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The WBC Muay Thai Nepal has announced the National Championship on Saturday.

Issuing a statement on Friday, WBCMT Nepal President Raju Rai said that the event to be held at Hotel Amuprastha in Kathmandu will feature five fights in the main card along with six other fights in the pro- amateur fight card.

The main attraction of the event will be the battle between Karishma Karki and Teji Maya Gurung which will determine the national champion of Nepal in the female flyweight division, he said.

The winner and the loser will get Rs 80, 000 and Rs 24, 000 respectively.

Similarly, in the other five fights in the professional card, Borthung Rai will take on Milan Tamang in the welterweight division.

Badakazi Thapa will face Karan Thapa in the lightweight division and Gyanendra Singh will be competing against Shirish Bhuju Bantam in weight division.

The winners will get the gold medals and Rs 20, 000 in cash while the losers will receive Rs 10, 000 in cash.

Likewise, Santosh Khatri will take on Sonam Tsering Sherpa in the co-main event.

The winner and the loser will receive Rs 30, 000 and 15, 000 in cash respectively.

“This is the first time in the combat sports history in Nepal that the females are competing for titles and medals which are internationally recognized,” Deputy General Secretary of the WBCMT Nepal Subodh Niraula.

The event will start after 12 pm.

The WBC Muay Thai Nepal had organized the first edition of the National Championship on November 12, 2021.

The price of gold has increased by Rs 800 per tola in the domestic market on Friday.

According to the Federation of Nepal Gold and Silver Dealers' Association, the yellow bullion is being traded at Rs 95, 600 per tola today.

Meanwhile, tejabi gold is being traded at Rs 95, 000 per tola.

The yellow metal was traded at Rs 94, 800 per tola on Thursday.

Similarly, the price of silver is being traded at Rs 1,185 per tola today.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Narayan Khadka said that the government has already informed the United States that Nepal will not move ahead with the State Partnership Program (SPP) of the US government.

During a meeting of the House of Representatives on Friday, Minister Khadka said that a letter has been sent to the United States through a diplomatic channel saying that Nepal would not be a part of the SPP.

“The government has already made a decision that Nepal will not be a part of the SPP. The Cabinet meeting held on June 20, 2022 had decided that Nepal will not move ahead with the SPP,” he said, adding, “The Ministry on July 25 had written to the United States through a diplomatic channel about the government’s decision to withdraw from SPP.”

Laxman Datt Pant is a media scholar and advocate of free and accountable media. He is the founder and the chairperson of Media Action Nepal (MAN) that advocates for freedom of expression and safety of journalists. The Media Freedom Coalition-Consultative Network (MFC-CN) this year selected MAN as one of its members, subsequently electing Pant as one of the network’s three co-chairs. A 22-member global network of media rights organizations, MFC-CN advises and updates the Media Freedom Coalition, a cross-regional collaboration of 52 governments across the world. ApEx talks to Pant about the suppression of critical voices in Nepal and South Asia.  

How do you evaluate the state of free speech in Nepal?

Nepal’s constitution guarantees freedom of expression and free press. But the legislative reforms taking place at the province and federal levels show lawmakers and the governments have forgotten their commitment to national and international principles of human rights, freedom of speech and the independent media. Attempts at instituting government-controlled media-related bodies, such as Media Council, Mass Communication Authority, and Media Academy, at the province level, without wider expert and civil society consultations, and tabling repressive Informational Technology Management Bill, Media Council Bill and Social Media Directives, at the federal level, with limited or no consultations, pose threats to freedom of expression and independent media.

Efforts such as the rollout of the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity back in 2013 had provided a solid opportunity for Nepal to sensitize stakeholders about the intersectional approach to freedom of expression and the safety of journalists. 

This could have been instrumental had the National Human Right Commission established an independent mechanism for the protection of free expression, one of the plan’s three key components. But the commission’s draft of the directive to establish the mechanism ignores Nepal's local realities of the impunity for crimes against journalists. 

Limited consultations, reluctance to institutionalize the opportunity, and internal conflict within the national rights body have imperiled Nepal’s human rights situation. The transitional justice bodies are almost dysfunctional to effectively address conflict-era cases including those against journalists.

Are South Asian countries becoming more intolerant of media freedom?

Prolonged impunity for crimes against journalists and the legislative reforms that undermine freedom of expression and internet freedom in Nepal, growing intolerance to critical journalism and internet surveillance including violent attacks on media workers in Pakistan, and lawsuits and illegal surveillance of journalists using Pegasus spyware in India are the evidence that the governments of these countries are intolerant to free and independent media. 

With the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, media there faces increased security challenges with over 40 percent of media outlets being shut in recent months. Similarly, authorities in Bangladesh continue to jail journalists by using the Digital Security Act. Maldives' proposed Evidence Bill also presents a noticeable threat to media, as its provisions compel journalists to reveal their sources.

In Sri Lanka, incidents of harassment and intimidation of journalists and restricted access to social media have increased with the recent political and economic turmoil. And in Bhutan, online campaigns against investigative journalism including racist attacks have undermined the principles of free press.

All these incidents are not good signs for the region’s media. 

Shouldn’t there be limits to freedom of speech and expression?

The international human rights law allows some limits on freedom of expression, which in many contexts in Nepal and South Asia have been misinterpreted by authorities to suppress critical voices and the media’s watchdog role. Authorities often overlook the fact that the criteria set out in the Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights permits restrictions on free speech only if it goes through a ‘three-part test’ of legitimacy, legality and proportionality. 

Section 3 of Article 19 states that restrictions shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary for respect of the rights or reputations of others, protection of national security or public order, or of public health or morals. It is high time governments in South Asia understood and respected these tests.  

It is also essential that governments do not conduct these tests. There should be independent courts for this.

How do you ensure the safety of journalists in the digital age?

Journalists in South Asia face high levels of digital risks, as governments across the region have taken the pandemic as a pretext to suppress both online and offline media. Stealing of data by authorities, introducing so-called anti-disinformation laws to curb free press, cyber bullying, trolling, and character assassination, particularly of critical media and women journalists, are some of the digital challenges the region faces today.

As online threats and harassment against journalists through digital surveillance keep growing, the editorial self-censorship continues, impacting people’s right to information and journalists' duty to report the wrongdoings of the power centers. Journalists of today must increase their digital literacy, assess the substantial safety threats, including on social media with high-level privacy settings, to stay safe. 

What do you suggest South Asian governments do to improve the situation of freedom of expression?

With many of the perpetrators of violence against media and journalists going unpunished, South Asia today faces a huge problem of impunity, which has undermined the national and international laws concerning freedom of expression. The state of impunity has diminished public trust in security and justice systems, further ruining the editorial freedom of the media and increasing self-censorship among journalists.

Governments across the region should create an enabling environment for the media to do their job by respecting the fundamental human rights including the right to freedom of expression and press freedom. They should see media freedom as a fundamental element of participatory democratic process. Prompt, independent and effective investigations should be carried in cases of crimes against journalists through independent and constitutional bodies. Perhaps instituting a regional mechanism reflecting the ongoing UN initiatives—i.e. the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity—to defend free and independent media can make substantial change.

Two Indian nationals have been arrested in possession of seven grams of brown sugar from Mechi bridge of Kakarbhitta.

The suspects have been identified as Megabir Limbu (30) and his brother Buddha Bir Limbu (23) of East Sikkim, India.

A joint team deployed from the Area Police Office and Drugs Control Bureau apprehended the duo from Old Mechi bridge of Kakarbhitta, Mechinagar Municipality-2 while they were heading towards Nepal from India during a regular security check.

Police said that they have recovered three mobile phones from their possession.

Further investigation into the incident is underway, police said.

An aircraft of Yeti Air that took off from Pokhara for Kathmandu returned to Pokhara after the plane’s engine encountered failure on Friday.

According to Dev Raj Subedi, Information Officer at the airport, the aircraft, which took off at 8:55 am today, gave an indication of engine failure as soon as it left the runway.

There were 45 passengers on board the aircraft with call sign 9N ANG.

Subedi said that the aircraft returned to Pokhara six minutes after taking off from the airport.

1. My Old School

When 16-year-old Brandon Lee transferred to a new school near Glasgow in 1993, everyone there noticed something unusual about him. Some even thought he might be living a double life. But no one imagined the scale of the deception that would eventually come to light. In Jono McLeod's documentary, Lee's former classmates and teachers tell his bizarre story – and if you don't want to know the ending, don't Google his name. Lee himself didn't want to appear on screen, so his testimony is lip-synced by Alan Cumming (The Good Wife), and flashbacks to the 1990s are rendered as animated cartoons. Alissa Wilkinson at Voxsays the results are "flat-out fun… like listening to a bunch of friends tell you about the wildest memory they share".

Released on 19 August in UK & Ireland

2.  Luck

In the first full-length film from Skydance Animation, Tony Award-nominee Eva Noblezada provides the voice of Sam, "the unluckiest person in the world". Having grown up in the care system, she hopes to nab some extra good luck for a fellow foster child, and finds her way to a realm where magical creatures – including a black cat voiced by Simon Pegg and a dragon voiced by Jane Fonda – manipulate the human race's fortunes. It may sound faintly sinister, but the director, Peggy Holmes, promises that Luck is full of "positivity and inspiration". Talking to Jackson Murphy at Animation Now, she says, "We've all been through a really hard time together in the world. People really want to sit back, relax, and really be inspired to just keep going. When those bad luck days come, just keep going because there are some good luck ones coming, too."

Released on 5 August on Apple TV+ worldwide

3. Mack & Rita

From Freaky Friday to Big, 13 Going on 30 to 17 Again, lots of comedies have imagined young minds zapping into older bodies, and vice versa. But the new film from Katie Aselton (The Freebie, Black Rock) puts a fresh spin on the formula, by ageing up, rather than using teens and adults. Written by Paul Welsh and Madeline Walter, Mack & Rita features a 30-year-old author (Elizabeth Lail) who has always felt that she was a 70-year-old woman on the inside. After going to a new-age workshop in Palm Springs, she is magically transformed into a 70-year-old woman on the outside, too. In her new identity (Diane Keaton in an all-too-rare lead role), she is a happy, relaxed "glammy granny" social-media influencer, but can that make up for losing 40 years of her life?

Released on 12 August in the US, Canada and Spain

4. Bullet Train

David Leitch was Brad Pitt's stunt double on Troy, Fight Club and Mr and Mrs Smith, and has since become the director of such ridiculously-fun action movies as Hobbs & Shaw, Atomic Blonde and Deadpool 2. And now the two old buddies have teamed up for Leitch's latest shooting-and-punching-fest: Bullet Train. Pitt plays an assassin who is sent by his handler (Sandra Bullock) to grab a briefcase from one of the passengers on a Japanese train, but little does he know that the train is full of other shady characters (Brian Tyree Henry, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Zazie Beetz, Michael Shannon). Adapted from a novel by Kōtarō Isaka, Bullet Train "is the kind of summer popcorn movie that knows it's a summer popcorn movie," says Nick Romano at EW. "But because it's Leitch at the helm, the action is sharp, slick, dynamic, and always advancing the story."

Released on 3 August in the UK and 5 August in the US

5. Blind Ambition

This intoxicating Australian documentary, directed by Robert Coe and Warwick Ross, has such a perfect underdog story that it would seem far-fetched in a Hollywood comedy. Its four heroes are all refugees who fled from Zimbabwe to South Africa, and found work as waiters, then as sommeliers, before eventually forming Zimbabwe's first-ever competitive wine-tasting team. Their next stop is Burgundy in France, for "the Olympics of wine tasting". Open a bottle of your favourite rosé and enjoy. "While there is a focus on the road to the championship and the outcome of the competition," says Jojo Ajisafe in Little White Lies, "the real joy of Blind Ambition is watching the strength and ambition in the team. How they not only changed the lives of themselves and their families, but also exposed the world to the untapped talent present in Zimbabwe."

Released on 12 August in the UK and Ireland, and 2 September in the US

6. Emily The Criminal

Emily (Aubrey Plaza) is indeed a criminal. In John Patton Ford's darkly-satirical urban thriller, she gets involved in a low-level credit card scam organised by Youcef (Theo Rossi), and builds up to bigger, more violent crimes from there. But maybe, just maybe, her wrongdoings are understandable. Ford makes the case for Emily that with $70,000 in student loans to pay off, and patronising bosses offering her nothing but unpaid internships, she is short of other options. The film is "an entertaining and sharp-edged look at the world in which so many millennials find themselves," says Alissa Wilkinson at Vox, "saddled with enormous debt, a lousy job market, an exploitative gig economy, and the sinking feeling that nothing’s going to get better if you don’t escape the system".

Released on 12 August in the US and Canada

7. The Feast

There aren't many folk-horror movies in which the characters all speak Welsh, but The Feast, directed by Lee Haven Jones, would be worth tucking into whichever language it was in. The setting is a swanky dinner party in the Welsh countryside. A politician (Julian Lewis Jones) hopes to charm some local farmers into letting a mining company onto their land. But their waitress for the evening, the mysterious Cadi (Annes Elwy), has another outcome in mind. "With delicate sleight of hand," says Sara Michelle Fetters at MovieFreak, "the filmmaker examines issues relating to classism, climate change, wealth inequality, sexism and so much more with deliciously malevolent precision. Jones also does not skimp on the blood and gore, the resulting mixture of social commentary and ghoulish mystical terror beautifully upsetting on a primal level."

Released on 19 August in the UK

8. Three Thousand Years of Longing

Seven years on from the turbo-charged Mad Max: Fury Road, George Miller is back at last with another film – and the contrast could hardly be greater. In place of bloodthirsty survivalists racing around post-apocalyptic Australia, we have a demure English academic (Tilda Swinton) at a literature conference in Istanbul. A djinn (Idris Elba) materialises in her hotel room and offers her three wishes, but the academic has read enough myths to know that wishes tend to backfire, so the djinn tries to charm her with fabulous tales from his past. Miller's romantic fantasy, which premiered at Cannes, is a long way from Mad Max territory, but there is a thread connecting the two films. "Like Mad Max: Fury Road before it," says Ben Croll at The Wrap, "Three Thousand Years of Longing is another kind of blockbuster that tries to lead by example, a big-budget fantasia that argues there are more imaginative and original ways for Hollywood to employ its tools."

Released on 31 August in the US and Canada

9. Bodies Bodies Bodies

This "Agatha Christie-style Gen-Z slasher farce" is "one of the horror highlights of the year", says Matthew Turner at Nerdly. Amandla Stenberg and Maria Bakalova (from Borat Subsequent Moviefilm) play a young couple who go to a hipster house party at a rich friend's mansion. Late at night, the twenty-somethings play a game of "bodies bodies bodies", in which the murderer "kills" his victims by touching them. But then, of course, someone actually gets killed. Halina Reijn, the film's director, satirises our resentments, insecurities and social-media obsessions – but also delivers a cunningly-plotted murder mystery. "In short, Bodies Bodies Bodies is a thoroughly entertaining, deliciously twisted horror farce that demands to be seen with as big an audience as possible," says Turner. "Agatha Christie herself would be proud."

Released on 5 August in the US, 12 August in Canada and 9 September in the UK

10. I Came By

Playing a rather different character from the ones he's known for in Downton Abbey and Paddington, Hugh Bonneville co-stars in I Came By as a snooty high-court judge named Sir Hector Blake. Starring alongside him is George MacKay, who plays a Banksy-like graffiti artist whose speciality is to sneak into the homes of Britain's wealthiest aristocrats and do some unauthorised redecorating. But when he is in Sir Hector's London town house, he uncovers a dark secret that puts his life in danger. Directed and co-written by the Bafta-winning Babak Anvari, this Netflix crime thriller promises "classic Hitchcockian suspense via contemporary themes of establishment privilege and corruption".

Released on 19 August in cinemas in the UK and Ireland, and 31 August on Netflix internationally

(BBC reported)

1. My Old School

When 16-year-old Brandon Lee transferred to a new school near Glasgow in 1993, everyone there noticed something unusual about him. Some even thought he might be living a double life. But no one imagined the scale of the deception that would eventually come to light. In Jono McLeod's documentary, Lee's former classmates and teachers tell his bizarre story – and if you don't want to know the ending, don't Google his name. Lee himself didn't want to appear on screen, so his testimony is lip-synced by Alan Cumming (The Good Wife), and flashbacks to the 1990s are rendered as animated cartoons. Alissa Wilkinson at Voxsays the results are "flat-out fun… like listening to a bunch of friends tell you about the wildest memory they share".

Released on 19 August in UK & Ireland

2.  Luck

In the first full-length film from Skydance Animation, Tony Award-nominee Eva Noblezada provides the voice of Sam, "the unluckiest person in the world". Having grown up in the care system, she hopes to nab some extra good luck for a fellow foster child, and finds her way to a realm where magical creatures – including a black cat voiced by Simon Pegg and a dragon voiced by Jane Fonda – manipulate the human race's fortunes. It may sound faintly sinister, but the director, Peggy Holmes, promises that Luck is full of "positivity and inspiration". Talking to Jackson Murphy at Animation Now, she says, "We've all been through a really hard time together in the world. People really want to sit back, relax, and really be inspired to just keep going. When those bad luck days come, just keep going because there are some good luck ones coming, too."

Released on 5 August on Apple TV+ worldwide

3. Mack & Rita

From Freaky Friday to Big, 13 Going on 30 to 17 Again, lots of comedies have imagined young minds zapping into older bodies, and vice versa. But the new film from Katie Aselton (The Freebie, Black Rock) puts a fresh spin on the formula, by ageing up, rather than using teens and adults. Written by Paul Welsh and Madeline Walter, Mack & Rita features a 30-year-old author (Elizabeth Lail) who has always felt that she was a 70-year-old woman on the inside. After going to a new-age workshop in Palm Springs, she is magically transformed into a 70-year-old woman on the outside, too. In her new identity (Diane Keaton in an all-too-rare lead role), she is a happy, relaxed "glammy granny" social-media influencer, but can that make up for losing 40 years of her life?

Released on 12 August in the US, Canada and Spain

4. Bullet Train

David Leitch was Brad Pitt's stunt double on Troy, Fight Club and Mr and Mrs Smith, and has since become the director of such ridiculously-fun action movies as Hobbs & Shaw, Atomic Blonde and Deadpool 2. And now the two old buddies have teamed up for Leitch's latest shooting-and-punching-fest: Bullet Train. Pitt plays an assassin who is sent by his handler (Sandra Bullock) to grab a briefcase from one of the passengers on a Japanese train, but little does he know that the train is full of other shady characters (Brian Tyree Henry, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Zazie Beetz, Michael Shannon). Adapted from a novel by Kōtarō Isaka, Bullet Train "is the kind of summer popcorn movie that knows it's a summer popcorn movie," says Nick Romano at EW. "But because it's Leitch at the helm, the action is sharp, slick, dynamic, and always advancing the story."

Released on 3 August in the UK and 5 August in the US

5. Blind Ambition

This intoxicating Australian documentary, directed by Robert Coe and Warwick Ross, has such a perfect underdog story that it would seem far-fetched in a Hollywood comedy. Its four heroes are all refugees who fled from Zimbabwe to South Africa, and found work as waiters, then as sommeliers, before eventually forming Zimbabwe's first-ever competitive wine-tasting team. Their next stop is Burgundy in France, for "the Olympics of wine tasting". Open a bottle of your favourite rosé and enjoy. "While there is a focus on the road to the championship and the outcome of the competition," says Jojo Ajisafe in Little White Lies, "the real joy of Blind Ambition is watching the strength and ambition in the team. How they not only changed the lives of themselves and their families, but also exposed the world to the untapped talent present in Zimbabwe."

Released on 12 August in the UK and Ireland, and 2 September in the US

6. Emily The Criminal

Emily (Aubrey Plaza) is indeed a criminal. In John Patton Ford's darkly-satirical urban thriller, she gets involved in a low-level credit card scam organised by Youcef (Theo Rossi), and builds up to bigger, more violent crimes from there. But maybe, just maybe, her wrongdoings are understandable. Ford makes the case for Emily that with $70,000 in student loans to pay off, and patronising bosses offering her nothing but unpaid internships, she is short of other options. The film is "an entertaining and sharp-edged look at the world in which so many millennials find themselves," says Alissa Wilkinson at Vox, "saddled with enormous debt, a lousy job market, an exploitative gig economy, and the sinking feeling that nothing’s going to get better if you don’t escape the system".

Released on 12 August in the US and Canada

7. The Feast

There aren't many folk-horror movies in which the characters all speak Welsh, but The Feast, directed by Lee Haven Jones, would be worth tucking into whichever language it was in. The setting is a swanky dinner party in the Welsh countryside. A politician (Julian Lewis Jones) hopes to charm some local farmers into letting a mining company onto their land. But their waitress for the evening, the mysterious Cadi (Annes Elwy), has another outcome in mind. "With delicate sleight of hand," says Sara Michelle Fetters at MovieFreak, "the filmmaker examines issues relating to classism, climate change, wealth inequality, sexism and so much more with deliciously malevolent precision. Jones also does not skimp on the blood and gore, the resulting mixture of social commentary and ghoulish mystical terror beautifully upsetting on a primal level."

Released on 19 August in the UK

8. Three Thousand Years of Longing

Seven years on from the turbo-charged Mad Max: Fury Road, George Miller is back at last with another film – and the contrast could hardly be greater. In place of bloodthirsty survivalists racing around post-apocalyptic Australia, we have a demure English academic (Tilda Swinton) at a literature conference in Istanbul. A djinn (Idris Elba) materialises in her hotel room and offers her three wishes, but the academic has read enough myths to know that wishes tend to backfire, so the djinn tries to charm her with fabulous tales from his past. Miller's romantic fantasy, which premiered at Cannes, is a long way from Mad Max territory, but there is a thread connecting the two films. "Like Mad Max: Fury Road before it," says Ben Croll at The Wrap, "Three Thousand Years of Longing is another kind of blockbuster that tries to lead by example, a big-budget fantasia that argues there are more imaginative and original ways for Hollywood to employ its tools."

Released on 31 August in the US and Canada

9. Bodies Bodies Bodies

This "Agatha Christie-style Gen-Z slasher farce" is "one of the horror highlights of the year", says Matthew Turner at Nerdly. Amandla Stenberg and Maria Bakalova (from Borat Subsequent Moviefilm) play a young couple who go to a hipster house party at a rich friend's mansion. Late at night, the twenty-somethings play a game of "bodies bodies bodies", in which the murderer "kills" his victims by touching them. But then, of course, someone actually gets killed. Halina Reijn, the film's director, satirises our resentments, insecurities and social-media obsessions – but also delivers a cunningly-plotted murder mystery. "In short, Bodies Bodies Bodies is a thoroughly entertaining, deliciously twisted horror farce that demands to be seen with as big an audience as possible," says Turner. "Agatha Christie herself would be proud."

Released on 5 August in the US, 12 August in Canada and 9 September in the UK

10. I Came By

Playing a rather different character from the ones he's known for in Downton Abbey and Paddington, Hugh Bonneville co-stars in I Came By as a snooty high-court judge named Sir Hector Blake. Starring alongside him is George MacKay, who plays a Banksy-like graffiti artist whose speciality is to sneak into the homes of Britain's wealthiest aristocrats and do some unauthorised redecorating. But when he is in Sir Hector's London town house, he uncovers a dark secret that puts his life in danger. Directed and co-written by the Bafta-winning Babak Anvari, this Netflix crime thriller promises "classic Hitchcockian suspense via contemporary themes of establishment privilege and corruption".

Released on 19 August in cinemas in the UK and Ireland, and 31 August on Netflix internationally

(BBC reported)