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The Election Commission (EC) has intensified preparations in order to hold the November 20 elections of the provincial and federal parliaments in a free and fair manner. In this connection, it endorsed the election schedule. The directive, work procedure and amendments relating to the elections have also been approved. Chief Election Commissioner Dinesh Kumar Thapaliya said that the EC had called for registration of the political parties willing to participate in the elections and completed the financial management work procedure and budget. The EC has been provided 107 days for the preparations. It has estimated the election cost at Rs 10 billion while the total voters would be around 18.2 million. Even the international organizations have been called for election observation in order to hold the elections in a free, fair and frugal manner. It is shared that there will be some 10,825 polling stations. CCTV surveillance will be put in place for making the vote count credible. It will be helpful for monitoring of the elections and vote count as well. The citizens turning 18 years on the eve of the elections are eligible to exercise voting rights. For voting literacy, digital media is used extensively by the Election Commission. There is continuous discussion and consultation with the experts and political representatives in a bid to minimize the percentage of invalid votes and increase voters' turnout. Moreover, the EC has also planned to ensure voting rights to the employees and security persons mobilized for the elections and the inmates by including them in the temporary voter list. With this, they can at least vote for proportional elections. Efforts are on to discourage prodigal election publicity. Another nagging issue the EC is facing and taking efforts to address is the spread of fake news. The EC believes that fake news- disinformation and misinformation- pollutes the electoral information system. Equal attention has been drawn towards the promotion of honest politics. The candidates will be urged to make self-disclosure on their qualification and financial issues.

Sky across the nation would remain partly to generally cloudy as well as light to moderate rainfall with thunderstorms and lightning has been predicted at some places today. According to the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, there is a chance of light to moderate rain with thunder and lightning at a few places in hilly areas and one or two places in the remaining parts. The Department has requested the people to adopt precautions as there is a possibility of soil erosion, landslide and increase in water level in rivulets and rivers as partly to generally cloudy weather at hilly areas and light to moderate rainfall accompanied by thunderstorm and lightning at few places of hilly areas and one or two places of the remaining areas has been forecast for the next 24 hours. It has also warned that daily life of the people and transport service might be affected due to this. The weather in most parts of the country is now partly cloudy.  Light rainfall is taking place at one or two places of Province 1, Bagmati and Gandaki Provinces. There is a chance of partly to generally cloudy weather across the nation as well as light to moderate rainfall with thunderstorms and lightning is likely to take place at few places of hilly areas and one or two places of the remaining parts in the night.

Nepal Communist Party Ekata Rastriya Abhiyan Coordinator Bamdev Gautam has decided to contest the upcoming election with the election symbol of the CPN (Maoist Center). A Standing Committee meeting of the CPN (Maoist Center) held on Tuesday has decided to allow Gautam to contest the election with the party’s election symbol. Maoist Center spokesperson Krishna Bahadur Mahara said that the meeting has given permission to Gautam to contest the forthcoming election with the party’s election symbol. The government has decided to hold the federal and provincial elections on November 20.

A roaring Himalayan river and one of the world's most militarised borders separate the Khokhar family in Kashmir, a mountainous region divided between India and Pakistan - arch rivals that gained independence from Britain 75 years ago.

Abdul Rashid Khokhar lives on the Indian side, in the village of Teetwal.

Across the fast-flowing waters of the Neelum River, also known as the Kishanganga, his nephews - Javed Iqbal Khokhar and Muneer Hussain Khokhar - run small stores in the hamlet of Chilehana in Pakistan.

Above them, on both sides, loom tall, green mountains from where the militaries of the nuclear-armed neighbours have intermittently rained mortars, shells and small arm fire on each other through the decades.

Since early 2021, the Line of Control (LOC), a 740-km (460-mile) de facto border that cuts Kashmir into two, has been mostly quiet, following the renewal of a ceasefire agreement between India and Pakistan.

After years of bombardment and destruction in this part of Kashmir, farmers have returned to abandoned fields and orchards, markets are bustling, small businesses are expanding and schools are back to normal routines, residents on both sides said.

But the broken diplomatic ties between India and Pakistan, who fought two of their three wars over Kashmir, continue to cast a dark shadow over the region. Kashmir, claimed by both nations, remains the biggest unresolved issue between the two, much the same as it was in 1947.

India and Pakistan have no viable trade links and their diplomatic missions are downgraded. Visas to visit from either side are extremely limited, Reuters reported.

The picture-postcard valleys and mountains of Kashmir are divided into Pakistani and Indian sectors, while China controls a slice of the region in the north.

The narrow rope bridge that connects Teetwal to Chilehana is blocked on both sides by barbed wire, and no crossings have been allowed since 2018.

Sentry posts remain on both sides of the bridge, which straddles the LOC.

"The line runs through our hearts," said Khokhar, a 73-year-old who is the village council head of Teetwal, referring to the LOC.

"It is very traumatic that you can see your relatives across but can't talk to them, meet them."

The Khokhars are among the millions of families that found themselves divided following the partition of colonial India into the independent nations, Hindu-majority India and Islamic Pakistan, at midnight on August 14/15 in 1947.

A court in military-ruled Myanmar sentenced deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi to five years in jail on Wednesday after finding her guilty in the first of 11 corruption cases she faces, a source with knowledge of the proceedings said, Reuters reported.

The Nobel laureate and figurehead of Myanmar's opposition to military rule is charged with at least 18 offences carrying combined maximum jail terms of nearly 190 years, all but killing off any chance of a political comeback.

The judge in the capital, Naypyitaw, handed down the verdict within moments of the court convening and gave no explanation, said the source, who declined to be identified because the trial is being held behind closed doors, with information restricted.

Suu Kyi, who has attended all of her hearings, was displeased with the outcome and would appeal, the source said.

The European Union confirmed the sentencing in a statement. The EU said the trial was politically motivated, a setback for democracy and "represents another step towards the dismantling of the rule of law and a further blatant violation of human rights in Myanmar."

The 76-year-old led Myanmar for five years during a short period of tentative democracy before being forced from power in a coup in February 2021 by the military, which has ruled the former British colony for five of the past six decades, according to Reuters.

It was not immediately clear if she would be transferred to a prison to serve the sentence.

Since her arrest she has been held in an undisclosed location, where junta chief Min Aung Hlaing previously said she could stay after convictions in December and January for comparatively minor offences that led to a six-year term.

The military government's spokesperson Zaw Min Tun could not be reached for comment, and made no mention of the Suu Kyi ruling on Wednesday during a televised news conference that ran more than 3-1/2 hours.

The latest case centred on accusations that Suu Kyi accepted 11.4 kg (402 oz) of gold and cash payments totalling $600,000 from her protege-turned-accuser, former chief minister of the city of Yangon, Phyo Min Thein.

Suu Kyi had called the accusations "absurd" and denies all charges against her, which include violations of electoral and state secrets laws, incitement and corruption, Reuters reported.

Heavy rains set off flash floods that killed at least 31 people and left dozens missing in northern Afghanistan, the Taliban's state-run news agency reported Monday, Business Standard reported. The Bakhtar News Agency said the flooding took place on Sunday in northern Parwan province. The agency said that women and children were among the dead and 17 people were reported injured. At least 100 people remained missing on Monday, the report said, and a search and rescue operation was underway. The flash floods swept away dozens of homes in the three affected districts in Parwan. The province is ringed by mountainous and more often witnesses floods from heavy rains, according to Business Standard. The local weather department said more rains were expected in the coming days in most of Afghanistan's 34 provinces. Heavy rains and flash floods across the country killed 40 people in July and 19 the month before.

An Iranian official Monday denied Tehran was involved in the stabbing of author Salman Rushdie, though he sought to justify the attack in the Islamic Republic’s first public comments on the bloodshed, Associated Press reported.

The remarks by Nasser Kanaani, the spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, came three days after Rushdie was wounded in New York state. The writer has been taken off a ventilator and is “on the road to recovery,”according to his agent.

Rushdie, 75, has faced death threats for more than 30 years over his novel “The Satanic Verses,” whose depiction of the Prophet Muhammad was seen by some Muslims as blasphemous.

In 1989, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa, or Islamic edict, demanding the author’s death, and while Iran has not focused on Rushdie in recent years, the decree still stands.

Also, a semiofficial Iranian foundation had posted a bounty of over $3 million for the killing of the author. It has not commented on the attack.

“Regarding the attack against Salman Rushdie in America, we don’t consider anyone deserving reproach, blame or even condemnation, except for (Rushdie) himself and his supporters,” Kanaani said.

“In this regard, no one can blame the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he added. “We believe that the insults made and the support he received was an insult against followers of all religions.”

Iran has denied carrying out other operations abroad against dissidents in the years since the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, though prosecutors and Western governments have attributed such attacks to Tehran.

Rushdie was attacked Friday as he was about to give a lecture in western New York. He suffered a damaged liver and severed nerves in an arm and an eye, according to his agent, Andrew Wylie. Rushdie is likely to lose the eye, Wylie said, according to Associated Press.

His alleged assailant, Hadi Matar, pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and assault.

Matar, 24, was born in the US to parents who emigrated from Yaroun in southern Lebanon near the Israeli border, according to the village’s mayor.

Matar had lived in recent years in New Jersey with his mother, who told London’s Daily Mailthat her son became moody and more religious after a month-long trip to Lebanon in 2018.

“I was expecting him to come back motivated, to complete school, to get his degree and a job. But instead he locked himself in the basement. He had changed a lot, he didn’t say anything to me or his sisters for months,” Silvana Fardos said.

Village records in Yaroun show Matar holds Lebanese citizenship and is a Shiite, an official there said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of security concerns, said Matar’s father lives there but has been in seclusion since the attack.

Flags of the Iranian-backed Shiite militant group Hezbollah, along with portraits of Hezbollah and Iranian leaders, hang across the village. Israel has bombarded Hezbollah positions near there in the past.

Police in New York have offered no motive for the attack, though District Attorney Jason Schmidt alluded to the bounty on Rushdie in arguing against bail during a hearing over the weekend.

“Even if this court were to set a million dollars bail, we stand a risk that bail could be met,” Schmidt said.

In his remarks Monday, Kanaani added that Iran did not “have any other information more than what the American media has reported.” He also implied that Rushdie brought the attack on himself.

“Salman Rushdie exposed himself to popular anger and fury through insulting the sacredness of Islam and crossing the red lines of over 1.5 billion Muslims and also red lines of followers of all divine religions,” Kanaani said.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, while not directly blaming Tehran for the attack on Rushdie, denounced Iran in a statement Monday praising the writer’s support for freedom of expression and religion.

“Iranian state institutions have incited violence against Rushdie for generations, and state-affiliated media recently gloated about the attempt on his life,” Blinken said. “This is despicable.”

State Department spokesman Ned Price, speaking to reporters in Washington on Monday, condemned the Iranian government for blaming Rushdie for the attack. “It’s despicable. It’s disgusting. We condemn it,” he said, Associated Press reported.

“We have heard Iranian officials seek to incite to violence over the years, of course, with the initial fatwa, but even more recently with the gloating that has taken place in the aftermath of this attack on his life. This is something that is absolutely outrageous.”

While fatwas can be revoked, Iran’s current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who took over after Khomeini’s death, has never done so. As recently as 2017, Khamenei said: “The decree is as Imam Khomeini issued.”

Tensions between Iran and the West, particularly the US, have spiked since then-President Donald Trump pulled America out of Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018.

A Trump-ordered drone strike killed a top Iranian Revolutionary Guard general in 2020, heightening those tensions.

Last week, the U.S. charged a Guard member in absentia with plotting to kill one-time Trump adviser and Iran hawk John Bolton. Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and an aide are under 24-hour security over alleged threats from Iran.

US prosecutors also say Iran tried in 2021 to kidnap an Iranian opposition activist and writer living in New York. In recent days, a man with an assault rifle was arrested near her home.

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp left his expensive summer signing Darwin Nunez to sleep on the moment of wild indiscipline that saw him make an early and undignified exitfrom his home debut in the Premier League, BBC reported.