Elderly man killed in Jhapa wild elephant attack
An elderly man died in a wild elephant attack in Jhapa on Wednesday. The deceased has been identified as Devi Bahadur Adhikari (80) of Bahradashi Rural Municipality-1. DSP Basanta Pathak of the District Police Office, Jhapa said that the wild elephant attacked him while he had gone to the Manakamana Community Forest to collect fodder for the cattle at around 10 am. Critically injured in the incident, he was rushed to a hospital in Birtamod. After he could not be treated at Birtamod, he was taken to the Dharan-based BP Koirala Institute of Health and Sciences but breathed his last on the way, DSP Pathak said. Further investigation into the incident is underway, police said.
Indianapolis man arrested in shooting of 3 Dutch soldiers
Indianapolis police arrested a man Tuesday in connection with a shooting over the weekend that left one Dutch soldier dead and two wounded, BBC reported.
Shamar Duncan, 22, of Indianapolis, was arrested on a preliminary charge of murder, the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said.
Duncan was being held in jail and will not be eligible for release from jail while the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office reviews the case, police said.
Duncan’s arrest did not appear in online court records, and it wasn’t clear whether he has an attorney who might comment on the case.
A 26-year-old member of the Dutch Commando Corps, identified by U.S. authorities as Simmie Poetsema, died of his injuries “surrounded by family and colleagues,” the Dutch Defense Ministry said in a statement Monday.
The shooting occurred Saturday in downtown Indianapolis.
“IMPD detectives want to thank members of the community for their cooperation during this investigation,” IMPD spokesman Shane Foley said. “During the investigation, multiple individuals spoke with detectives and provided detectives with video connected to the investigation.” Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren expressed concern Tuesday about gun violence in the United States in the aftermath of the shooting.
“We do many trainings of our servicemen in the United States, and we really don’t expect this to happen. So it’s very, very concerning for us.” Ollongren told The Associated Press at a meeting of European Union defense ministers in Prague.
Poetsema and the two other soldiers were shot after what Indianapolis police believe was a disturbance outside the hotel where they were staying about 3:30 a.m. Saturday near several downtown bars and nightclubs, authorities said. The soldiers were in the US for training exercises at a southern Indiana military base.
Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett said Monday that the soldiers had returned to the hotel after a “scuffle” at a bar and were outside when the gunfire came from what he called “a drive-by shooting.”
Indianapolis police declined to confirm Hogsett’s account Tuesday or release more information on the circumstances or the investigation of the shooting, according to BBC.
Ollongren declined to comment on the shooting while investigations continue. She said there is “good contact” between Dutch military police and authorities in Indianapolis.
“We have read things in the media, we have heard what the mayor said but we feel it’s very important to have a real thorough investigation. So we’re waiting for that until we comment on what actually happened,” she said.
Ollongren said US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin contacted her Monday “to express his regrets and his condolences.”
Hogsett said he believed the city’s downtown area was safe and that city officials were working to reduce violence.
“Too often, not just in Indianapolis, conflict resolution has become just people pulling out guns and shooting each other,” Hogsett said.
New York to restrict gun carrying after Supreme Court ruling
Amid the bright lights and electronic billboards across New York’s Times Square, city authorities are posting new signs proclaiming the bustling crossroads a “Gun Free Zone,” Associated Press reported.
The sprawling Manhattan tourist attraction is one of scores of “sensitive” places — including parks, churches and theaters — that will be off limits for guns under a sweeping new state law going into effect Thursday. The measure, passed after a US Supreme Court decision in June expanded gun rights, also sets stringent standards for issuing concealed carry permits.
New York is among a half-dozen states that had key provisions of its gun laws invalidated by the high court because of a requirement for applicants to prove they had “proper cause” for a permit. Gov. Kathy Hochul said Friday that she and her fellow Democrats in the state Legislature took action the next week because the ruling “destroyed the ability for a governor to be able to protect her citizens from people who carry concealed weapons anywhere they choose.”
The quickly adopted law, however, has led to confusion and court challenges from gun owners who say it improperly limits their constitutional rights.
“They seem to be designed less towards addressing gun violence and more towards simply preventing people from getting guns — even if those people are law-abiding, upstanding citizens, who according to the Supreme Court have the rights to have them,” said Jonathan Corbett, a Brooklyn attorney and permit applicant who is one of several people challenging the law in court.
Under the law, applicants for a concealed carry permit will have to complete 16 hours of classroom training and two hours of live-fire exercises. Ordinary citizens would be prohibited from bringing guns to schools, churches, subways, theaters and amusement parks — among other places deemed “sensitive” by authorities.
Applicants also will have to provide a list of social media accounts for the past three years as part of a “character and conduct” review. The requirement was added because shooters have sometimes dropped hints of violence online before they opened fire on people, according to Associated Press.
Sheriffs in some upstate counties said the additional work for their investigators could add to existing backlogs in processing applications.
In Rochester, Monroe County Sheriff Todd Baxter said it currently takes two to four hours to perform a pistol permit background check on a “clean” candidate. He estimate the new law will add another one to three hours for each permit. The county has about 600 pending pistol permits.
“It’s going to slow everything down just a bit more,” he said.
In the Mohawk Valley, Fulton County Sheriff Richard C. Giardino had questions on how the digital sleuthing would proceed.
“It says three years worth of your social media. We’re not going to print out three years of social media posts by everybody. If you look at my Facebook, I send out six or 10 things a day,” said the sheriff, a former district attorney and judge.
The list of prohibited spaces for carrying guns has drawn criticism from advocates who say it’s so extensive it will make it difficult for people with permits to move about in public. People carrying a gun could go into private business only with permission, such as a sign posted on the window, Associated Press reported.
Artemis: Nasa will try to launch Moon rocket on Saturday
The US space agency says it will try to launch its new Moon rocket on Saturday, BBC reported.
An attempt at a lift-off on Monday had to be scrubbed when one of four engines on the vehicle would not cool down to its required operating temperature.
After reviewing data, engineers believe they now understand why the issue occurred.
They think it is likely related to an inaccurate sensor reading and that they can develop a strategy to deal with the problem on launch day.
This involves starting the process of chilling the engines earlier in the countdown.
"We've got a path forward to get to where we need to get to, to support the next launch," said John Honeycutt, who manages the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket project at Nasa.
Controllers will be given two hours to get the rocket off Earth.
SLS is the biggest launch vehicle ever developed by the US space agency.
It's the modern equivalent of the Saturn V rockets that sent humans to the Moon in the 1960s and 70s - but with considerably more thrust off the launch pad.
SLS will send a big new crew capsule called Orion on a series of missions to the Moon under Nasa's Artemis programme. This first mission is called Artemis I and will be an uncrewed demonstration.
The reason for Monday's scrub was not related to the engine itself (Engine Number 3), but rather with the system that conditions it for flight, according to BBC.
On Monday, sensor readings suggested the engine was 15-20 degrees C short of where it needed to be.
Engineers believe the bleed-through system was working properly; it was just that the sensor system didn't accurately reflect real temperature conditions.
The engineering team plans to start the cooling process about 45 minutes earlier in Saturday's countdown, hoping this will bring everything into line.
"We are going to try to launch on the third (September). And, you know, coming into this prior attempt, yesterday's attempt, we said that if we couldn't thermally condition the engines we wouldn't launch, and that's the same posture that we're going into Saturday," said Mike Sarafin, Nasa's Artemis mission manager.
The weather forecast for Saturday is not brilliant. There is currently a 60% chance that controllers will encounter a violation of their launch criteria - principally showers. The SLS is not allowed to lift off in the rain.
"We have two hours to work with. The showers tend to have quite a bit of real estate between them, so I still think we have a pretty good opportunity weather-wise to launch on Saturday," he told reporters.
The scope of the coming 42-day mission is to send Orion looping around the back of the Moon before bringing it home for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off California.
A major objective of the test fight is to check the heatshield on the capsule can survive the heat of re-entry into Earth's atmosphere.
Nasa says it's going back to the Moon as part of a stepping stone to learn how to get to Mars. But researchers say there is also unfinished business at the Moon, scientifically. There is more we need to understand about lunar origins, and by extension the formation and early evolution of the Earth, BBC reported.
Future Artemis missions will target the lunar South Pole where permanently shadowed craters hold reserves of ice.
"Artemis is a series of increasingly complex missions, to explore the Moon in preparation for missions to Mars. When we go to Mars, the more we can learn about what resources are available to us and how to use them, the better prepared we'll be," Nasa's chief scientist Kate Calvin told BBC News.
Pakistan floods are ‘a monsoon on steroids’, warns UN chief
Pakistan is facing "a monsoon on steroids", the UN's secretary general has warned, after floods submerged a third of the country, BBC reported.
Antonio Guterres urged the world to come to Pakistan's aid as he launched a $160m appeal to help the tens of millions affected in the disaster.
He blamed "the relentless impact of epochal levels of rain and flooding".
At least 1,136 people have been killed since June and roads, crops, homes and bridges washed away across the country.
This year's record monsoon is comparable to the devastating floods of 2010 - the deadliest in Pakistan's history - which left more than 2,000 people dead.
In a video message, Mr Guterres called South Asia a "climate crisis hotspot" where people were 15 times more likely to die from climate impacts. "Let's stop sleepwalking towards the destruction of our planet by climate change. Today, it's Pakistan. Tomorrow, it could be your country."
He said the UN appeal aimed to provide 5.2 million people with food, water, sanitation, emergency education and health support.
Officials estimate that more than 33 million Pakistanis - one in seven people - have been affected by the flooding.
Sadia, a student in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, said she felt helpless as her family were cut off in their home village of Jhal Magsi, about eight hours away.
"You can't find a single home that is safe now," she told the BBC's Outside Source programme. "They are under the sky with no help, according to BBC.
"Right now, we are in need of first aid relief like tents, some shelter and some basic food, they can't cook anything. And they need clean water to drink."
On Monday, Pakistan's climate change minister Sherry Rehman described the situation as a "climate-induced humanitarian disaster of epic proportions".
Pakistan produces less than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions but ranks consistently in the top 10 countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
Many factors contribute to flooding, but a warming atmosphere caused by climate change makes extreme rainfall more likely.
The world has already warmed by about 1.2C since the industrial era began and temperatures will keep rising unless governments around the world make steep cuts to emissions.
Pakistan's planning minister says estimates suggest the floods have caused at least $10bn (£8.5bn) of damage, and many people face serious food shortages. The country was already suffering from an economic crisis.
Vaste swathes of rich agricultural land have been devastated in this year's monsoon, damaging food supplies and sending prices soaring.
"Things are so expensive because of this flood that we can't buy anything," Zahida Bibi, a shopper at a market in Lahore, told AFP news agency.
The flood situation is most severe in provinces such as Sindh and Balochistan, but mountainous regions in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have also been badly hit.
Thousands of people have been ordered to evacuate villages cut off in northern Swat Valley, where bridges and roads have been swept away - but even with the help of helicopters, authorities are still struggling to reach those trapped, BBC reported.
"Village after village has been wiped out. Millions of houses have been destroyed," Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Sunday after flying over the area in a helicopter.
Aid is starting to arrive after Pakistan launched its own appeal for help. The United Arab Emirates and Turkey have delivered tents and medicines, while the US and Britain have pledged their support.
Earlier on Monday, the International Monetary Fund said it had approved a $1.2bn loan for the country, according to BBC.
Mikhail Gorbachev: Last Soviet leader dies aged 91
Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader who brought the Cold War to a peaceful end, has died aged 91, BBC reported.
Mr Gorbachev, who took power in 1985, opened up the then-USSR to the world and introduced a set of reforms at home.
But he was unable to prevent the slow collapse of the Soviet Union, from which modern Russia emerged.
Tributes have been paid worldwide, with UN chief Antonio Guterres saying he "changed the course of history".
"Mikhail Gorbachev was a one-of-a kind statesman," UN Secretary General Mr Guterres wrote in a Twitter tribute. "The world has lost a towering global leader, committed multilateralist, and tireless advocate for peace."
The hospital in Moscow where he died said he had been suffering from a long and serious illness.
European Union President Ursula von der Leyen praised him as a "trusted and respected leader"who "opened the way for a free Europe".
"This legacy is one we will not forget," she added, according to BBC.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he admired Mr Gorbachev's courage and integrity,adding: "In a time of Putin's aggression in Ukraine, his tireless commitment to opening up Soviet society remains an example to us all."
Mr Gorbachev became general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, and de facto leader of the country, in 1985.
His policy of glasnost, or openness, allowed people to criticise the government in a way which had been previously unthinkable.
But it also unleashed nationalist sentiments in many regions of the country which eventually led to its collapse.
Internationally he reached arms control deals with the US and refused to intervene when eastern European nations rose up against their Communist rulers.
He is seen in the West as an architect of reform who created the conditions for the end of the Cold War in 1991 - a time of deep tensions between the Soviet Union and Western nations, including the US and Britain.
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 "for the leading role he played in the radical changes in East-West relations".
Mr Gorbachev made one ill-fated attempt to return to political life in 1996, receiving just 0.5% of the vote in presidential elections.
His divisive legacy is reflected in the tributes that followed his death.
Henry Kissinger, who served as US Secretary of State under President Richard Nixon, told the BBC's Newsnight programme that Mr Gorbachev will be "remembered in history as a man who started historic transformations that were to the benefit of mankind and to the Russian people".
James Baker, who negotiated the reunification of Germany with Mr Gorbachev's government, told the New York Times that "history will remember Mikhail Gorbachev as a giant who steered his great nation towards democracy".
But many Russians never forgave him for the turmoil that followed the collapse of the USSR.
Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-appointed official in occupied Ukraine, said Mr Gorbachev had "deliberately led the (Soviet) Union to its demise" and called him a traitor, BBC reported.
He will be buried in Moscow's Novodevichy cemetery, the resting place of many prominent Russians, next to his wife Raisa who died of leukaemia in 1999, Tass news agency said.
Foreign Secretary Paudyal meets Australian counterpart Jan Adams in Canberra
Foreign Secretary of Nepal Bharat Raj Paudyal held a meeting with Jan Adams, Secretary of Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Australia, in Canberra on Tuesday. During the meeting, they discussed various matters of bilateral relations and agreed to further expand and strengthen cooperation in different areas of mutual interests, read a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On the occasion, the memorandum of understanding was signed between the government of Nepal and the government of Australia on Cooperation on the Fields of Water Resources Management. Dinesh Kumar Ghimire, Secretary at the Water and Energy Commission Secretariat of Nepal and Jan Adams, Secretary of Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Australia, signed the MoU on behalf of their respective governments, the statement read. A Nepali delegation led by Foreign Secretary Paudyal arrived in Canberra on August 28 to hold the second meeting of the Bilateral Consultation Mechanism between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nepal and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Australia which was scheduled to be held on August 30. Other delegation members from Nepal include Dinesh Kumar Ghimire, Secretary, Water and Energy Commission, Kailash Raj Pokharel, Ambassador of Nepal to Australia, Lok Bahadur Thapa, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sita Basnet, Under Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Kul Bahadur Magar, Deputy Head of Mission of Embassy of Nepal.
Second meeting of Bilateral Consultations Mechanism between Nepal and Australia held
The second meeting of the Bilateral Consultations Mechanism (BCM) between Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nepal and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) of Australia was held in Canberra on Tuesday. Foreign Secretary Bharat Raj Paudyal and Justin Hayhurst, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Australia, led their respective delegations to the BCM meeting. The two sides reviewed the bilateral relations between Nepal and Australia and exchanged views on further strengthening the bilateral relations and cooperation in different fields including education, energy, investment, trade, tourism, technology transfer, migration, cooperation in climate action, and disaster risk reduction, among others, read a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Both sides agreed to prioritize the exchange of high-level visits, promote people to people contacts, and facilitate trade, investment and transfer of technology. They also discussed cooperation in multilateral forums, including the exchange of experiences in UN Peace keeping operations. While appreciating Australian cooperation to Nepal, Foreign Secretary Paudyal requested the Australian side to place Nepal as a priority country for Australian aid, support for post-COVID economic recovery, graduation from the LDC status, and realize the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, and consider issuing visa services from the Australian Embassy in Kathmandu, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. Earlier, Nepal and Australia signed MOU on Cooperation on Water Resource Management yesterday under which Australia will provide support on capacity development and training technical assistance in water resource management among others. The Nepali delegation led by the Foreign Secretary comprised Dinesh Kumar Ghimire, Secretary, Water and Energy Commission, Kailash Raj Pokharel, Ambassador of Nepal to Australia, Lok Bahadur Thapa, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sita Basnet, Under Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Kul Bahadur Magar, Deputy Head of Mission of Embassy of Nepal. Bilateral Consultation Mechanism between Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nepal and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Australia was established on 14 July 2017 and its first meeting was held in Kathmandu on 16 August 2018.
