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Prime Minister and Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba paid final tribute to party leader and Constituent Assembly member Pradeep Giri by draping the party flag over his body. He reached the party office in Sanepa, Lalitpur this afternoon and paid the final tribute. CPN (Maoist Center) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and CPN (Unified Socialist) Chairman Madhav Nepal among other leaders, relatives and well-wishers had reached Sanepat to pay final tributes to leader Giri, a noted socialist thinker and philosopher. Hundreds of cadres had reached the party office to pay final tributes. Earlier, his body was kept at the Medicity Hospital till 11 am. Preparations are underway to perform last rites of Giri in Pashupati Aryaghat today itself. An emergency meeting of the Central Working Committee of the Nepali Congress held on Sunday endorsed the condolence motion on the demise of leader Giri. The meeting also decided to lower the party flag half-mast and not to conduct official functions for the next three days—August 21, 22 and 23—NC Chief Secretary Krishna Prasad Paudel said. The meeting has also decided to close all the party offices on Monday. The party has also decided to hold condolence meetings in all districts, municipalities and VDCs on September 1. Leader Giri, who had been suffering from throat cancer for the past five years, passed away at the age of 75 on Saturday. Giri had returned to Nepal a few months ago after treatment for throat cancer at Hinduja Hospital in Mumbai, India. He was admitted to the Mediciti Hospital a month ago after suffering from Pneumonia. Dr Sandarbha Giri, who had been attending to Giri, said that he breathed his last during the course of treatment at 9: 30 pm.

An emergency meeting of the Central Working Committee of the Nepali Congress has endorsed the condolence motion on the demise of party leader and Constituent Assembly member Pradeep Giri. The meeting also decided to lower the party flag half-mast and not to conduct official functions for the next three days—August 21, 22 and 23—NC Chief Secretary Krishna Prasad Paudel said. The meeting has also decided to close all the party offices on Monday. The party has also decided to hold condolence meetings in all districts, municipalities and VDCs on September 1. Leader Giri, who had been suffering from throat cancer for the past five years, passed away at the age of 75 on Saturday. Giri had returned to Nepal a few months ago after treatment for throat cancer at Hinduja Hospital in Mumbai, India. He was admitted to the Mediciti Hospital a month ago after suffering from Pneumonia. Dr Sandarbha Giri, who had been attending to Giri, said that he breathed his last during the course of treatment at 9: 30 pm. Last rites of Giri will be performed at Pashupati Aryaghat in Kathmandu today.

The CPN (Maoist Center) has finally finalized the names of the office bearers, nine months after the general convention. The Standing Committee meeting held on Saturday approved Narayankaji Shrestha as senior vice-chairman, Krishna Bahadur Mahara as vice-chairman and Dev Gurung as general secretary. Leaders Barshaman Pun, Pampha Bhusal, Janardan Sharma, Girirajmani Pokharel, Shakti Basnet, Matrika Yadav and Haribol Gajurel have been appointed as the deputy general secretary. Similarly, Dinanath Sharma, Chakramani Khanal, Devendra Paudel, Lilamani Pokharel, Ganesh Shah, Hitman Shakya, Hitraj Pandey, Dilaram Acharya, Ram Karki have been nominated as secretary and Shreeram Dhakal has been appointed as treasurer. Party Vice-Chairman and spokesperson Krishna Bahadur Mahara said that the office bearers have been selected only for a special convention. The meeting formed a 17-member committee to draft the manifesto for the upcoming elections. Senior Vice-Chairman Narayankaji Shrestha has been appointed as the coordinator. Dev Gurung, Barshaman Pun, Janardan Sharma, Girirajmani Pokharel, Lilamani Pokharel, Shakti Basnet, Ganesh Sah, Parshuram Ramtel, Amrita Thapa, Hari Rokka, Jaki Hussain, Krishna Chaudhary, Parshuram Tamang, Bhima Dhungana and Jagat Simkhada are the members of the committee. The meeting has also decided to conduct training in all the seven provinces.

A meeting of the House of Representatives scheduled for today has been postponed. Parliament Secretary Gopal Nath Yogi said that the meeting was postponed due to the death of Nepali Congress leader Pradeep Giri, a noted socialist thinker. The next meeting will be held at 1 pm on Monday. There is a parliamentary tradition that the meeting should not be conducted after the demise of a member of the House of Representatives until the final rites are performed. Leader Giri, who had been suffering from throat cancer for the past five years, passed away at the age of 75 on Saturday. Giri had returned to Nepal a few months ago after treatment for throat cancer at Hinduja Hospital in Mumbai, India. He was admitted to the Mediciti Hospital a month ago after suffering from Pneumonia. Dr Sandarbha Giri, who had been attending to Giri, said that he breathed his last during the course of treatment at 9: 30 pm. His body will be kept at the party office in Sanepa, Lalitpur from 11: 30 to 2 pm for final tributes. Last rites of Giri will be performed at Pashupati Aryaghat in Kathmandu on Sunday.  

Nepali Congress leader Pradeep Giri, a noted socialist thinker, passed away on Saturday. He was 75. Also a member of the Constituent Assembly, he had been suffering from throat cancer for the past five years. Giri had returned to Nepal a few months ago after treatment for throat cancer at Hinduja Hospital in Mumbai, India. He was admitted to the Mediciti Hospital a month ago after suffering from Pneumonia. Dr Sandarbha Giri, who had been attending to Giri, said that he breathed his last during the course of treatment at 9: 30 pm. His body will be kept at the party office in Sanepa, Lalitpur from 11: 30 to 2 pm for final tributes. Last rites of Giri will be performed at Pashupati Aryaghat in Kathmandu on Sunday.

At least 32 people were killed in south-east Turkey on Saturday when vehicles crashed into first responders who were attending earlier accidents, authorities said, Reuters reported. Sixteen people including emergency workers and journalists died when a bus crashed into an earlier accident site, regional governor Davut Gul from south-eastern province of Gaziantep, said. Another 20 people were wounded and received treatment. “At around 10.45 this morning, a passenger bus crashed here,” Gul said, speaking from the scene of the accident on the road east of Gaziantep. “While the fire brigade, medical teams and other colleagues were responding to the accident, another bus crashed 200 metres behind. The second bus slid to this site and hit the first responders and the wounded people on the ground.” Three firefighters, two paramedics and two journalists were among those killed on the highway between Gaziantep and Nizip, the interior minister, Süleyman Soylu, tweeted. Several of the fatalities were on the bus, he added. The Ilhas news agency said two of its journalists were killed after pulling over to help the victims of the initial accident. Television footage showed an ambulance with severe damage to its rear while a bus lay on its side alongside the highway. Separately, a truck hit a site 250km (155 miles) to the east in the Derik district of Mardin, where first respondents were also attending to an accident, according to footage, according to Reuters. Sixteen people died and 29 others were injured as a result of the incident in Mardin, Turkey’s health minister, Fahrettin Koca, said, adding that eight of the wounded were in a critical condition. Turkey has a poor record of road safety. According to the government, 5,362 people were killed in traffic accidents last year, Reuters reported.

The first surprise, for the Finnish conscripts and officers taking part in a NATO-hosted military exercise in the Arctic this spring: the sudden roar of a US Marine helicopter assault force, touching down in a field right next to the Finns’ well-hidden command post, Associated Press reported.

The second surprise: Spilling out of their field headquarters, the Finnish Signal Corps communications workers and others inside routed the US Marines — the Finns’ designated adversary in the NATO exercise and members of America’s professional and premier expeditionary force — in the mock firefight that followed.

Finnish camouflage for the Arctic snow, scrub and scree likely had kept the Americans from even realizing the command post was there when they landed, Finnish commander Lt. Col. Mikko Kuoka suspected. “For those who years from now will doubt it,” Kuoka, modestly stunned by the outcome of the random skirmish, wrote in an infantry-focused blog recording the outcome, of an episode he later confirmed for The Associated Press. “That actually happened.” As the exercise made clear, NATO’s addition of Finland and Sweden — what President Joe Biden calls “our allies of the high north” — would bring military and territorial advantages to the Western defense alliance. That’s especially so as the rapid melting of the Arctic from climate change awakens strategic rivalries at the top of the world.

In contrast to the NATO expansion of former Soviet states that needed big boosts in the decades after the Cold War, the alliance would be bringing in two sophisticated militaries and, in Finland’s case, a country with a remarkable tradition of national defense. Both Finland and Sweden are in a region on one of Europe’s front lines and meeting places with Russia.

Finland, defending against Soviet Russia’s invasion on the eve of World War II, relied on fighters on snowshoes and skis, expert snow and forest camouflage, and reindeers transporting weapons.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in late February, along with his pointed reminder about the Kremlin’s nuclear arsenal and his repeated invocation of broad territorial claims stemming from the days of the Russian Empire, have galvanized current NATO nations into strengthening their collective defenses and bringing on board new members, according to Associated Press.

Finland — until 1917 a grand duchy in that empire — and Sweden abandoned longtime national policies of military nonalignment. They applied to come under NATO’s nuclear and conventional umbrella and join what is now 30 other member states in a powerful mutual defense pact, stipulating that an attack on one member is an attack on all.

Putin justified his invasion of West-looking Ukraine as pushing back against NATO and the West as, he said, they encroached ever closer on Russia. A NATO that includes Finland and Sweden would come as an ultimate rebuke for Putin’s war, empowering the defensive alliance in a strategically important region, surrounding Russia in the Baltic Sea and Arctic Ocean, and crowding NATO up against Russia’s western border for more than 800 additional miles (1,300 kilometers).

“I spent four years, my term, trying to persuade Sweden and Finland to join NATO,” former NATO secretary-general Lord George Robertson said this summer. “Vladimir Putin managed it in four weeks.”

Biden has been part of bipartisan U.S. and international cheerleading for the two countries’ candidacies. Reservations expressed by Turkey and Hungary keep NATO approval from being a lock.

Russia in recent years has been “rearming up in the north, with advanced nuclear weapons, hypersonic missiles and multiple bases,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said this month. “Russia’s threats, and Russia’s military build-up, mean that NATO is strengthening its presence in the north.′

Finland and Sweden would bring a lot to that mix. But they’re not without flaws, Associated Press reported.

Both countries downsized their militaries, cut defense funding and closed bases after the collapse of the Soviet Union lulled Cold War-era fears. As of just five years ago, Sweden’s entire tiny national defense force could fit into one of of Stockholm’s soccer stadiums, a critic noted.