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US singer R. Kelly has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for using his celebrity status to sexually abuse children and women, BBC reported.

The R&B artist, 55, was convicted last September in New York of racketeering and sex trafficking crimes.

He had faced years of allegations and the judge on Wednesday said he had an "indifference to human suffering".

Lawyers for the singer, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, say he will appeal. 

Ahead of his sentencing, a handful of women took the stand to confront Kelly.

A woman identified only as Angela called the singer a Pied Piper who "grew in wickedness" with every new victim, while others who were not named testified he had broken their spirits.

"I literally wished I would die because of how you made me feel," said one, according to BBC.

Dressed in prison khakis and dark glasses, Kelly declined to make a statement of his own and did not react as the verdict was handed down.

US District Judge Ann Donnelly said the celebrity had used sex as a weapon, forcing his victims to do unspeakable things and saddling some with sexually transmitted diseases.

"You taught them that love is enslavement and violence," she said.

The court heard how Kelly - known for hit songs like I Believe I Can Fly and Ignition - used his influence to lure women and children into sexual abuse over two decades.

Jurors at his six-week trial in Brooklyn heard how he trafficked women between different US states, assisted by managers, security guards and other members of his entourage.

The court also heard how Kelly had illegally obtained paperwork to marry singer Aaliyah when she was 15 in 1994, seven years before the singer died in a plane crash.

The certificate, leaked at the time, listed Aaliyah's age as 18. The marriage was annulled months later.

Jovante Cunningham, a former backup singer for Kelly, said she never believed this day would come, BBC reported.

"There wasn't a day in my life up until this moment that I actually believed that the judicial system would come through for black and brown girls," she told reporters. 

"I stand here very proud of my judicial system, very proud of my fellow survivors and very pleased with the outcome."

Federal prosecutors had recommended that Kelly be sentenced to more than 25 years in prison, given the seriousness of his crimes and "the need to protect the public from further crimes".

But his lawyers called for a sentence of 10 years - the mandatory minimum for his conviction - or less.

They portrayed Kelly as growing up poor in a household rife with domestic violence and suffering sexual abuse from a young age.

They said he was "devastated" by the sentence and planned to appeal.

Lizzette Martinez, who met Kelly when she was 17, said that there were "so many things he could have done to stop himself."

"He had all the resources; we don't have resources like that. He could have gotten help," she told BBC News.

She said he avoided justice for years due to the "power of celebrity".

"I believe that he was just making so much money for so many powerful people that they protected him."

Kelly has been in custody since he was indicted by federal prosecutors in New York and Chicago in July 2019.

His three years behind bars have been eventful, including a beating from a fellow inmate in 2020 and a bout with Covid-19 earlier this year, according to BBC.

The singer faces further legal action in August, when he goes on trial again, this time in Chicago on child sex images and obstruction charges.

He is also due to face sex abuse charges in courts in Illinois and Minnesota.

Ferdinand Marcos Jr will be sworn in as the Philippines' next president on Thursday, succeeding the outgoing leader Rodrigo Duterte, BBC reported.

Mr Marcos Jr - nicknamed Bong Bong - won 60% of the vote over rival Leni Robredo in a highly-watched election.

His win marks a stunning comeback for the Marcos political dynasty, which was ousted after a popular revolt in 1986. 

The daughter of the incumbent president, Sara Duterte, will be sworn in as vice-president.

Mr Marcos Jr will take his oath of office at midday local time (0400GMT) at the National Museum in Manila.

Hundreds of local and foreign dignitaries will attend and some 15,000 security personnel will be deployed across the Philippines capital for the event.

It comes just a few days after the Supreme Court in Manila ruled that convictions for tax evasion did not disqualify the new president from taking office.

The 64-year-old leader is inheriting a country still on the road to recovery from a years' long pandemic, and an economic outlook clouded by skyrocketing inflation and rising debt, according to BBC.

Critics say his sweeping promises to boost jobs and tackle rising prices have seen little discussion on actual policy reform. 

Some are also looking to Mr Marcos Jr to rehabilitate the country's image in the wake of Mr Duterte's term, which has been characterised by a bloody war on drugs policy and a tightening grip on press freedom. 

However a day before his inauguration, a Philippines regulator announced it was standing by its decision to shut down investigative news site Rappler - one of the few media outlets in the Philippines that is critical of Rodrigo Duterte's government.

Mr Marcos Jr's inauguration marks the culmination of a decades-long struggle by the Marcoses to reclaim their political glory. 

His father Ferdinand led the country from 1965 until 1986, imposing martial law and presiding over a period of widespread human rights abuses, corruption and poverty.

That rule ended in 1986, when a mass uprising saw millions of people take to the streets and the Marcos family - including a 28-year-old Bongbong - fled the country for Hawaii.

The long-time politician, who returned to the Philippines in 1991, has since sought to paint his father's presidency as a "golden period" of growth and prosperity.

Mr Marcos Jr's popularity was buoyed by an aggressive social media drive, which proved especially appealing to voters not old enough to have experienced the years of dictatorship first-hand.

Meanwhile, critics levelled accusations that his social media campaign was rife with misinformation and whitewashed atrocities under his father's rule. He has denied these allegations, BBC reported. 

His election campaign was also boosted by having Sara Duterte as his running mate, merging two political dynasties' strongholds - the Marcoses in northern Philippines and the Dutertes in the southern Mindanao island.

A Korean national was arrested in possession of 716 grams of musk pod from the Tribhuvan International Airport on Tuesday.

Police detained Jung Joon Jun, who was about to board a flight to Korea, from the TIA yesterday.

DSP Bhim Prasad Dhakal, Chief at the TIA Security Office, said that police found the pod which the Korean national had hidden inside his shoes in a form of dust while carrying out a body check on him at the luggage checking area.

He has been sent to Division Forest Office, Hattisar, Kathmandu for necessary investigation and action, police said.

Cholera has been detected in 14 persons in the Kathmandu Valley.

Dr Sangita Mishra, spokesperson at the Ministry of Health and Population, said that 14 persons have been diagnosed with cholera.

During a press conference organized in the Capital on Wednesday, she said that the cholera-causing E coli bacteria were found in 12 out of 18 samples collected from Lalitpur.

The Department of Epidemiology and Disease Control Division has urged the general public to be vigilant to control cholera.

Cholera is an acute diarrheal illness caused by infection of the intestine with Vibrio cholerae bacteria. People can get sick when they eat food or drink water contaminated with cholera bacteria. The infection is often mild or without symptoms, but can sometimes be severe and life-threatening.

It’s a genuine fear. With nearly 70 percent of Nepali households still reliant on agriculture for their livelihood, an acute shortage of fertilizers in the plantation season spells trouble for those in the government as the country heads into national and provincial elections. Ensuring timely and adequate supply of fertilizers should be de rigueur for the government of an agriculture-dependent country. Yet the ruling parties seem to have sprung into action only when they realized that widespread anger among farmers, the traditional vote banks of political parties, could hurt them electorally.

The country is worryingly short of chemical fertilizers, urea especially, this plantation season. The government has been trying to import more chemical fertilizers from India, China, Indonesia and every other possible place. It isn’t easy. The war in Ukraine has resulted in food shortages and high inflation around the world, making countries limit the exports of vital commodities like medicines and fertilizers. Nepal is having a hard time importing enough fertilizers for its farmers in this global climate of shortages and supply bottlenecks.  

Yet things in Nepal should not have gotten so bad that many farmers now see no option to looting whatever little fertilizer there is, as happened in Dhading recently. Many pieces of the fertilizer shortage puzzle are askew. Our antiquated procurement laws unnecessarily lengthen the import process. Following much criticism, the Cabinet decided to sidestep these laws and import fertilizers from India on a government-to-government basis. But it is still unclear how imports from other countries will be dealt with. 

Inexplicably, even as the country’s need for fertilizers has soared and foreign goods have become costlier, the new budget allocated a paltry Rs 15bn for fertilizer import—less than half the needed amount. This was shortsighted. In the foreseeable future, the only durable way to meet domestic demand is to produce more chemical fertilizers inside the country. Relying on foreign governments and companies is no longer a safe bet as the country inches closer to a full-blown food crisis resulting from low volumes and high prices of food-related imports.     

Nepal reported 62 new Covid-19 cases on Wednesday.

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 1, 008 swab samples were tested in the RT-PCR method, of which 51 returned positive. Likewise, 612 people underwent antigen tests, of which 11 were tested positive.

The Ministry said that no one died of virus in the last 24 hours. The Ministry said that 19 infected people recovered from the disease.

As of today, there are 261 active cases in the country.

Lumbini Province State Minister for Health Bimala Kumari Oli resigned from her post on Wednesday.

Chief Minister Kul Prasad KC informed the Province Assembly meeting that Oli tendered her resignation on Sunday.

The Chief Minister said that her resignation has already been approved.

Earlier on June 14, police arrested Oli after a complaint was lodged against her for misbehaving with the wife and daughter of YCL leader of Dang Ek Raj Basnet.

Later, the province government formed a three-member committee to investigate the incident.

Two persons including ward chairman have been arrested for their alleged involvement in raping a 28-year-old woman in Baitadi.

The arrestees have been identified as ward chairman of Mainali Municipality-1 of the district Sharad Singh Negi and Keshav Singh Negi.

Inspector Lok Raj Joshi said that the duo were arrested based on the victim's complaint.

The woman has been sent to the District Hospital for medical check-up.

Police said that they are looking into the case.