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The Placement Cell of Kathmandu University is organizing the KU SOM Job and Internship Fair (KJIF) on August 22-23.

KU SOM Job and Internship Fair (KJIF) is an annual flagship event which acts as a bridge between students of KUSOM and Corporate houses. It gives students not only a platform to connect with the company of their choice but also provides employers an opportunity to explore the talent pool of KUSOM. The event aims to derive maximum benefits and provide a win-win solution to both parties.

In the year 2021, KJIF, which was conducted virtually considering the COVID-19 pandemic, witnessed the participation of a total of 60 companies (making it the highest till now).

This year 64 companies have confirmed their participation.

Some of the companies who have confirmed their participation for this year are Laxmi Group, Standard Chartered, Chaudhary Group, IME Group, Leapfrog, E-Sewa, Unilever Nepal, Goldstar, Daraz and Hongfu among others.

Along with the company participation, the organizer is also expecting a maximum participation of 200 students from BBA, BBIS, and MBA of KUSOM.

Since its establishment in 2011, the event has been receiving overwhelming responses from the leading national and multinational companies every year.

The event has been able to achieve its mission of establishing right connections with the industry which is being reflected in the success rate of placements and feedback given by companies about the event along with the students.

An unidentified group vandalized 14 tippers carrying garbage, two dozers and an excavator in Banchare Danda, Nuwakot on Monday.

Inspector Laxmi Khadka of the District Police Office, Nuwakot, said that the group vandalized the vehicles which had gone to dump the garbage.

She said that the incident occurred at around 11 pm yesterday.

Further investigation into the incident is underway, police said.

An unidentified body of a man was found inside a parked container at Salakpur in Sundarharaicha Municipality-8 of Morang district on Tuesday.

The body of the man, who appeared to be in his 50s, was found on the front seat of the container (Na 3 Kha 4743) this morning, DSP Deepak Shrestha, spokesperson at the District Police Office, Morang said.

According to locals, the container was parked in the area for the past four days.

DSP Shrestha said that a team from the Area Police Office, Belbari under the leadership of Inspector Khagendra Dhamala has already reached the incident site to carry out an investigation.

He assumed that the man may have been the driver or assistant driver of the container.

Further investigation into the case is underway, police said.

The Election Commission has endorsed the election calendar for the parliamentary and provincial elections scheduled for November 20.

According to the election calendar, filing of nominations for both federal and provincial elections under the first-past-the-post (FPTP) category will take place on October 9.

The poll body approved the calendar for the internal purposes to prepare and organize the elections.

Political parties registered at the Election Commission till August 4, 2022 to take part in the direct and proportional elections have been asked to register the parties from August 7 to 16.

As per the election calendar, elections officers will be appointed on September 27, offices will be established on October 7, printing of ballot papers will start from October 14, transportation of election materials will start from November 2, silence period will start from November 17 and voting will start at 7 in the morning till 5 in the evening on November 20.

Chief election officers’ offices and election officers’ offices will be established in 77 districts and in 88 places respectively to conduct elections for 165 House of Representatives (HoR) seats and 330 Provincial Assembly seats.

Similarly, the offices for the election under the Proportional Representation category will be established on August 15.

The Election Commission has decided to start printing ballot papers for the election under the Proportional Representation category from September 5 and to present a closed list on September 18-19.

The Commission, however, is yet to officially publish the schedule.

The election body will also issue a notice about the elections in the Nepal Gazette also.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Narayan Khadka is leaving for China today.

Minister Khadka is visiting China at the invitation of State Councilor and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China Wang Yi.

During his stay, he is scheduled to hold bilateral talks with the delegation in Qingdao on August 10.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is scheduled to host a banquet in honor of Foreign Minister Khadka.

Minister Khadka will return home on 11 August.

Russia has told the US it has "temporarily" suspended on-site inspections of its strategic nuclear weapons, under an arms control treaty known as New START, BBC reported.

The Russian foreign ministry said the US was seeking advantages and had deprived Russia of the right to carry out inspections on US territory.

It said US sanctions imposed on Russia over Ukraine had changed conditions between the countries.

The treaty came into force in 2011.

It is the last remaining arms reduction agreement between the former Cold War rivals. It caps at 1,550 the number of long-range nuclear warheads that each country can deploy.

The ministry said the suspension was allowed under the treaty terms "in exceptional circumstances".

The suspension comes a week after US President Joe Biden said he was ready to work on a new nuclear arms deal with President Vladimir Putin. The current one will expire in 2026.

The ministry accused the US of ignoring "existing realities" such as "the suspension of normal" air links.

New START followed years of arms reduction talks between the US and former USSR, aimed at preventing nuclear war, according to BBC.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February sparked hostile rhetoric on both sides, including warnings that the conflict could escalate into a third world war. 

Some commentators on Russian state media have boasted about Moscow's nuclear arsenal in the context of current tensions with Nato, BBC reported.

The Biden administration said Monday it was shipping its biggest yet direct delivery of weapons to Ukraine as that country prepares for a potentially decisive counteroffensive in the south against Russia, sending $1 billion in rockets, ammunition and other material to Ukraine from Defense Department stockpiles, Associated Press reported.

The new US arms shipment would further strengthen Ukraine as it mounts the counteroffensive, which analysts say for the first time could allow Kyiv to shape the course of the rest of the war, now at the half-year mark.

Kyiv aims to push Russian troops back out of Kherson and other southern territory near the Dnipro River. Russia in recent days was moving troops and equipment in the direction of the southern port cities to stave off the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

“At every stage of this conflict, we have been focused on getting the Ukrainians what they need, depending on the evolving conditions on the battlefield,” Colin Kahl, undersecretary of defense for policy, said Monday in announcing the new weapons shipment.

The new US aid includes additional rockets for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, as well as thousands of artillery rounds, mortar systems, Javelins and other ammunition and equipment. Military commanders and other US officials say the HIMARS and artillery systems have been crucial in Ukraine’s fight to block Russia from taking more ground.

While the US has already provided 16 HIMARS to Ukraine, Kahl said the new package does not include additional ones.

“These are not systems that we assess you need in the hundreds to have the type of effects” needed, Kahl said. “These are precision-guided systems for very particular types of targets and the Ukrainians are using them as such.”

He declined to say how many of the precision-guided missile systems for the HIMARS were included in Monday’s announcement, but said the US has provided “multiple hundreds” of them in recent weeks.

The latest announcement brings the total U.S. security assistance committed to Ukraine by the Biden administration to more than $9 billion. 

In his nightly video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked the United States for the package, and said “100% of it we will use to protect freedom, our common freedom.”

Until now, the largest single security assistance package announcement was for $1 billion on June 15. But that aid included $350 million in presidential drawdown authority, and another $650 million under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which provides funding for training, equipment and other security needs that can be bought from other countries or companies, according to Associated Press.

Monday’s package allows the US to deliver weapons systems and other equipment more quickly since it takes them off the Defense Department shelves. 

In addition to the rockets for the HIMARS, it includes 75,000 rounds of 155mm artillery, 20 mortar systems and 20,000 rounds for them, 1,000 shoulder-mounted Javelin rockets, and other arms, explosives and medical equipment.

For the last four months of the war, Russia has concentrated on capturing the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, where pro-Moscow separatists have controlled some territory as self-proclaimed republics for eight years. Russian forces have made gradual headway in the region while launching missile and rocket attacks to curtail the movements of Ukrainian fighters elsewhere.

Kahl estimated that Russian forces have sustained up to 80,000 deaths and injuries in the fighting, though he did not break down the figure with an estimate of forces killed. 

He said the Russian troops have managed to gain “incremental” ground in eastern Ukraine, although not in recent weeks. “But that has come at extraordinary cost to the Russian military because of how well the Ukrainian military has performed and all the assistance that the Ukrainian military has gotten. And I think now, conditions in the east have essentially stabilized and the focus is really shifting to the south.”

The new funding is being paid for through $40 billion in economic and security aid for Ukraine approved by Congress in May.

This is the 18th time the Pentagon has provided equipment from Defense Department stocks to Ukraine since August 2021.

The US and allies still are evaluating whether to supply aircraft to Ukraine, Kahl said. It’s “not inconceivable that western aircraft down the road could be part of the mix,” he said, Associated Press reported.

The FBI searched Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate as part of an investigation into whether he took classified records from the White House to his Florida residence, people familiar with the matter said Monday, a move that represents a dramatic and unprecedented escalation of law enforcement scrutiny of the former president, Associated Press reported.

Trump, disclosing the search in a lengthy statement, asserted that agents had opened up a safe at his home and described their work as an “unannounced raid” that he likened to “prosecutorial misconduct.” 

The search intensifies the months-long probe into how classified documents ended up in more than a dozen boxes located at Mar-a-Lago earlier this year. It occurs amid a separate grand jury investigation into efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and adds to the potential legal peril for Trump as he lays the groundwork for another run.

Familiar battle lines, forged during a a four-year presidency shadowed by FBI and congressional investigations, quickly took shape again Monday night. Trump and his allies sought to cast the search as a weaponization of the criminal justice system and a Democratic-driven effort to keep him from winning another term in 2024 — even though the Biden White House said it had no prior knowledge of it, and the current FBI director, Christopher Wray, was appointed by Trump five years ago and served as a high-ranking official in a Republican-led Justice Department.

“These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” Trump wrote. “Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before.”

“After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate,” Trump said in his statement.

Justice Department spokesperson Dena Iverson declined to comment on the search, including about whether Attorney General Merrick Garland had personally authorized it.

Trump did not elaborate on the basis for the search, but the Justice Department has been investigating the potential mishandling of classified information after the National Archives and Records Administration said it had retrieved from Mar-a-Lago 15 boxes of records containing classified information earlier this year. The National Archives said Trump should have turned over that material upon leaving office, and it asked the Justice Department to investigate, according to Associated Press.

There are multiple federal laws governing the handling of classified records and sensitive government documents, including statutes that make it a crime to remove such material and retain it at an unauthorized location. Though a search warrant does not suggest that criminal charges are near or even expected, federal officials looking to obtain one must first demonstrate to a judge that they have probable cause that a crime occurred.

Two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said the search happened earlier Monday and was related to the records probe. Agents were also looking to see if Trump had additional presidential records or any classified documents at the estate.

Trump has previously maintained that presidential records were turned over “in an ordinary and routine process.” His son Eric said on Fox News on Monday night that he had spent the day with his father and that the search happened because “the National Archives wanted to corroborate whether or not Donald Trump had any documents in his possession.”

Asked how the documents ended up at Mar-a-Lago, Eric Trump said the boxes were among items that got moved out of the White House during “six hours” on Inauguration Day, as the Bidens prepared to move into the building.

“My father always kept press clippings,” Eric Trump said. “He had boxes, when he moved out of the White House.”

Trump emerged from Trump Tower in New York City shortly before 8 p.m. and waved to bystanders before being driven away in an SUV, Associated Press reported.

In his first public remarks since news of the search surfaced, Trump made no mention of it during a tele-town hall on behalf of Leora Levy, the Connecticut Republican he has endorsed in Tuesday’s US Senate primary to pick a general election opponent against Democratic US Sen. Richard Blumenthal. Trump gave his public backing to Levy late last week, calling her on Monday the best pick “to replace Connecticut’s joke of a senator.”