carried out by the Ministry of Health and Population, also showed that 10 percent of children under 5 have diarrhoea. The prevalence of diarrhoea is highest among children aged 6-11 months at 18 percent, followed by 13 percent each among those aged 12–23 months and less than six months.
Public health experts say the decline in open defecation, the general public’s behavioural change towards hygienic practice, and an increase in literacy and education levels could have also contributed to a decline in diarrhoeal infections.
“Decline in open defecation, rise in education and awareness levels, behavioural changes, improvement in water and sanitation conditions play an important role in cutting the burden of diarrhoeal infections,” said Dr Sher Bahadur Pun, chief of the Clinical Research Unit at Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Disease Hospital.
“We can see a lot of changes in these things, but at the same time, we should not forget that sources of drinking water are still problematic in many places, including in the capital city.”
According to the NDHS report, advice or treatment was sought for 57 percent of children who had diarrhoea in the two weeks preceding the survey, down from 64 percent in 2016.
The report also shows that the percentage of diarrhoeal infection is lower among those with an unimproved source of drinking water at 4 percent than among those with an improved source at 11 percent.
Experts say that so-called improved sources of drinking water are still not safe to drink.
“E.coli and coliform-like hazardous microbes get detected in most water resources, including in the samples of bottled water,” Pun said.
“We must be more cautious while drinking water, as the monsoon season has just started and most water sources get contaminated with floodwaters.”
Earlier in March, drinking water samples collected from public taps and community schools in Godawari Municipality of Lalitpur were found to be contaminated with faecal coliform.
Faecal coliform, a microscopic organism, lives in the intestines of warm-blooded animals or their faeces. Its presence means that the drinking water being used by locals of Godawari is contaminated with sewage.
The Ministry of Health and Population’s annual report for the fiscal year 2022-23 also shows a three-fold decline in diarrhoeal infections.
According to the report, the national incidence rate of diarrhoea was 115 per 1,000 under-five children in 2022-23 compared to 365 in the fiscal year 2021-22.
The ministry’s report showed four under-five deaths from diarrhoeal infection in the fiscal year 2022-23 compared to 34 deaths in 2021-22.
Of the four deaths that occurred in the fiscal year 2022-23, one each was recorded in Bagmati, Madhesh, Karnali, and Sudurpaschim provinces, with no reported diarrhoeal death in Lumbini, Koshi, and Gandaki provinces.
Contrary to the NDHS, the health ministry’s report shows that Karnali Province had the highest incidence of diarrhoea—216, followed by Lumbini Province’s 161. The lowest incidence was reported in Bagmati Province at 78.
According to the World Health Organisation, diarrhoea is the second leading cause of mortality in children under five.
The disease has also been linked with growth and cognitive shortfalls in children, especially in marginalised communities.
Doctors say the only ways to prevent people from dying of water-borne diseases, including diarrhoea, are to raise awareness and ensure safe drinking water.
They say a combination of careful surveys, ensuring safe drinking water, maintaining sanitation and hygiene, social mobilisation and treatment are required to contain the spread of the diarrhoeal infection.

KATHMANDU,
The southwest monsoon entered Nepal on June 10, three days earlier than usual.
However, despite this early arrival, the monsoon has not advanced beyond a few districts of the Koshi Province even after nine days.
“Generally, it takes two days for the monsoon to reach the Kathmandu Valley after entering eastern Nepal,” said Pratibha  Manandhar, a senior meteorologist at the Meteorological Forecasting Division. “This year, we have not yet issued a second release about the monsoon progress.”
Met officials and locals from Western Nepal, especially those in the Tarai districts, hoped for relief from the scorching heat. They expected that monsoon rains would arrive within days after entering the eastern part of the country. However, the monsoon clouds did not advance from the Koshi Province until Wednesday evening, leaving people struggling with the scorching heat.
Maximum temperatures in several districts of western Nepal have remained over 40 degrees Celsius for the last several weeks, making daily life difficult, especially for the poor people who have to work outdoors during daytime to make ends meet.
Badly affected by the heatwave, several schools in the districts have extended their leave.
On Wednesday, Dhangadhi recorded 42.3 degree Celsius, followed by Nepalgunj 41.5, Birendranagar 40.1, Dipayal 40.2 degree Celsius. Kathmandu recorded 30.6 degree Celsius, according to the met office.
The monsoon season in Nepal generally begins on June 13 and ends on September 23. This year southwest monsoon entered Nepal on June 10, three days ahead of the usual onset date. Last year, it started on June 14, a day later than the normal onset day.
A normal monsoon, supported by the timely arrival of rain, translates into favourable agricultural production, mainly of paddy, and is further linked with the country’s overall economic growth.
The monsoon season, which delivers around 80 percent of the country’s total annual rainfall, generally lasts for 105 days. But, in recent years, it has been taking more time to withdraw.
According to Manandhar, the easterly wind that brought monsoon rainfall in eastern Nepal is not strong enough to displace the westerly winds. Some places in Madhesh, Bagmati, and Gandaki provinces have been witnessing rainfall for the last couple of days, but this is caused by the local system, western disturbances, and low-pressure areas developed in Bihar, India.
“We will issue the next bulletin in a couple of days to inform the public about the monsoon’s progress,” said Manandhar. “As the weather is unpredictable, so is the monsoon rainfall.”
Met officials said that the early onset of the monsoon rain doesn’t ensure early progress across the country.
Last year it took three weeks for the monsoon to spread all over the country. “Sometimes, it spreads within two days,” said Manandhar.
The Met Office has forecast above-normal rains and above-average maximum and minimum temperatures this monsoon, which could unleash extreme weather events, such as flooding, inundation, and landslides.
The department’s climate section has issued a weather forecast for four months, from June to September. It said most parts of the country are likely to experience above-average minimum and maximum temperatures and rainfall due to weakened El Nino conditions and the development of La Nina conditions.
El Nino refers to climatic patterns where ocean surface temperatures warm unusually. La Nina is the opposite where the ocean surface cools off.
Nepal is one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to the climate crisis and has witnessed multiple extreme weather events over the past decade and a half.
Evidence suggests that maximum temperatures in Nepal are rising faster, at 0.056 degrees Celsius a year, compared to the global average rise of 0.03 degrees Celsius a year.
Experts say extreme weather events—excessive rainfall in a short period, continuous rains for several days after the monsoon, dry spells, droughts, below-average precipitation, and above-normal winter temperatures—have become more frequent in Nepal.
The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority estimates that 1.81 million people and 412,000 households will be affected by the monsoon this year. Of them, 83,000 households will be directly impacted, and 18,000 families will require rescue due to monsoon-related disasters.

KATHMANDU,
At least two police personnel have been found dead during duty hours within a week. The back-to-back apparent suicides in the Nepal Police organisation have raised concerns about mental health and the need for psychological training to ensure that officers are mentally as well as physically fit.
A police officer was found dead on the premises of the federal parliament building in Baneshwar, Kathmandu, on Wednesday morning. Ajit Gole, 22, of Dolakha was found dead in a toilet of the parliament compound. After a preliminary investigation, police suspected that he shot himself.
Dinesh Mainali, spokesperson for the Kathmandu Metro Police Range, said Gole, who was on duty from 6 am to 10 am, was found dead at around 8 in the morning.
According to a police source, Gole was engaged to a girl five months ago. The girl went to Dubai with Gole’s monetary and other support. However, after reaching Dubai, she reportedly stopped contacting him.
“Our primary finding is that Gole’s death is related to family issues,” Dan Bahadur Karki, spokesperson for Nepal Police, told the Post.
However, Karki refused to blame Gole’s death solely on his relationship with the girl. “It would be too early to reach a conclusion.”
Lawmaker Menaka Kumari Pokharel of the ruling CPN-UML raised the issue of mental well-being in the police force at a meeting of the House of Representatives hours after the incident.
She emphasised the need for psychological counselling in addition to other training for the security personnel.
Speaking in the zero hours of the House meeting, lawmaker Pokharel said that as the army and police personnel are becoming the victims of mental stress, psychological counselling should be made a part of the official training.
“Today, another incident occurred on these premises,” lawmaker Pokharel said.
Though the issue of mental state of duty personnel has drawn public concern, a senior official at the police hospital said no serious problems are observed among Nepal Police personnel.
“We barely see any member visiting the hospital seeking treatment for mental issues,” the senior police official told the Post, requesting anonymity. “Our society holds social taboos about mental health, and these are also reflected in police officers.”
On June 13, another policewoman, Karishma Sunuwar, 25, was found dead by hanging in the bathroom of the Women, Children and Elderly Citizens Service Centre of the district police office, Siraha.
Meanwhile, police on Tuesday arrested 27-year-old Pushkar Thapa Magar, a police constable from Banke working in Humla, on the charge of suicide abetment in the case of Karishma Sunwar.
In Sunuwar and Gole’s cases, a common factor was relationship. When both police officers could not handle the psychological pressure from their troubled relationships, they seem to have decided to take their own life, says a former police officer, asking not to be named.
Both are psychological issues, which need to be addressed in time, the former police officer told the Post.
Police spokesperson Karki said the increasing number of suicides among police personnel may be rooted in their psychological problems, among other factors.
But there is no gauge to measure someone’s psychological problem. The only way to know if someone is a victim of psychological distress is through communication by family members or friends about their problems. “But in the cases of two police officers who committed suicide, we were not aware of their psychological issues,” Karki added.
Karki said they also ease police officers’ duties if they know their problems. “For example, we do not make them work long hours, nor do we assign them duties involving weapons.”

KATHMANDU: President Ramchandra Paudel returned home on Wednesday morning from a weeklong visit to Germany and Switzerland. Vice President Ramsahay Prasad Yadav, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, and Chief Justice Bishowambhar Prasad Shrestha among other top officials, were present at the Tribhuvan International Airport to receive the President. Paudel had left for Geneva on June 11 to attend the inaugural forum of the Global Coalition for Social Justice, coinciding with the high-level segment of the 112th session of the International Labour Organisation. The President held meetings with his Swiss and German counterparts on June 13 and 17 respectively and discussed issues of bilateral interest.

KATHMANDU: Ten members of the House of Representatives from Kathmandu registered a motion of urgent public importance on Wednesday calling for speedy completion of the widening work on the Kalanki-Maharajgunj stretch of the Ring Road. Nepali Congress lawmaker Pradip Paudel proposed the motion, which has been seconded by lawmakers from his party and the Rastriya Swatantra Party. Lawmakers said that the motion needed to be registered in parliament because the work on the second phase of the Ring Road expansion has been left in limbo. They have demanded that the House discuss the issue, as dust and smoke from the road pose a serious health risk and have a long-term impact on the well-being of the public. This situation has affected citizens’ fundamental right to live in a clean environment, the lawmakers said. Lawmakers Gagan Thapa, Pratima Gautam, Santosh Chalise, Rajan KC, Sobita Gautam, Ganesh Parajuli, Shishir Khanal, Ambika Basnet and Sapana Rajbhandari are among the supporters of the motion
registered by Paudel.

PANCHTHAR: Blacktopping work along the Chatara-Mulghat-Ganeshchowk stretch of the Tamor corridor road has finally started. The contractor, Rautaha Kshamadevi JV Construction Company, started the blacktopping work from Phalametar area of Dhankuta on Wednesday. According to Pradip Niraula, the blacktopping work along the Chatara-Mulghat-Ganeshchowk will be completed in three years with the cost of Rs4.16 billion. The Tamor corridor is a vital trade route that aims to connect the Nepal-India border point near Jogbani, which is close to Biratnagar, with Tiptala Bhanjyang, one of Nepal’s northern border points.

KATHMANDU: Police detained dozens of dairy farmers on Wednesday during a protest outside the Lainchaur-based Dairy Development Corporation (DDC). The farmers, demanding immediate settlement of their outstanding payments, were demonstrating under the banner of the Central Dairy Cooperatives Association.According to Balkrishna Uprety, treasurer of the association, around 50 farmers were detained as they attempted to picket the DDC. “We had planned to stage a sit-in in front of the corporation today. The police intervened and made the arrests as we were gathering,” said Uprety. The farmers were taken to various police stations, including Sorhakhutte and Kalimati. Both private and state-owned dairy companies owe the farmers approximately Rs6 billion in unpaid dues.

Kathmandu,
Nepal and China held a meeting of the Joint Expert Group in Beijing on Wednesday.
Prakash Joshi, the director general of the Department of Survey, led the Nepali delegation. Although the meeting concluded on Wednesday, both sides have yet to share the details.
A Nepali participant from Beijing said although the meeting concluded on Wednesday, some formalities will be completed on Thursday. “We will only be able to share more details on Thursday,” he said.
The meeting took place after almost 18 years of hiatus, just ahead of the Nepal-China foreign secretary-level talks slated for June 25. Representatives from ministries including foreign affairs, home affairs, defence, land management, cooperatives, and poverty alleviation, as well as the Nepali Embassy in Beijing participated in the meeting.
The last meeting of the Joint Expert Group was held in 2006 in Kathmandu. The mechanism mandates a joint inspection of the Nepal-China border, dispute resolution, and finalisation of the fourth protocol to be signed by the two sides. The third Nepal-China boundary protocol was signed in 1988.
The official said concerns from both sides were discussed in the meeting, and a positive outcome is expected.
In the meeting, both sides discussed the status of the Nepal-China boundary, the date for commencing a joint boundary inspection, disputes in the Nepal-China border, and the signing of the Border Management System, whose initial agreement was signed during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit in 2019.
The Chinese side has sent a copy of the border management agreement, which is now under the review of the Ministry of
Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, according to a joint secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
According to a senior official familiar with the matter, although the text of the Boundary Management System is yet to be released, it envisions forming two panels—a joint commission on boundary matters between Nepal and China, and a committee of boundary representatives to be led by competent authorities from the two countries.
Nepal is yet to ratify the boundary management system.
The joint secretary said the meeting will also discuss outstanding issues, such as the timing and form of inspection, and whether it should start anew or resume from where it was left in 2006.
Nepal and China concluded their first boundary talks in 1961 and signed the Boundary Protocol in 1963.
The 1963 Joint Boundary Protocol provides for three different mechanisms to deal with boundary issues: the Joint Inspection Team, Joint Expert Group, and Joint Inspection Committee. The mechanisms were enshrined in the Nepal-China Boundary Protocol signed between the two countries on January 20, 1963. Later, Nepal and China renewed the Boundary Protocol in 1979 and 1988.
While the Joint Expert Group is led by the director general of the Department of Survey from the Nepali side and their Chinese counterpart, the Joint Inspection Committee is led by the deputy director general or under secretary from the Department of Survey and their Chinese counterpart, as per the practice and provisions. Similarly, the joint inspection committee is led by the joint secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
As per the boundary protocol, Nepal and China should conduct a joint boundary inspection every ten years.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on July 15, 2022, that officials from Nepal and China held a virtual talk in which they decided to activate the existing boundary mechanisms through mutual consultation.
According to officials and experts, Nepal and China have a dispute over pillar number 57 in Dolakha district, which was a major bone of contention following the resolution of the height of Mt Everest in December 2020. Besides pillar no 57, disputes have often surfaced in Humla, Gorkha, and Kimathanka (Sankhuwasabha), which need to be resolved through joint inspection.  In addition to resolving disputes, as per the boundary protocol, both sides should update the boundary status every 10 years.
Despite the Nepal government’s claims that the Nepal-China border is largely free from disputes, there are reports of several boundary-related issues, such as encroachment, fencing and wiring, illegal construction, missing border pillars, lack of maintenance of boundary markers, and the Chinese side’s use of high-level digital surveillance on the border. Nepali security agencies deployed on the border reported these issues to the Ministry of Home Affairs.

KATHMANDU,
The government has registered a bill in Parliament with stringent actions against those polluting water resources.
The Bill on Water Resources, registered at the House of Representatives, envisions three months to three years of imprisonment or half a million rupees in fine or both for those who dispose of waste or mix industrial wastewater, poison, chemicals, or toxic items in rivers, ponds, lakes, and other sources. It also prohibits mixing sewage in water resources without treatment.
The bill proposes those polluting water resources will face prosecution in district courts.
According to the Ministry of Energy, Water Resources, and Irrigation, the bill was prepared to protect water resources and delegate authorities among different tiers of government in the development and operation of water resource products.
The bill will be tabled in the lower house and then sent to a House committee for further discussion. It needs to be endorsed by both Houses to become an Act. “The Act will come into force from the 31st day of its authentication by the President,” reads the bill’s preamble.
The bill envisions forming a powerful 11-member Energy and Water Resource Commission led by the minister for energy, water resources and irrigation to make decisions regarding the development of water resource projects with long-term implications. The commission, which also has representation from the local governments, has the authority to devise policies related to water resources and energy, formulate the basis for sharing water resources among different tiers of governments and provide suggestions in the bilateral or multilateral agreements on energy and water resources.
The commission, however, will have no representations from provincial governments.
Once formed, the commission will set up an electronic information centre on energy and water resources.
Amid reports that water level is fast depleting everywhere, the commission is also mandated to study the status of underground water along with surface water. The level of the groundwater in several places from Tarai-Madhesh regions have gone down significantly. Locals from those areas are having hard times to have even the drinking water mainly during dry seasons. Rapid destruction of the Chure area is the prime reason for water level depletion, according to experts.
The bill says the commission can fully or partially stop the extraction of groundwater in certain areas if the studies suggest that the level of water has dropped too low or the unchecked pumping of water causes threat to some areas.
“The commission can also stop the use of surface water if necessary if the water source is polluted or causes a negative
impact to the environment and ecology,” the bill says.
The bill makes water auditing mandatory which includes checking the quality of water, inspecting if the water resources are being used as per the permission and finding out what steps have been taken to protect water resources.

While discussing and debating the forthcoming Sri Lankan Presidential election scheduled for September 2024 and the implementation of the 13th Amendment, I asked my journalist friend Bala, who has spent more than two decades in that country, “What is new?”
“Pat,” she replied, “It is a merry-go-round.” Indeed, it is.
The debate on 13A—an amendment to the Sri Lankan constitution to implement the understanding between India and Sri Lanka to resolve what was then a decade-old Tamil insurgency, has never been outdated. It was reported that JS Jayewardene, the then President of Sri Lanka, compelled the legislators belonging to his party, the United National Party, to vote in favour of this amendment. This led to a severe difference between him and the then Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who were fighting for a separate homeland, did not accept this 13A-created, truncated Provincial Council (PC). It resumed the fight against the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) that was deployed as a part of the 1987 Indo-Lanka Accord. Premadasa, whose only objective was to remove the IPKF, armed them. The IPKF returned to India in 1990 after Premadasa became president. While this became a lesson for India, an LTTE suicide bomber killed Premadasa in the May Day rally. Rest is history.
Yet, this truncated power of PCs has been at the centre of debates in all Presidential elections in Sri Lanka since the 1990s. In 2013, there was an attempt to abolish the PCs, but the Mahinda Rajapakse government did not get the support of all the PCs. His party could not pass the proposal in the Central Provincial Council ruled by his party. While the Tamils who believe in a negotiated settlement of the ethnic issue do not see PC as a solution, 13A is seen as the bottom line of any devolution after the elimination of LTTE in the final leg of counterinsurgency in 2009.

13A and 13A plus
Post-war, Mahinda Rajapakse, who said he would go beyond 13A—popularly known as 13A plus, a solution to the long pending ethnic crisis—reneged on his promise and started to label 13A as foreign-imposed and promised a “home-grown” solution. The solution appeared to be the economic development of the North—building roads, infrastructure, government, etc., with a government-piloted ethnic reconciliation that encouraged the Tamils and the Sinhalese to spend time with each other’s families. Yet, the majority Sinhalese population and clergy were against any ethnic accommodation, as the LTTE lost the war; thus, the Tamils lost their fight.
Devolution was a much-abused word. For the Tamils, it was a partial fulfilment of their political aspiration; for the Sinhalese, it meant eventual secession, and any demand by the Tamils meant “re-emergence of the idea of Tamil Eelam”. The post-war Tamil community was under intense surveillance by security forces. They were not allowed to mourn their families and relatives killed in the last phase of the war as that was tantamount to mourning “terrorists”.
Militarisation of the North continued even after the defeat of the LTTE. The Sinhala Buddhist colonisation with the patronage of the Army started in the Tamil-dominated North of Sri Lanka. Buddha’s statues were placed under the Bodhi tree to reclaim the Sinhala heritage of the North and to deny exclusivity to Tamils’ presence in this area. In the changed circumstances, devolution was Tamils’ only hope.  
President Rajapakse established the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) to discuss 13A and suggest addressing political grievances. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), a coalition of five Tamil parties that represented the Tamils, refused to be part of the PSC as they realised this was a ploy to reject their demands given the majoritarian composition. Similarly, the main opposition, the United National Party (UNP) and Sri Lankan Muslim Congress, opposed any dilution of 13A. Yet since 1987, slowly and steadily, the limited powers of PCs eroded further. For example, in 1992, President Premadasa brought district Secretary Gram Sevaks and government agents in the province under the control of the government in Colombo. Later, the Supreme Court demerged the North and East provinces and considered the “traditional homeland of Tamils” as the merger under the 1987 Accord was not followed by a referendum. No Sri Lankan politician can ignore the Sinhala Buddhist sentiments and
think of winning the election. Several proposals—the devolution proposal of Chandrika Kumaratunge, the 2000 draft constitution and Mangala Moonasinghe’s report—also recommended devolution of power.
Given the Indian pressure post-war, the government decided to hold an election to the Northern Provincial Council after 25 years. Interestingly, some posters pasted before the PC election asked voters whether they wanted to choose guns, indirectly telling the voters that victory of the TNA would mean the return of violence. The party won overwhelmingly, and Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran, former justice, strongly advocated 13A and said it was the only pact out of several signed between the Tamils and governments that had survived due to India’s backing. As the government in Colombo was not in the mood to implement 13A, some of the constituent parties of the TNA took a hardline stand.
In Sri Lanka, the debate is about the full implementation of the 13th Amendment, and it has not progressed beyond that point because scuttling the power of PCs is always on the cards to satisfy the majoritarian impulse. While the Northern Province has highlighted the importance of giving the police and land power to the provinces, other PC chief Ministers have towed their party line.

Fast-forward
In 2016, the presidential election resulted in Maithripala Sirisena’s election to office after defeating Mahinda Rajapakse. Several reforms were proposed by the unity government, also known as the Yahapalana government. However, given the vocal ultra-nationalist opposition to the Provincial Council, the Constitutional Reform Committee could not make any moves. For example: The reform committee suggested including the Sinhala words aekiya raajya and orumiththa nadu in Tamil to signify the country’s unitary status. Some even suggested the insertion of ‘undivided and indivisible’ to ally the unfounded fear of secession of Tamils through devolution. The fear is politically propagated and sustained by nationalist politicians like the National Freedom Front (NFF), Pivithuru Hela Urumaya (PHU), Mawbima Janatha Party (MJP), JHU and also some Army veterans close to former President Gotabaya Rajapakse.
India has always insisted on the full implementation of 13A and the need to hold PC elections. The current president, Ranil Wickremesinghe, also supports this proposal as a way out of the current impasse over 13A. In his tour to the Northern Provinces, he reiterated his position on fully implementing the amendment. Not to be left out, Sajith Premadasa of the Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB), also a Presidential aspirant, said that if voted to power, he will execute 13A. As the presidential election nears, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peremuna of the Rajapakses, which is yet to announce its presidential candidate, is weighing its options as the ultra-nationalist parties supported by Buddhist clergy are rallying against the implementation of any devolution.
This re-emergence of 13A in the political debate as the presidential election nears is not new. At the same time, all political parties know that the support of Tamils would make a difference. While the Tamil political parties remain divided over the nature of the political solution, the Sinhala nationalists want to remove the 13th Amendment. Between these two extremes—no devolution and 13A plus—it is merry-go-round on the crucial question of Tamil political aspiration in Sri Lanka.

In 2023, European Union countries received 1,048,900 first-time asylum applications from non-EU citizens. This was 20 percent more than in 2022 and slightly lower than the peak of 1,216,900 during the height of the “refugee crisis” in 2015.
On May 14, 2024, the European Council adopted a new Migration and Asylum Pact, which proclaims “firm but fair rules”. But concerns have been raised, as critics allege it is harder for people in need to qualify for protection.
Refugees entering the EU seeking protection have climbed rapidly since the end of pandemic restrictions. This is happening alongside an increasingly volatile political landscape, but the regions producing most asylum seekers are not those in the headlines.
Most asylum seekers arriving in the EU are now from Syria (183,035 applications) and Afghanistan (100,935), despite having fallen out of the media spotlight, followed by Turkey (89,970). Venezuela (67,085) and Colombia (62,015) also have high rates of applicants, with people escaping violent crime, seeking safe harbour in Europe, sometimes retracing the paths of their ancestors who fled to South America more than a century ago.

Asylum application processing
Despite the Union’s increased interest in refugee management, over two decades of strengthening the EU’s role in this area have been marked by persistent calls for a burden-sharing approach, rather than a shared responsibility.
National interests and political sensitivity continue to dominate the debate, coloured by the widespread belief that governance around humanitarian migration has failed, especially as it pertains to European institutions in promoting cooperation among
member states.
This remains true even with the Migration and Asylum Pact. By replicating the limitations of the international governance system of human mobility—based on the concept of national societies bounded by national borders—the EU model is inadequate in addressing a phenomenon that transcends the boundaries of individual countries.
People flee from assorted persecutors, including religious authorities and even members of their own families, citing various fears. These include the threat of being subjected to practices such as genital mutilation, violations of the rights of queer people, and the threat to survival posed by environmental catastrophes, among others.

Mixing migrant flows
Forced migrants often use the same routes and means as voluntary ones, producing the phenomenon of mixed flows.
The progressive “enlargement” of the concept of forced migrant has contributed to the rise in requests, making the distinction between voluntary and forced migrations increasingly porous and disputable. This has also made it relatively easy to submit instrumental asylum applications, putting the protection system under pressure. The consequences are challenging from both political and ethical perspectives.
The management of asylum applications has become a leading producer of so-called “irregular migrants”—theoretically destined for expulsion but who often remain for years in an existential and social limbo—as well as migrants with a precarious status, which heightens their vulnerability (for example, by inhibiting their access to housing and employment).
The issue of refugees becomes an European “problem” only when it physically breaches the borders of “Fortress Europe”, perhaps as a group of survivors from a shipwreck.
The substantial lack of humanitarian channels diverts refugees onto unsafe routes or into the hands of traffickers, thus fuelling the enormous business developed around the desire or need to migrate.
It also creates the paradoxical, problematic issue of “false” asylum seekers becoming “true”, one who has earned the right to be received through suffering mistreatment, rape and torture, often in states with which EU countries have agreements to combat irregular immigration.
In Europe, the large numbers of rejected or waiting asylum seekers clashes with both the entrenched culture of rights and human dignity, and the needs of society and the economy grappling with the consequences of a “demographic winter”.
Courts and many civil society organisations committed to defending migrants are joined by employers struggling to recruit new staff.
Many have interpreted Germany’s recent openness to refugees, especially those with professional skills and educational qualifications, in this light. This sometimes risks bending the management of humanitarian migrations to an economic logic, often embedded in the pro-immigrant narrative itself, which emphasises “our” need for “their” labour.

Devastating implications
The aim of containing the number of asylum seekers has often taken on the appearance of the adjective “safe” applied to third countries erected as guardians of the EU borders, even when these countries are anything but safe for those in need of protection.
In line with the tendency to externalise the union’s borders, the pact has introduced a “mandatory border procedure” to be applied to certain categories of asylum seekers, particularly those coming from states with low recognition rates, thereby preventing applicants from entering EU territory. Furthermore, through the “legal fiction of non-entry”, areas close to the border may not be considered as part of EU territory.
According to many civil society organisations, these measures will have devastating implications for the right to international protection within the bloc, and will greenlight abuses, including racial profiling, default de facto detention, and pushbacks.
In line with the prevailing technocratic paradigm, the pact seeks solutions through the redesign of procedures and the use of surveillance technologies at all stages of migration and asylum procedures, rather than encouraging a debate on the ethical principles that should govern such a delicate matter.
A debate where today individual voices are missing. The voice of the “real” refugees, whose testimony should make us more aware of the privilege of living in a European democracy. And even the voice of “false” refugees, reminding us of the responsibility—shared with countries of origin and the international community—to build viable alternatives to migration.
At the same time, it’s clear the need to institutionalise humanitarian corridors in order to offer vulnerable individuals and families a chance to rebuild their lives
The international protection system, already strained by procedural shortcomings and a lack of global burden-sharing, faces a growing challenge: The blurring of lines between forced displacement and voluntary migration. This highly debated border is still indispensable for the economic and political sustainability of protection systems.
But drawing it on the basis of considerations relating to the origin of the refugees or their economic advantage would be extremely dangerous—for the most vulnerable migrants and for the very identity of European society.

Zanfrini is a Professor of the Scientific-Disciplinary Sector of Sociology of Economic Processes at the Catholic University of Milan.

The Nepali cricket team is returning home today after a bittersweet performance at the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 in the US and the West Indies. But at the same time, it has sent an unmistakable message to the world: “We have arrived!”
Nepal technically did not win any of the group stage matches at the world cup. The only point it got was through a draw with Sri Lanka after rain forced the match to be abandoned. The match with Sri Lanka was certainly the most anticipated considering how they were a relatively weaker team in the group and Nepal had a great chance of getting both the points. But Nepal was not out there looking for the weakest. Rather, it was there to take on the strongest cricketing giants. In the other three matches—against the Netherlands, South Africa and Bangladesh—Nepal gave its opponents ample evidence of its arrival on the global cricketing scene.
The most electric performance, of course, was against South Africa when Nepal lost by just a run. But even in the narrow loss, it won plenty of hearts and accolades, having forced a top Test cricket-playing nation ranked third in one-day internationals and fifth in T20 internationals to run for its money. Neither could the Netherlands and Bangladesh take Nepal for granted. What was equally gratifying was the forceful presence of Nepali cricket fans cheering for Team Nepal. The Nepali fans did not only fill the stadiums from Texas to Florida to St. Vincent, they cheered on even as their team lost. This was not just due to a strengthening spirit of sportsmanship but also the confidence that we are rising and rising as a cricketing nation.
At home, though, there is still a lot of work to do. The men in blue and red might want to work on their batting skills, for that is where we flattered the most this time. After assessing their World Cup odyssey, captain Rohit Paudel and coach Monty Desai will certainly sit down to work out a new plan of action, and we must have faith in their leadership—after all, Nepali cricket hasn’t been as consistently strong as it is under them. What we need immediately is investment in infrastructure. We do not even have a single stadium with floodlights, let alone proper stands and toilets for the spectators. The stadium in Kirtipur is rustic and amateurish at best; the one in Mulpani is taking ages to complete although it has been used for some tournaments; and the one in Bharatpur that has been partially built by the Dhurmus-Suntali Foundation has a long way to go before it comes into operation.
Moreover, our players have limited exposure to even regional cricket although we live at the nervecentre of the cricketing world—South Asia. Nepal must take the initiative to invite regional cricketing powerhouses such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka for friendly and competitive matches so that our players get greater exposure. We have seen how Afghanistan has risen as the dark horse of cricket in just a few years with the right kind of regional support, mainly India. We stand to be the next big story in the cricketing world if we play our shots right.

Troubles over contract details and health problems are increasing regarding cosmetic treatments such as wrinkle removal and weight loss. The government should take the lead in grasping the situation and work to prevent damage.
According to the National Consumer Affairs Center, the number of consultations about problems related to cosmetic treatments exceeded 6,000 last fiscal year, more than tripling in five years. There were many consultations involving troubles over contracts, such as claims over high fees, and about 900 cases related to health damage. People of all ages and sexes have a growing desire to be beautiful, and interest in cosmetic treatments is increasing. This may be accompanied by an increase in the number of malicious beauty clinics.
As for health damage, there have been many serious cases, such as deaths from liposuction surgery and blindness from injections of impregnating agents to make the nose taller. However, the extent of these problems has not been known in detail.
The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry intends to establish a study group of doctors and other experts as early as this summer and discuss measures against harm caused by cosmetic treatments. It is hoped that the panel will gather information from affected patients and consider measures to prevent a recurrence.
Since cosmetic treatments are medical practices undertaken of one’s own choice and people who want to receive them cover the entire cost, the government has not confirmed their details or safety in advance, unlike treatments covered by health insurance. It is necessary to understand this point fully.
It is essential to receive an explanation from doctors about the risks and side effects and to discern the balance between them and the benefits. In addition, there have been a number of cases of burns and other damage caused by devices that irradiate ultrasonic waves to remove wrinkles and sagging skin. There have reportedly also been cases of treatments being performed at aesthetic salons by staff without medical qualifications.
It may be necessary for the government to set certain restrictions to prevent people without professional qualifications from using the devices or prescribing drugs for other than their original purposes. In recent years, an increasing number of young doctors are entering the cosmetic treatment field. It is said that this is because they can expect high remuneration.
In contrast, such fields as gastrointestinal surgery and cardiovascular surgery are facing a serious shortage of doctors. It has been pointed out that this is because the working schedule is harsher than that of cosmetic treatments and others, and their conditions are inadequate. It is necessary to make efforts to identify these issues in the future.

—The Japan News/ANN

HUDIAN (China),
Farmer Bao Mingchen gestured to a dry pipe where water typically irrigates a patch of crops, the soil now cracked under a drought hitting China’s vast agricultural hinterland.
“Everything is dry,” he said as he strode along the perimeter of a rice paddy near his home in Hudian, a humble township in the central Chinese province of Henan.
The rice plants still shine a radiant green but Bao, puffing on a cigarette, told AFP that the local farmers are beginning to worry about how much longer they can go without rain.
Recent years have brought a long list of extreme weather events to China, including destructive floods and record-breaking heatwaves that experts say are made more frequent by global climate change. Even as parts of central China were hit by drought, heavy rains and landslides across the south killed four people and left more than a dozen missing this week.
The weeks-long dry spell striking central China has led many farmers to hold off on planting as agricultural authorities warn of damage to crops.
A short drive down the road from Bao’s home, 70-year-old reservoir manager Liu told AFP that the area hadn’t seen any significant rain since April.
“The drought conditions currently are very severe,” said Liu, who gave only his surname, as he stood on the bank of the reservoir, the unusually low level of which was emphasised by a ring of stained concrete.
Liu’s reservoir serves as an important water source for the surrounding area, where farmers grow crops such as rice and corn.
“If it doesn’t rain there’ll be a loss of the reservoir, and those farmers’ rice paddy fields—they will have to be saved,” he said. “If it really doesn’t rain, (the crops) will all die.”
Nearby, a 59-year-old woman farmer surnamed Wang arranged bushels of Chinese mugwort, a fragrant herb used in traditional medicine, along the side of the road.
“Look at it, it’s all withered,” Wang said. “The bottom half is dead already. There are a few sprouts at the top but they’re also about to dry up.”
Across the road, Wang showed AFP a patch of crumbling dry soil where corn typically grows.
In a stroke of bitter irony, a sprinkling of measly raindrops fell for a couple of minutes, quickly evaporating on the scorching ground before the pale clouds dissipated beneath the blinding sun. Wang said she hoped authorities could harness the power of technology to help local farmers through the drought.
“With advanced technology and artificial rainfall, there’d be some hope for us,” she said.

KRAKÓW (Poland), 
Late evening, downtown Krakow goes from historic landmark to hub for stag nights, pub crawls and wild parties. Now, fed up with the ruckus, disgruntled locals are taking Poland’s second city to court.
The lawsuit filed this month, with backing from several dozen residents, accuses municipal authorities of not doing enough to address disturbances to public order, including loud noise and excessive drunkenness.
“Non-compliance with the law has become a symbol of tourism in Krakow,” Ryszard Rydiger, the lawyer behind the initiative, told AFP.
He likened the situation to something seen “nowhere else in Europe” and said tourists were behaving like “Tarzan from the Jungle” without consequence.
This is not the first time that Krakow—visited by a whopping 9.4 million tourists in 2023, according to city estimates—has grappled with challenges posed by its more unruly visitors.
Last year, there were 6,800 police interventions in the city centre, many of them for drinking alcohol and destroying public property. Two-thirds resulted in fines, according to municipal police spokesman Marek Aniol.
While the lawsuit alleges that public disturbance issues are endemic to the entire Old Town, residents name Szewska Street as the problem’s epicentre.
“Every day of the week, until six in the morning, Szewska becomes a place of noisy gatherings,” reads the suit.
“The crowd, without any restrictions or effective response from city authorities, sings... shouts, fights, vomits... The noise emitted by the drunken rabble exceeds the standards permitted by law.”
The initiative was a good move, according to one resident, club promoter Jan, who called Szewska the “heart of darkness”.
“The city should intervene in some way,” the 23-year-old told AFP.
Noise and mess aside, Jan said that competition among clubs for higher numbers of late-night visitors also resulted in street fights.
He recounted the story of a friend who worked as a promoter on Szewska but had to quit due to the “heavy trauma” of violence from rivals.
Even beyond the dead centre, late-night debauchery can pose problems for locals.
“You can’t walk peacefully in the evening, or at night,” said Weronika, a 25-year-old doctor.
“The peace is very disturbed.”
Krakow has taken steps to address the issue. Mayor Aleksander Miszalski announced this week the appointment of a night official, as well as plans for a committee that would research the situation and offer solutions.
Last July, the city became Poland’s first to ban alcohol sales from midnight until 5:30 am, a move supported by more than half of residents.
Police said that in the first six months, interventions were down by half and fewer intoxicated people landed in sobering-up centres.
For the past three years, Krakow has also employed “City Helpers” during the high season—night-time volunteers tasked with providing information to tourists and calling police if need be. The municipality has also released numerous advertising campaigns geared towards bringing out-of-towners into line and reducing public disturbances.
“Of course we need tourists,” said Jan. “It’s just that there needs to be appropriate legislation so that we have the tourists, but without the noise, mess and crap.”
What began as a public safety operation in 2021 later evolved into a targeted campaign against Britons, who are known for indulging in stag nights in Krakow.
While initial posters around the city urged both residents and visitors to respect others’ space, be on “good behaviour” and “keep belongings safe”, the latest campaign was much more blunt.
“You are in the city of Polish kings,” the posters read. “This deserves respect.” Rydiger said these “actions go in the right direction” but are “completely initial” in terms of addressing the problem.
“For years, the tourism policy has been ‘come, come, come’, but it has not been about setting clear boundaries on what can and cannot be done,” he said.

PARIS,
A Kansas businessman shipped banned avionics equipment to Russia through Armenia, the UAE and other third countries. A French firm falsified documents to help unscrupulous European exporters circumvent sanctions.
Despite more than two years of Western punitive measures, Russia is still getting its hands on prohibited goods, with the help of cunning businesses that go to great lengths to dodge the embargo.
Last week, the United States unveiled fresh sanctions against 300 targets in and outside Russia.
“(These) actions strike at their remaining avenues for international materials and equipment, including their reliance on critical supplies from third countries,” said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
It may still not be enough.
“Unfortunately, when people want to commit fraud, it might take some time but they succeed,” Claire Lavarde, a lawyer at international law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, told AFP. Russia was hit with a first wave of sanctions following its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. The West tightened the screws after Moscow invaded its neighbour in February 2022.
But Russia’s economy has withstood the shock, growing 5.4 percent in the first quarter of this year as its trade relations with Asia and the Middle East soared.
Some business leaders say they cannot always control where their products end up in the supply chain.
“We are not necessarily naive, but there is nothing we can do,” said a senior executive at a European manufacturer of precision machinery who spoke on condition of anonymity.
For legal protection, he said, “our lawyers advised us to have all our clients worldwide sign a document stating that they would not resell our products to Russia, Belarus and Iran”.
Lavarde, whose firm helps banking, luxury and high-tech groups know who they can still work with, said: “One can imagine controlling the first re-export, but not the tenth.”
Despite export controls, Russia “continues to be able to import large amounts of goods needed for military production”, according to a January report by the Kyiv School of Economics and the Yermak-McFaul International Working Group on Russian Sanctions.
Moscow’s imports of “battlefield goods” and “critical components” took a hit in the aftermath of the invasion but they recovered in the second half of 2022 “as Russia was able to adapt supply chains”, the report said.
Russian imports of battlefield goods reached $932 million (868 million euros) between January and October 2023, only 10 percent lower than the pre-sanctions period.
Data compiled by Eric Dor, director of economic studies at the France-based IESEG School of Management, showed that EU exports to Russia of 50 “high-priority items”, such as semiconductors and integrated circuits, fell 95 percent between October 2022 and September 2023 compared to the same period in 2020-2021.
Meanwhile, the study found that EU exports of such items to former Soviet republics, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates soared.
They more than tripled for Kazakhstan, quadrupled for Armenia and jumped almost 1,700 percent for Kyrgyzstan.
“It’s too systematic,” Dor told AFP. These goods, he said, are “clearly” being re-exported to Russia.
The Kansas businessman, Cyril Gregory Buyanovsky, 60, pleaded guilty in December for his role in a “long-running scheme to smuggle sophisticated US avionics equipment to Russia”, Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen said at the time.
After Washington tightened sanctions in 2022, Buyanovsky and other conspirators shipped goods to Russia through intermediary companies in Armenia, Cyprus and the United Arab Emirates, US authorities said.
They filed false export forms and used foreign bank accounts in Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Cyprus and the UAE to funnel money from Russian customers to Buyanovsky’s KanRus Trading Company.
In France, customs authorities raided an unidentified company in the Paris region in May that, according to the economy ministry, “specialised in the illegal export of goods to Russia”.
In 2023, the company produced hundreds of fake customs forms that allowed the shipment of goods to Russia worth tens of millions of euros for dozens of “unscrupulous exporters”.

SHANGHAI: The head of China’s central bank said on Wednesday that the economy still faced many challenges, but warned authorities would not resort to huge stimulus measures and instead exercise moderation. The country’s recovery from the impact of Covid has slowed in the months since it abruptly lifted tough restrictions in late 2022, with a property crisis and tepid consumer demand weighing on growth. Leaders have unveiled a series of policies to boost infrastructure spending and spur consumption but have stopped short of offering the big-spending “bazooka” called for by analysts, and which was introduced during the global financial crisis. (AFP)

SEOUL, South Korea,
Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed an agreement on Wednesday that pledges mutual aid if either country faces “aggression,” a strategic pact that comes as both face escalating standoffs with the West.
Details of the deal were not immediately clear, but it could mark the strongest connection between Moscow and Pyongyang since the end of the Cold War. Both leaders described it as a major upgrade of their relations, covering security, trade, investment, cultural and humanitarian ties.
The summit came as Putin visited North Korea for the first time in 24 years and the US and its allies expressed growing concerns over a possible arms arrangement in which Pyongyang provides Moscow with badly needed munitions for its war
in Ukraine, in exchange for economic assistance and technology transfers that could enhance the threat posed by Kim’s nuclear weapons and missile program.
Kim said the two countries had a “fiery friendship,” and that the deal was their “strongest ever treaty,” putting the relationship at the level of an alliance. He vowed full support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Putin called it a “breakthrough document” reflecting shared desires to move relations to a higher level.
North Korea and the former Soviet Union signed a treaty in 1961, which experts say necessitated Moscow’s military intervention if the North came under attack.
The deal was discarded after the collapse of the USSR, replaced by one in 2000 that offered weaker security assurances. It wasn’t immediately clear if the new deal provides a similar level of protection as the 1961 treaty.
Kim met Putin at the airport, where the two shook hands, hugged twice and rode together in a limousine. The huge motorcade rolled through the capital’s brightly lit streets, where buildings were decorated with giant Russian flags and portraits of Putin.
After spending the night at a state guest house, Putin was welcomed Wednesday morning in a ceremony at the city’s main square, filled with what appeared to be tens of thousands of spectators, including children with balloons and people in coordinated T-shirts of the red, white and blue national colors of both countries. Crowds lining the streets chanted “Welcome Putin,” and waved flowers and flags.
Putin and Kim saluted an honor guard and walked across a red carpet. Kim introduced key members of his leadership including Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui; top aide and ruling party secretary Jo Yong Won; and the leader’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong.
At their talks, Putin thanked Kim for North Korea’s support in Ukraine, part of what he said was a “fight against the imperialist hegemonistic policies of the US and its satellites against the Russian Federation.”
Putin praised ties that he traced to the Soviet army fighting the Japanese military on the Korean Peninsula at the end of World War II, and Moscow’s support for Pyongyang during the Korean War.
What kind of support was pledged in the agreement was not spelled out. Kim has used similar language before, consistently saying North Korea supports what he describes as a just action to protect Russia’s interests and blaming the crisis on the West’s “hegemonic policy.” North Korea is under heavy UN Security Council sanctions over its weapons program, while Russia also faces sanctions by the US and its Western partners over its invasion of Ukraine.
US and South Korean officials accuse the North of providing Russia with artillery, missiles and other military equipment for use in Ukraine, possibly in return for key military technologies and aid. On Tuesday, a US State Department spokesman said that in recent months, Washington has seen North Korea “unlawfully transfer dozens of ballistic missiles and over 11,000 containers of munitions to aid Russia’s war effort.”
Both Pyongyang and Moscow deny accusations of weapons transfers, which would violate multiple UN Security Council sanctions that Russia previously endorsed.
Along with China, Russia has provided political cover for Kim’s efforts to advance his nuclear arsenal, repeatedly blocking US-led efforts to impose fresh UN sanctions on the North over its weapons tests.
In March, a Russian veto in the Security Council ended monitoring of UN sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear program, prompting Western accusations that Moscow is seeking to avoid scrutiny as it buys weapons from Pyongyang. Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov told reporters in Pyongyang the leaders exchanged gifts after the talks.
Putin presented Kim with a Russian-made Aurus limousine and other gifts, including a tea set and a naval officer’s dagger. Ushakov said Kim’s presents to Putin included artwork depicting the Russian leader.

CAIRO,
Israeli tanks backed by warplanes and drones advanced deeper into the western part of the Gaza Strip city of Rafah on Wednesday, killing eight people, according to residents and Palestinian medics.
Residents said the tanks moved into five neighborhoods after midnight. Heavy shelling and gunfire hit the tents of displaced families in the Al-Mawasi area, further to the west of the coastal enclave, they said.
Some eight months into the war, there has been no sign of let up in the fighting as efforts by international mediators, backed by the United States, have so far failed to persuade Israel and Hamas to agree to a ceasefire. Israeli forces have laid waste to much of Gaza and seized most of the Palestinian territory but have yet to achieve their stated goal of wiping out Hamas and freeing Israeli hostages.
Medics and Hamas media said eight Palestinians were killed in Al-Mawasi and many families fled north in panic. They did not identify the fatalities and the Israeli military said it was looking into the report.
Residents said Israeli army forces blew up several homes in western Rafah, which had sheltered over half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people before last month, when Israel began its ground offensive and forced most of the population to head northwards. Some United Nations and Palestinian figures put those who remained at under 100,000 people.
“Another night of horror in Rafah. They opened fire from planes, drones and tanks on the western areas to cover for their invasion,” said one Rafah resident, who asked not to be named. “Bullets and shells landed in the Mawasi area near where people slept, killing and wounding many,” he told Reuters via a chat app.
An Israeli commander briefing military correspondents in Rafah on Tuesday named two more locations there—Shaboura and Tel Al-Sultan—where the army planned to take on Hamas fighters. “The Hamas battalions there are not yet well worn down and we need to dismantle them completely. We estimate it at more or less a month, at this intensity,” Colonel Liron Batito, head of the Givati Brigade, told Army Radio.
The Israeli military remained in control of the borderline between Rafah and Egypt. Footage circulated on social media showed the Rafah crossing, the only window for most of Gaza’s population with the outside world, was destroyed, buildings burnt, and Israeli tanks positioned there with the flag of Israel flying over some places.
The Israeli military said aid into Gaza had not been impeded by the damage. Further north, Israel sent a column of tanks back into the Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza City and residents reported heavy fire from tanks and warplanes but also sounds of gun battles with Hamas-led fighters.
In another Gaza City suburb, Sheikh Radwan, an Israeli air strike on a house killed four Palestinians, including a child, medics said. A total of 20 people had been killed across Gaza. The armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said fighters battled Israeli forces with anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs, and have in some areas detonated pre-planted explosive devices against army units.
Later on Wednesday, Palestinian gunmen fired rockets at the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza, the Israeli military said.
Israel’s ground and air campaign was triggered when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. The offensive has left Gaza in ruins, killed more than 37,400 people, according to Palestinian health authorities, and left much of the population homeless and destitute.

BEIRUT,
The head of Lebanon's Hezbollah said on Wednesday that nowhere in Israel would be safe if a full-fledged war breaks out between the two foes, and he also threatened Cyprus and other parts of the Mediterannean.
Hezbollah has been trading fire with Israel for more than eight months in parallel with the Gaza War. On Tuesday, the Iran-backed group published what it said was drone footage of sensitive military sites deep in Israeli territory.
In a televised address on Wednesday, Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said "there will be no place safe from our missiles and our drones" in Israel in the event of a broader war.
The group also had "a bank of targets" that it could target in precision strikes, he said.
Israel "knows that what also awaits it in the Mediterranean is very big...In the face of a battle of this magnitude, it knows that it must now wait for us on land, in the air, and at sea," Nasrallah added.
The group first showed it could hit a vessel at sea by striking an Israeli warship in the Mediterranean during their 2006 war.
Reports by media and analysts have for years indicated that Hezbollah acquired Russian-made anti-ship Yakhont missiles in Syria, after its forces deployed there more than a decade ago to help President Bashar al-Assad fight the country's civil war.
Nasrallah also threatened Cyprus for the first time, accusing it of allowing Israel to use its airports and bases for military exercises.
Israeli forces may have repeatedly violated the laws of war and failed to distinguish between civilians and fighters in the Gaza conflict, according to the UN human rights office on Wednesday.

NEW DELHI/GUWAHATI,
India recorded more than 40,000 suspected heatstroke cases this summer as a prolonged heatwave killed more than 100 people across the country, while parts of its northeast grappled with floods from heavy rain, authorities said.
Billions across Asia are grappling with extreme heat this summer in a trend scientists say has been worsened by human-driven climate change, with temperatures in north India soaring to almost 50 degrees Celsius in one of the longest heatwave spells recorded.
Birds fell from the skies due to extreme heat and hospitals reported an inflow of heat-affected patients as both day and night time temperatures peaked in recent weeks since the start of summer in March.
The health ministry ordered federal and state institutions to ensure “immediate attention” to patients, while hospitals in the capital Delhi, which is also facing a water shortage, were directed make more beds available.
A health ministry official said there were more than 40,000 suspected heatstroke cases and at least 110 confirmed deaths between March 1 and June 18, when northwest and eastern India recorded twice the usual number of heatwave days. The weather office has forecast above normal temperatures for this month too, as authorities say Indian cities have become “heat traps” due to unbalanced growth.
If we have any hope of reducing the damages from climate change over the next couple of decades, methane is a key. “During the ongoing heatwave, most bird rescue calls that we receive are due to birds falling from the skies,” said Kartick Satyanarayan, co-founder and CEO of non-profit Wildlife SOS.
“In the past two weeks, Wildlife SOS has been receiving more than 35-40 rescue calls daily, in and around Delhi-National Capital Region. Most of the calls include bird rescue requests.”
Separately, floods and landslides triggered by incessant rain in the northeastern state of Assam killed at least six people on Tuesday night, officials said. “A landslide buried a woman and her three daughters alive,” a state disaster management official, Siju Das, said by telephone.
“Their house was on a slope, and they died on the spot around midnight,” he said, adding that the bodies were retrieved after a three-hour search operation by rescuers.
“A three-year-old was killed too.”
In Assam, more than 160,000 people were affected, with waters surpassing the danger level in the Kopili, one of the largest tributaries of the Brahmaputra, which ranks among India’s biggest rivers.

MECCA, Saudi Arabia,
Hundreds of people died during this year’s Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia as the faithful faced intense high temperatures at Islamic holy sites in the desert kingdom, officials said on Wednesday as people tried to claim their loved ones’ bodies.
Saudi Arabia has not commented on the death toll amid the heat during the pilgrimage, required of every able Muslim once in their life, nor offered any causes for those who died. However, hundreds of people had lined up at the Emergency Complex in Al-Muaisem neighborhood in Mecca, trying to get information about their missing family members.
One list circulating online suggested at least 550 people died during the five-day Hajj. A medic who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss information not released publicly by the government said that the names listed appeared genuine. That medic and another official who also spoke on condition of anonymity said they believed at least 600 bodies were at the facility.
Deaths aren’t uncommon at the Hajj, which has drawn at times over 2 million people to Saudi Arabia. There have been stampedes and epidemics through the pilgrimage’s history.
Each year, the Hajj draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from low-income nations, “many of whom have had little, if any, pre-Hajj health care,” an article in the April edition of the Journal of Infection and Public Health said. Communicable illnesses can spread among the gathered masses, many of whom saved their entire lives for their trips and can be elderly with preexisting health conditions, the paper added.
However, the number of dead this year suggests something caused the number of deaths to swell. Already, several countries have said some of their pilgrims died because of the heat that swept across the holy sites at Mecca, including Jordan and Tunisia.
Temperatures on Tuesday reached 47 degrees Celsius (117 degrees Fahrenheit) in Mecca and the sacred sites in and around the city, according to the Saudi National Center for Meteorology. Onlookers saw some people faint while trying to perform the symbolic stoning of the devil, At the Grand Mosque in Mecca, temperatures reached 51.8 C (125 F) on Monday though pilgrims had already left for Mina, authorities said.
Others, including many Egyptians, lost track of their loved ones in the heat and the crowds. More than 1.83 million Muslims performed the Hajj in 2024, including more than 1.6 million pilgrims from 22 countries, and around 222,000 Saudi citizens and residents, according to the Saudi Hajj authorities.
On Wednesday at the medical complex in Mecca, an Egyptian man collapsed to the ground when he heard the name of mother among the dead. He cried for some time before grabbing his cellphone and calling a travel agent, shouting: “He left her to die!” The crowd tried to calm the man.
Security appeared tight at the complex, with an official reading out names of the dead and the nationalities, which included people from Algeria, Egypt and India. Those who said they were kin of the dead were allowed inside to identify the deceased.
The AP could not independently confirm the causes of death for those bodies held at the complex. Saudi officials did not respond to questions seeking more information.
The kingdom’s ruling Al Saud family maintains a major influence in the Muslim world through its oil wealth and management of Islam’s holiest sites. Like Saudi monarchs before him, King Salman has taken the title of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, referring to the Grand Mosque in Mecca home to the cube-shaped Kaaba that Muslims pray towards five times a day, and the Prophet’s Mosque in the nearby city of Medina.
Saudi Arabia has spent billions of dollars on crowd control and safety measures for those attending the annual five-day pilgrimage, but the sheer number of participants makes ensuring their safety difficult.
Climate change could make the risk even greater. A 2019 study by experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that even if the world succeeds in mitigating the worst effects of climate change, the Hajj would be held in temperatures
exceeding an “extreme danger threshold” from 2047 to 2052, and from 2079 to 2086.

LONDON: More than 800 asylum seekers arrived in Britain via small boats on Tuesday, the highest single-day figure since late 2022, adding to pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of a July 4 national election.Provisional data from Britain’s interior ministry showed 882 migrants arrived on Tuesday, taking the yearly total so far to above 12,300. The daily figure was last higher in November 2022, when 947 migrants arrived in a single day. Trailing far behind the opposition Labour party in opinion polls, and with immigration a major concern for some voters, “stopping the boats” and curbing illegal migration has been one of Sunak’s flagship pledges. The centrepiece of Sunak’s immigration policy is a plan to deport asylum seekers from Britain to Rwanda and create a deterrent for migrants using small boats to cross from France. But, because he calling the election earlier than many expected, that plan has yet to come into effect. The opposition Labour Party, which is about 20 points ahead in opinion polls, has said it would scrap the Rwanda policy if it comes to power. (Reuters)

MANILA: Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte resigned on Wednesday from the cabinet of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and another key post, not a surprise move given that her alliance with Marcos had long been expected to collapse. Marcos has accepted Duterte’s resignation from the posts of education minister and vice chair of an anti-insurgency task force, Presidential Communications Secretary Cheloy Garafil said in a statement, adding that no reasons were given by her for stepping down. Duterte, who will remain vice president, said in a press conference that her “resignation is not because of weakness but because of true concern for teachers and the youth.” Her resignation affirmed what political observers had predicted all along that the alliance between their families that brought Marcos and her into power in 2022 was bound to collapse because of their political and policy differences. “It is the break we have all been waiting for,” Jean Encinas-Franco, a political science professor at the University of the Philippines, said of the vice president’s decision to step down from her cabinet post, suggesting that it would now give her more power to go against Marcos. (Reuters)

NORTH SOUND, Antigua and Barbuda,
Quinton de Kock hit a blistering half-century as South Africa defeated a battling United States by 18 runs in their opening T20 World Cup second round clash on Wednesday.
The Proteas piled up 194-4 off their 20 overs after being put into bat before restricting the US to 176-6 as the Super Eights stage got underway at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium.
However, the US, who stunned former champions Pakistan in the first round, were close to another upset when Andries Gous (80 not out) and Harmeet Singh (38) put on 91 for the sixth wicket.
Opening batsman De Kock, his country’s leading run-maker in the format, reached his 15th T20 international fifty off 26 balls.
He was eventually dismissed for 74 with seven fours and five sixes in a 40-ball innings which was comfortably his best performance of the tournament.
In four previous visits to the crease at the World Cup, the 31-year-old had a best of just 20 against Sri Lanka.
Skipper Aiden Markram also hit his tournament best of 46 from 32 balls with four boundaries and a six.
Markram and De Kock put on 110 for the second wicket and helped their team reach 101-1 off the first 10 overs.
Slow left-armer Harmeet brought the United States back into the match by removing De Kock and fellow dangerman David Miller (0) in the space of two balls.
Markram’s innings was ended by impressive fast bowler Saurabh Netravalkar who finished with 2-21 from his four overs.

Gous, Harmeet give hope
Heinrich Klaasen (36 not out) and Tristan Stubbs (20 not out) added an undefeated 53 for the fifth wicket.
The United States enjoyed a bright start to their reply on Wednesday, reaching 50 in the first five overs before they struggled to contain the Proteas’ pace-spin attack.
Kagiso Rabada removed Steven Taylor (24) and Nitish Kumar (eight) before American hopes suffered a major blow when skipper Aaron Jones was out without scoring.
Jones had smashed an undefeated 94 in the first round win over Canada but lasted just five balls Wednesday when he edged spinner Keshav Maharaj to De Kock.
Former New Zealand international Corey Anderson made a quick 12 before his stumps were scattered by Anrich Nortje one ball after cracking a six over midwicket.
The US limped to 73-4 off the first 10 overs before opener Gous and Harmeet suddenly reignited their team’s hopes.
Gous smashed leg-spinner Tabraiz Shamsi for three sixes in the 18th over to leave his team needing 28 off 12 balls.
Rabada, however, conceded just two runs off the 19th over while also dismissing Harmeet to finish with 3-18.
Harmeet made his runs from 22 balls with two fours and three sixes.
Gous’s runs came off 47 balls and featured five fours and five sixes.
Shamsi went for 50 runs off his four overs.
West Indies and defending champions England are the other teams in Group 2 of the Super Eights.
India, Australia, Afghanistan and Bangladesh comprise Group 1.

STUTTGART,
Jamal Musiala and Ilkay Gundogan scored as hosts Germany became the first team to qualify for the last 16 of Euro 2024 on Wednesday after beating Hungary 2-0 in Stuttgart.
Musiala struck for the second game running midway through the first half, much to the anger of Hungary players who felt a foul should have been awarded in the build-up to the goal.
Gundogan grabbed his side’s second on 67 minutes as Germany eased to a second successive win in Group A, making sure they will progress to the knockout phase at least as one of the best third-placed sides.
Julian Nagelsmann’s men can wrap up top spot when they play Switzerland in Frankfurt in their final group fixture on Sunday.
Hungary are staring at elimination after back-to-back defeats and must beat Scotland if they are to stand any chance of reaching the last 16.
Germany unsurprisingly stuck with the same line-up that battered Scotland 5-1 in the first game of the tournament, ending a run of three major finals in which they had lost their opening match.
Hungary coach Marco Rossi made two changes following a disappointing 3-1 loss to Switzerland, bringing Marton Dardai into his three-man defence and starting Bendeguz Bolla at right wing-back.
 
Croatia in danger of early exit
Albania left Croatia in danger of a group-stage exit from Euro 2024 after a thrilling 2-2 draw on Wednesday as Albania’s Klaus Gjasula scored at both ends, including a dramatic injury-time equaliser.
After a disappointing 3-0 loss to Spain in their opener, Croatia were behind again when Qazim Laci gave Albania an early lead in Hamburg.
But Croatia improved after making two half-time substitutions and Andrej Kramaric levelled with 16 minutes remaining, before Gjasula put through his own net.
The Albania midfielder became the last-gasp hero, though, slotting into the bottom corner in the fifth minute of injury time to snatch his team a point.
Croatia, World Cup semi-finalists in 2022, will now likely need to win their final Group B match against holders Italy on June 24 to reach the knockout phase for a fifth straight major tournament.
Albania have won plenty of plaudits with their performances against both Italy, in a 2-1 defeat, and Croatia, but could not hold a lead in either game and will probably have to beat Spain to keep their last-16 hopes alive.
Croatia’s ‘golden generation’ were ultimately made to pay for a poor first-half display and are on the brink of bowing out from major tournament football in limp fashion.
Albania scored the fastest goal in European Championship history after just 23 seconds against Italy and they made another quick start.
It took until only the 11th minute for Sylvinho’s men to break the deadlock this time, as Sparta Prague midfielder Laci ghosted into the area unmarked to nod home an inch-perfect, inswinging cross from Jasir Asani.
Croatia finally found a way through in the 74th minute as substitute Ante Budimir picked out Kramaric inside the box and he cut inside before sending a composed finish inside Strakosha’s near post.
The turnaround appeared to be complete two minutes later as Sucic’s close-range effort was blocked, but rebounded off the unfortunate Gjasula and into an empty net.
Albania did not give up, missing a series of late chances as it appeared Croatia would cling on. Gjasula had other ideas though, sweeping a loose ball home before a chaotic denouement that saw both sides throw bodies forward in search of a winner, to no avail.

ARIES (March 21-April 19)
You’ll feel called to a greater purpose pushing you to reach for personal goals both near and far. Stay grounded in reality without losing your ability to dream, which may cause you to feel unsure of what comes next.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)
Curb your screen time, especially if you’ve felt disconnected from nature and the material realms. Your mind sharpens, marking the official start of summer and a period of learning for you. Harness these vibes by stepping into social situations.

GEMINI (May 21-June 21)
Pay attention to the people who show up for you today, dearest Gemini. Be mindful to return any kindnesses you receive, solidifying bonds that can be helpful down the line. Boundaries will dissolve with ease.

CANCER (June 22-July 22)
Though your actions and routines may not seem so special at first glance, your efforts will bring major payoffs down the line. Demonstrate to your peers that you’re willing to work hard for success.

LEO (July 23-August 22)
The stars will reward your wits and daring. Try not to worry about what others may think, staying true to your own path. If you need a break from prying eyes, consider embracing more solitude.

VIRGO (August 23-September 22)
If you’ve become too distracted by romance or fun, it may be necessary to take a breather from loved ones. Fortunately, you’ll have plenty of time to socialise throughout the coming weeks. Devote your summer to making new connections.

LIBRA (September 23-October 22)
Inspiring conversations around matters of the heart could shift how you view love, dearest Libra. You’ll see growth within long-term goals though your summer may kick off with more work than play. Focus on how you can implement better routines.

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21)
You’ll feel inspired to take your financial situation more seriously. Harness these vibes by breaking any spending habits that have left you with more stuff and less savings. Try not to resist change which could cause you to avoid problems.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21)
Be mindful of other people’s feelings as you reach for greatness. Shifts within your love life and personal commitments could be on the horizon, asking you to invest further in positive situations while walking away.

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19)
Quiet down and seek solitude, giving your subconscious a chance to blossom and guide you. Get ready for plenty of love and romance this afternoon, marking a period of meaningful connection and emotional exchange.

AQUARIUS (January 20-February 18)
Remember that friendship and fulfilment go hand in hand. Invest in dynamics that lift you up while looking for new connections to nurture. However, you should avoid measuring yourself up to others, for better or worse.

PISCES (February 19-March 20)
Opportunities for professional and financial breakthroughs could be on the table. Don’t be afraid to push the envelope when it comes to long-term goals, grabbing for the future you deserve. Just try not to let negative emotions render you invisible.

Kathmandu,
Avant-garde, mysterious, and maximalist, Gopal Kalapremi Shrestha’s residential studio in Baluwatar has a personality of its own. Dimly lit, the stairway is adorned with esoteric, vivid and diverse artwork collected over the years. Gas cylinders line up on the floor like ants, powering the kiln for his ceramics.
The walls of his studio are filled with stacks of paint boxes, and the floor is scattered with eccentric statues whose forms range from the whimsically abstract to the hauntingly realistic. In-progress artworks are stacked on shelves, and tools hang on the walls and cover the floor, blurring the line between utilitarian and aesthetic.
In the living room, a cabinet contains artworks by his family members, including Shrestha’s wife and youngest son, who is teaching fine art abroad. Passing another flight of stairs, he shows me a rare ceramic method from China and miniatures made by his wife.
The top floor houses a kitchen, with a dining table adorned with huge vases featuring painted anthropomorphic figures—part of his ongoing collection, ‘Eclipse’. A shelf displays brightly glazed cups of various colours, and adjacent to this is a door to the terrace, where the family dog greets me with jovial barks.
The terrace maintains the same eccentric personality as the rest of the house—with pots and statues of varying sizes, shapes, and stories. Here, Shrestha shares his profound connection with crows and explains his fascination with the bird, whose imagery he frequently incorporates into his artwork.
Perhaps, touring his house before sitting down for a formal interview was an offering of an alternate kind of understanding—a prelude before I began to bore him with the quintessential questions of reportage.
You can tell a lot about a person by the objects they collect—or the ones they don’t. In Shrestha’s sanctuary of artistic clutter, you begin to understand him through the stories woven into each object. He shares these tales in a delightfully non-linear fashion, expecting you to piece them together on your own.
Shrestha is an artist who works in many mediums, though he is primarily known for his ceramics and sculptures. He also paints and writes poetry. According to him, the greatest pleasure in his career comes from mentoring young artists and imparting the knowledge he has gained.
He takes inspiration from all kinds of conflicts to incorporate into his artwork, both intrinsic and extrinsic. He has created pieces inspired by the Maoist insurgency and the COVID pandemic. He is also deeply fascinated by the female form, which he incorporates into his work.
In one of his art series, he features three sculptures of female goddesses linked to the well-known Sanskrit chant “Ya devi sarvabhuteshu,” which dictates that a woman can be both creator and destroyer. Shrestha says that he has great respect for mothers and derives great inspiration from them.
Autodidactic, with a penchant for learning the abstract, Shrestha is deeply curious and possesses remarkable inquisitiveness. He is mostly self-taught, “My curiosity made me an artist. As an eager individual, I would board a random bus from Ratnapark with no destination in mind. Wherever I would end up, I would paint the landscape,” he says.
Perhaps this curiosity led him to foreign lands, where he began to understand different types of art forms. Initially fascinated by terracotta statues, he learned the chemistry behind the glazing technique from a French artist during a residency in India—a method he then incorporated into his own work.
Additionally, he collects a diverse range of artworks during his extensive travels, turning his home into a museum of sorts.
“I have a deep disdain for people who fetishise the suffering of artists; artists can make good art without suffering,” says Shrestha, while also acknowledging that much of his work is driven by deep emotional turmoil. His recent ongoing work, ‘The Eclipse’, represents a time of distress due to various circumstances.
“An artist harbours deep curiosity, someone who pays close attention to all that is around him,” says Shrestha as he recounts his childhood. Even though he grew up in poverty, he fondly looks back at his early years. At this point in life, he finds himself deeply nostalgic for his childhood days, so much so that he is planning to write a book on nostalgia. “I want this book to be a remembrance of the time I am from,” he says.
Shrestha is a prodigal talker. He is informed, ardent, informal, and relaxed. He habitually quotes individuals such as Gautam Buddha, Vincent Van Gogh’s sister-in-law, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei—drawing from a reservoir of arcane wisdom and recondite insights.
His recollections are vivid, descriptive, yet fragmented and emotional. He has a deep gratitude for his friends who helped him make the ceramics field more popular in Nepal. He recounts meeting Ian Martin, whom he befriended on a single day in 2006 when he was visiting Nepal for peace talks amid the Maoist insurgency.
When he befriended Martin, he was unaware that Martin was a UN official and conversed with him too casually—with multiple pats on the back as well. The following day, he saw Martin in the newspaper and was befuddled and a little embarrassed to have treated a dignitary so informally.
He called Martin again, and they stayed in touch in the years that followed. Shrestha says that Martin also brought him boxes filled with books on ceramics as a present, something he is deeply grateful for.
Deep into the conversation, he breaks the interview’s fourth wall with piercing honesty, “When you interview me, your worldview and biases are inevitably reflected. In writing about me, you inevitably write about yourself,” he asserts, something with which I vehemently agree.
“The world, nature, and our energies are deeply connected,” muses Shrestha, who identifies as deeply spiritual rather than religious. He feels it is essential to distinguish between the two. “I believe in energies,” he says.
His art exhibitions, like ‘Heroes’, featured 108 sculptures. In ‘Where the Wild Things Are’, Shrestha uses ceramic art to explore the impact of the pandemic and value the power of women.
In his series of artistic chess pieces called ‘Tharu’, inspired by tribal motifs, he is influenced and inspired by the socio-cultural changes in Nepal.
His extensive body of work spans various genres and periods, for which Shrestha has received numerous accolades, including awards from the Royal Nepal Academy (1983), the National Art Competition for Contemporary Sculpture by NAFA (1985, 1986), the National Art Competition for Contemporary Ceramic Sculpture by NAFA (1996), and the Creative Artist Man of the Year award presented by the Nepal Art Society (2005), among others.
But in his quiet house, brimming with students he mentors on sculpture and ceramics, Shrestha finds himself detached from it all. Amid the comforting familiarity of his surroundings, he self-reflects, internalises, and eventually attempts to understand himself and the world around him.
Amidst sentimental objects and books fervently memorised, Gopal is simply kalapremi, a faithful lover of arts.

Kathmandu,
The 3rd edition of the Kathmandu Kalinga Literary Festival, hosted by Yashaswi Pragya Pratishthan, will take place on September 7 and 8, 2024, in Hotel Himalaya. Organisers said the festival will feature over 300 writers and poets from Nepal, India, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. The festival’s central theme is ‘The Gateways to Asian Art, Culture and Literature’.
According to Ranjana Niraula, the festival’s founder and director, this event aims to strengthen cultural and literary ties between Nepal and other South Asian countries.
Participants include International Booker Prize-winning author Geetanjali Shree, acclaimed writers like Jerry Pinto and veteran singer Usha Uthup from India. From Nepal, participants include playwright Abhi Subedi, poet Tulasi Diwasa and political journalist CK Lal.
The festival will also introduce the Yashaswi Book Awards, honouring 15 writers in various categories such as fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and children’s literature. These awards aim to recognise and encourage writers across genres.
Yashaswi Pragya Pratishthan has now called for books for the Yashasvi Book Award. Books published by the end of 2080 Chaitra, written in Nepali or English by Nepali authors, are eligible.
Three copies should be delivered to the Yashaswi Pragya Pratishthan office in Ghattekulo, Kathmandu, by July 5. The five best books in categories including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, history/culture/research, and translation will be awarded.
Winners will receive a certificate and Rs20,000 cash at the festival on September 7.

PARIS, France
In the run-up to the Paris Olympics, Louis Vuitton celebrated the beauty of humans and their skin in a star-studded menswear showcase at the headquarters of the UN cultural agency UNESCO in Paris. Models wearing garb in all the hues of human flesh paraded around a giant globe on grass patterned in Vuitton’s signature Damier check, creating a visual symphony of diversity.
Here are some highlights of spring 2025 shows:

Vuitton’s human
“It was a homage to human beings,” said menswear designer Pharrell Williams, who name-checked the Summer Olympics, for a show that felt like a journey across continents against a backdrop of the Eiffel Tower and a giant shell globe. “It went from black to dark brown to brown to light brown to beige, a little bit of grey… and then finally to white,” the singer-turned-couturier said of the spring display.
The spectacular collection prominently featured checks in shades of green, blue and black, drawing inspiration from the designs of Air Afrique luggage. This airline, which operated from the 1960s and for decades, has become a symbol of diasporic creativity, according to Vuitton. With contributions from creatives like Lamine Diaoune and Djiby Kebe, Williams infused the collection with a sense of global unity.
Inspired by the UN cultural headquarters populated with ambassadors, Williams explored various archetypes. The diplomat was featured in deep, rich tones of 1970s-inflected tailoring. The explorer appeared in sturdy yet stylish outerwear, including utility jackets and vests. The dandy, another key figure, strutted down the Damier-check grass runway in jackets and coats adorned with rhinestones and pearl embroidery.
Set against a dramatic sky, with shifting clouds and fluttering world flags, the collection’s progression of colours mirrored the diversity of the models, moving from darker to lighter tones in multicultural harmony. This theme extended to the garments, which included pixelated python skin patterns and world maps centred on Africa.
A reinterpretation of the Damier pattern featured pale brown checks with multicoloured accents. Soccer ball leather designs paid tribute to the world’s favourite sport.
The show blended complexity with apparent simplicity—and the richness of the diaspora.
Enamel maps were embedded in buttons, and the LV logo appeared subtly embossed on materials. Intricate details like black-on-black embroidery and crystal and pearl accents added layers of sophistication. Elsewhere, vintage-inspired designs in soft leather had oversized monogram patterns and aged leather trims.
However, the celebrity designer made the show almost more about the act of putting on a spectacle.