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Manchester City's midfield genius Kevin De Bruyne scored four goals on Wednesday in a 5-1 win at Wolverhampton Wanderers to put his team in a commanding position to retain the Premier League with two games remaining, Reuters reported.

The Belgian put the game to bed with a hat-trick in a devastating 18-minute spell in the first half, before notching a fourth after the break as the away fans alternated between chanting "Kevin De Bruyne" and "Champions of England".

The win leaves Pep Guardiola's side top on 89 points, three ahead of Liverpool whom they also lead on goal difference, with the title now firmly in their sights.

A second consecutive Premier League title would assuage disappointment at their Champions League exit, after City fell in the semis and Liverpool reached the final.

At Molineux, De Bruyne scored the third earliest hat-trick in Premier League history and his first for Manchester City, according to Reuters.

For the first goal, he began the move before running on to Bernardo Silva's return pass for a sumptuously-placed finish in the seventh minute. De Bruyne smashed in a rebound for his second in the 16th minute, before deploying his supposedly weaker left foot for a glorious curler from the edge of the box in the 24th.

"The third goal was my favourite. I think that strike is the cleanest. I hit it really hard in the corner. Out of the three, that was the purest," he said.

"When you score four goals, it's always something special. It should have been five to be honest!" he added, lamenting that a late strike hit the post, Reuters reported.

The UK has agreed mutual security pacts with Sweden and Finland, agreeing to come to their aid should either nation come under attack, BBC reported.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited both countries to sign the deals, amid debate about them joining Nato. 

The pacts also state that Finland and Sweden would assist the UK in a crisis. 

Mr Johnson and Swedish PM Magdalena Andersson said co-operation was "even more important" given Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The second deal was announced in a joint press conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinistö.

Mr Johnson said the "solemn declaration" between the UK and Finland was reflective of the "extreme difficulty of the times we are in".

He emphasised the deal was "not a short-term stop gap" while Finland considered whether to join the Nato defensive alliance, but rather a "enduring assurance between two nations".

Asked if there would be "British boots on the ground" in Finland should a conflict break out, Mr Johnson said military assistance would be offered, but that the "nature of that assistance" would depend upon the "request of the other party". 

Mr Johnson added the agreement would become the "foundation of an intensification of our security and our defence relationship in other ways as well".

Mr Niinistö said his nation appreciated the UK's "strong support" of Nato's open-door policy to Finland's potential membership, according to BBC.

He said joining Nato would not be "against anybody" and the UK deal was intended to "maximise our security one way or another" while considering joining the defensive alliance.

However, when asked if the possible move could provoke President Vladimir Putin, Mr Niinistö said Russia would be responsible if Sweden or Finland joined Nato. 

He said Russia was suggesting the two nations did not have their "own will" by threatening them against applying for membership.

"They are ready to attack their neighbouring country, so... my response would be that 'you caused this - look at the mirror'".

Speaking earlier in Sweden Mr Johnson said: "If Sweden were attacked and looked to us for help and support, then we would provide it."

Asked by the BBC to spell out exactly what the UK would do if Russia attacked Sweden, Mr Johnson said the deal meant that "upon request from the other party, we would come to the other party's assistance".

Ms Andersson argued her country would be safer as a result of the mutual assistance agreement with the UK, adding: "Of course this means something. This is important whatever policy choice we make in Sweden."

She also explained the country was "exploring all possible options and Nato is one of them that is on the table".

Finland says applying to join Nato is all about defence. But Vladimir Putin doesn't see it that way. He's always viewed Nato's eastern expansion as a threat, BBC reported.

Finland shares an 800 mile (1300km) long border with Russia, bringing the alliance's military might that much closer Moscow.

Finnish and Swedish membership will make Nato more robust too - boosting its eastern flank and presence in the Baltic Sea. And the Kremlin has threatened retaliation.

Some fear it might deploy targeted nuclear weapons. But Finnish diplomats I've spoken to believe Russia has its military hands full in Ukraine and that it will instead focus on cyber and disinformation campaigns.

They say President Putin has himself to blame for Nato expanding. Before Russia invaded Ukraine, most Finns and Swedes preferred to work alongside, but not inside, Nato, according to BBC.

Russia's aggression - its expansionist zeal - changed all that.

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has said he will appoint a new prime minister and cabinet this week, after his elder brother and former PM Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned following deadly violence in the country, Aljazeera reported.

The new prime minister and cabinet will command a majority in the 225-seat parliament, Rajapaksa said, adding he will bring constitutional reforms to grant more power to the parliament.

“I am taking steps to form a new government to control the current situation, to prevent the country from falling into anarchy as well as to maintain the affairs of the government that have been halted,” he said in a statement on Wednesday.

The move followed comments earlier in the day from Sri Lanka’s central bank governor, who said he would quit within weeks unless political stability was restored.

P Nandalal Weerasinghe, appointed central bank chief last month to help the island nation of 22 million people find a way out of its worst-ever economic crisis, said a stable government was essential to stop the turmoil.

“I have clearly told the president and other political party leaders that unless political stability is established in the next two weeks I will step down,” Weerasinghe told reporters, according to Aljazeera.

“Without political stability, it doesn’t matter who runs the central bank,” he said. “There will be no way to stop the economic deterioration.”

Ordinary Sri Lankans blame the government of Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his family for the growing crisis on the island with down to just about $50m, and massive shortages of essentials including cooking gas, fuel and medicine.

After more than a month of mostly peaceful demonstrations, public anger exploded into violence this week, after ruling party supporters stormed an anti-government protest camp, triggering clashes nationwide and the prime minister’s resignation.

With ruling party politicians targeted by mobs, Mahinda Rajapaksa, once hugely popular and a former president, was whisked away to a military base in the country’s northeast, the defence secretary said.

“He will remain there for the next couple of days and when the situation is normalised, he can be moved to a location of his choice,” Kamal Gunaratne said, Aljazeera reported.

On Wednesday, police and soldiers patrolled the streets of Weeraketiya, the Rajapaksa family’s home town, where shops and businesses were shut amid a curfew that will remain in force until Thursday morning.

North Korea confirmed its first coronavirus infections of the pandemic Thursday after holding for more than two years to a widely doubted claim of a perfect record keeping out the virus that has spread to nearly every place in the world, Associated Press reported.

The official Korean Central News Agency said tests of samples collected Sunday from an unspecified number of people with fevers in the capital, Pyongyang, confirmed they were infected with the omicron variant. 

In response, leader Kim Jong Un called for a thorough lockdown of cities and counties and said workplaces should be isolated by units to block the virus from spreading, KCNA said.

The country’s population of 26 million is believed to be mostly unvaccinated, after its government shunned vaccines offered by the UN-backed COVAX distribution program, possibly because those have international monitoring requirements, according to the Associated Press.

Kim during a ruling party Politburo meeting called for officials to stabilize transmissions and eliminate the infection source as fast as possible, while also easing the inconveniences to the public caused by the virus controls. Kim said “single-minded public unity is the most powerful guarantee that can win in this anti-pandemic fight,” KCNA said.

Despite the decision to elevate anti-virus steps, Kim ordered officials to push ahead with scheduled construction, agricultural development and other state projects while bolstering the country’s defense postures to avoid any security vacuum. 

North Korea’s announcement of the infections came after NK News, a North Korea-focused news site, cited unidentified sources who said authorities had imposed a lockdown on Pyongyang residents. South Korea’s government said it couldn’t confirm the report.

It isn’t immediately clear how large the North’s outbreak is. The North will likely double down on lockdowns, even though the failure of China’s “zero-COVID” approach suggests that approach doesn’t work against the fast-moving omicron variant, said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Seoul’s Ewha Womans University. 

“For Pyongyang to publicly admit omicron cases, the public health situation must be serious,” Easley said. “This does not mean North Korea is suddenly going to be open to humanitarian assistance and take a more conciliatory line toward Washington and Seoul. But the Kim regime’s domestic audience may be less interested in nuclear or missile tests when the urgent threat involves coronavirus rather than a foreign military.”

Experts say a major COVID-19 outbreak would be devastating in North Korea because of the poor health care system and could possibly trigger instability when combined with other problems like serious food shortages, Associated Press reported. 

North Korea’s previous coronavirus-free claim had been disputed by many foreign experts. But South Korean officials have said North Korea had likely avoided a huge outbreak, in part because it instituted strict virus controls almost from the start of the pandemic.

Early in 2020 — before the coronavirus spread around the world — North Korea took severe steps to keep out the virus and described them as a matter of “national existence.” It quarantined people with symptoms resembling COVID-19, all but halted cross-border traffic and trade for two years, and is even believed to have ordered troops to shoot on sight any trespassers who crossed its borders.

The extreme border closures further shocked an economy already damaged by decades of mismanagement and US-led sanctions over its nuclear weapons and missile program, pushing Kim to perhaps the toughest moment of his rule since he took power in 2011. 

North Korea had been one of the last places in the world without an acknowledged COVID-19 case after the virus first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019 spread to every continent including Antarctica. Turkmenistan, a similarly secretive and authoritarian nation in Central Asia, has reported no cases to the World Health Organization, though its claim also is widely doubted by outside experts. 

In recent months, some Pacific island nations that kept the virus out by their geographic isolation have recorded outbreaks. Only tiny Tuvalu, with a population around 12,000, has escaped the virus so far, while a few other nations – Nauru, Micronesia and Marshall Islands – have stopped cases at their borders and avoided community outbreaks, according to the Associated Press.

The country's foreign exchange reserves have been found depleting despite several attempts by the government to discourage imports.

Foreign exchange reserves declined by Rs 2.8 billion in March/April.

According to Nepal Rastra Bank, foreign exchange reserves stood at 1, 167.92 billion in the first nine months of the current fiscal year.

As of February, the foreign exchange reserves stood at Rs 1. 17 trillion.

The foreign exchange reserves have been decreasing steadily in recent times.

Nepal Rastra Bank said that the gross foreign exchange reserves decreased 16.5 percent to Rs1167.92 billion in mid-April 2022 from Rs1399.03 billion in mid-July 2021.

In US dollar terms, the gross foreign exchange reserves decreased 18.2 percent to 9.61 billion in mid-April 2022 from 11.75 billion in mid-July 2021.

Of the total foreign exchange reserves, the reserves held by Nepal Rastra Bank decreased 17.9 percent to Rs 1021.45 billion in mid-April 2022 from Rs 1244.63 billion in mid-July 2021.

The reserves held by banks and financial institutions (except NRB) decreased 5.1 percent to Rs 146.48 billion in mid-April 2022 from Rs 154.39 billion in mid-July 2021.

The share of Indian currency in total reserves stood at 24.3 percent in mid-April 2022.

 Based on the imports of nine months of 2021/22, the foreign exchange reserves of the banking sector is sufficient to cover the prospective merchandise imports of 7.4 months, and merchandise and services imports of 6.6 months.

The ratio of reserves-to-GDP, reserves-to-imports and reserves-to-M2 stood at 24.1 percent, 55.2 percent and 21.9 percent respectively in mid-April 2022.

Such ratios were 32.7 percent, 84.7 percent and 27.1 percent respectively in mid-July 2021.

Al Jazeera’s Shireen Abu Akleh, a 51-year-old Palestinian-American native of Jerusalem, was on assignment in the occupied West Bank when Israeli forces shot and killed her while wearing a blue flak jacket clearly marked with the word “PRESS”, Al Jazeera reports.

The veteran journalist, who was shot in the head, was a role model for generations of Arab journalists and a voice for the voiceless according to her colleagues and friends, having reported on Palestine and the surrounding region for three decades.

The Delhi High Court Wednesday delivered a split verdict on the issue of criminalisation of marital rape with one of the judges favouring striking down the provision, the other holding it was not unconstitutional, PTI reported. 

The division bench granted leave to the parties to file an appeal before the Supreme Court.

While Justice Rajiv Shakdher, who headed the division bench, favoured striking down the marital rape exception, Justice C Hari Shankar said the exception under the IPC is not unconstitutional and was based on an intelligible differentia, according to PTI report. 
 

 The first and second volume of a collection of diplomatic speeches by Chinese President Xi Jinping has been published by the Central Party Literature Press.

Compiled by the Institute of Party History and Literature of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, the book includes 136 speeches delivered at international events between March 2013 and November 2021 by Xi, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission.

Xi, as the chief architect of major country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics, has delivered speeches on multiple international occasions, proposing a series of new ideas, new propositions and new initiatives with distinctive Chinese features, which reflect the call of the times and lead the trend of human progress.

They are a major part of Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy and of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.

They bear significant guidance for the establishment of a new type of international relations, the building of a global community of shared future, and creating a favorable international environment for realizing the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation. Xinhua