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A person died in a motorbike accident at Satpatti in Susta Rural Municipality-2 of Nawalparasi on Tuesday.

The deceased has been identified as bike rider  Omnath Phauhadar (53) of Salbas, Sarawal Rural Municipality-1.

Critically injured in the incident, he breathed his last during the course of treatment at the Chaupatta-based Shahid Smriti Community Hospital.

Kudiya Police Post said that the incident occurred when Phauhadar lost control of the two-wheeler (Lu 22 Pa 3675) and fell off a bridge.

Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota urged the lawmakers to compulsorily wear masks after the main opposition CPN-UML drew the attention of the government towards the increasing cases of Covid-19.

In view of the increasing cases of Covid-19, Speaker Sapkota, during a meeting of the House of Representatives, urged the lawmakers to wear masks.

“You all know that the Covid-19 cases have been increasing day by day. That is why, I would like to request you all to wear masks while attending the meeting of the Parliament,” he said. Most of the lawmakers were not wearing the masks.

Speaking at the meeting, UML lawmaker Yogesh Bhattari drew the attention of the government saying that it is not serious towards monkeypox, cholera and Covid-19.

Though the World Health Organization (WHO) declared monkeypox a public health emergency of international concern, Nepal has not made any preparations to stop the disease from entering the country.

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Monday suspended four protesting Congress members for the remainder of the monsoon session, amid continuing disruptions in Parliament proceedings by the Opposition on issues of high inflation and GST (goods and services tax) on household essentials. The Lower House was then adjourned till Tuesday, Hindustan Times reported.

The MPs who stormed the well of the House holding placards were suspended under Rule 374(2) “for serious note of misconduct in utter disregard of the House and the authority of the Chair...”, according to the resolution for their suspension.

The suspended parliamentarians are Manickam Tagore, TN Prathapan, S Jothimani and Ramya Haridas. Prathapan and Haridas are from Kerala and the other two lawmakers belong to Tamil Nadu. 

“People want Parliament to function,” Birla said on Monday, appealing for order in the House. This was the first time that members were suspended in the current session. The suspension lapses at the end of the session but the four lawmakers named by the Speaker can individually appeal to him to lessen the duration.

“The government is ready to discuss issues raised by the Opposition,” Birla said. If members wanted to protest with placards, they could do so outside the House, he said. Parliamentary affairs minister Prahlad Joshi requested Birla to disqualify the MPs who trooped into the well and were holding placards inside the House, according to Hindustan Times.

The Opposition, led by Congress and Trinamool Congress members, demonstrated inside the Lok Sabha, leading to an adjournment till 3pm after the lunch recess. Parliament proceedings have been continuously disrupted since the monsoon session began on July 18. Opposition MPs shouted slogans and marched to the well of the House with placards.Tagore moved an adjournment motion in the Lok Sabha to discuss the imposition of 5% goods and services tax on items of daily use such as pre-packed and labelled food grains, curd, butter and milk, among others.

“For the past six days, we have been giving notices to adjourn the House and discuss fuel price rise and GST. We want Parliament to function and discuss price rise. But the government has refused to discuss the issues so far. We were forced to show placards as Sansad TV doesn’t show us when we protest. Whenever we raise issues, Sansad TV only shows the ruling benches,” Tagore told reporters. 

Officials pointed out that it is not the first time that parliamentarians have been suspended from the House in this Lok Sabha. “The last case of suspension took place on April 5, 2020 when a total of seven Opposition MPs were temporarily suspended from the Lok Sabha,” an official said, Hindustan Times reported.

Police have arrested an Indian national in possession of Rs 2.4 million undeclared money from Dhanusha.

The arrestee has been identified as Abdul Sami (19) of Bihar, India.

Acting on a tip-off, a police team deployed from the Hanumannagar Police Station nabbed Sami with the cash while he was heading towards Janarkpur from Lohana, Janakpurdham Sub-Metropolitan City-12 on a motorbike (BR 32 AJ 0170).

DSP Pradeep Kumar Chhetri of the District Police Office, Dhanusha said that they have recovered Rs 23,089,480 from his possession.

He said that they are looking into the case.

The probe committee formed to investigate alleged entry of two unauthorized persons in the Finance Ministry on May 28, a day before the budget was presented in the Parliament, has begun studying the report of the hard disk of CCTV.

The committee started the study by opening the seal of the hard disk obtained from the forensic lab of the Nepal Police on Tuesday.

The investigation committee sent the hard disk to the forensic lab of the Nepal Police after it could not get the video of the day when former Finance Minister Janardan Sharma allegedly allowed two outsiders to enter the ministry to tweak tax rates on the eve of the budget presentation.

The committee received the hard disk, sent to the forensic lab of the Nepal Police on July 20, on Monday.

“Only the required process has been completed, there is nothing in the report,” a member of the committee said. Though there is a video of the CCTV of the Finance Ministry in the report sent by the forensic lab of the Nepal Police, the time has not been revealed, the member said.

The Annapurna Post, sister publication of The Annapurna Express, in its June 13 edition published a story claiming that Sharma had allowed two unauthorized persons in the ministry to make last-moment changes in the tax rates.

According to a provision, the finance minister cannot even keep his advisor while changing the tax rates.

But, the former finance minister directed the officials of the Finance Ministry to follow suggestions of two outsiders—a retired senior non-gazetted officer and a chartered accountant—on the night of May 28 to change tax rates to favour some businessmen.

After The Annapurna Post made the news public, lawmakers in the Parliament demanded the resignation of Sharma. They also demanded that they be allowed to see the CCTV footage immediately. But the finance minister had been turning a blind eye to the demand.

Saying that it was a matter of public concern, Secretary Jaya Prasad Paudel on behalf of the Consumers Rights Conservation Forum on June 28 had demanded information from the Ministry.

Paudel had demanded that the Ministry provide a copy of the budget which was replaced by the finance ministry brought by the erstwhile government through the ordinance and the footage of the night that the two unauthorized persons were allowed to the ministry to change tax rates.

In response, the Finance Ministry said that the CCTV footage has been deleted.

“The CCTV footage got deleted as the storage could keep records of only 13 days,” read a letter signed by non-gazetted officer Dhan Kumar Rai.

The committee had sought CCTV footage of south and east gates of singhadurbar of May 28 and 29 with the Home Ministry to see whether any unauthorized persons entered the building.

On June 12, the panel had demanded to extend the deadline after it could not gather evidence within the given 10 days.

As per the request, Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota tabled a proposal in the Parliament meeting on Thursday to extend the deadline by seven days. The Parliament endorsed the proposal unanimously.

The committee had started the work on June 12.

Four democracy activists have been executed by Myanmar's military in what is believed to be the first use of capital punishment in decades, BBC reported.

The four - including activist Ko Jimmy and lawmaker Phyo Zeya Thaw - were accused of committing "terror acts". 

They were sentenced to death in a closed-door trial that rights groups criticised as being unjust.

Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was very sad after hearing the news, a source told the BBC's Burmese Service.

Ms Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD) party, did not make any comments, the source added. She was arrested in February 2021, following an army-led coup.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned the executions in Myanmar, which is also known as Burma. 

"Such reprehensible acts of violence and repression cannot be tolerated. We remain committed to the people of Burma and their efforts to restore Burma's path to democracy," he tweeted.

Family members of the deceased gathered at Insein prison on Monday desperate for information on their loved ones, according to BBC.

The mother of Zayar Thaw says she was not told when exactly her son would be executed, adding that she was unable to make proper traditional funeral plans as a result. 

"When we met on Zoom last Friday, my son was healthy and smiling. He asked me to send his reading glasses, dictionary and some money to use in prison, so I brought those things to the prison today," Khin Win May told the BBC's Burmese Service. "That's why I didn't think they would kill him. I didn't believe it."

Meanwhile, the sister of Ko Jimmy - whose real name is Kyaw Min Yu - had earlier said they were yet to receive the bodies. 

The families have all submitted applications for information on the executions.

State news outlet Global News Light of Myanmar said the four men were executed because they "gave directives, made arrangements and committed conspiracies for brutal and inhumane terror acts".

It said they had been charged under the counter terrorism laws, but did not say when or how they were executed. 

The executions are the first since 1988, according to the United Nations. Previous executions in Myanmar have been by hanging.

In 2021, the country's military seized power, an event which triggered widespread demonstrations, prompting a military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, activists and journalists, BBC reported.

A fossil representing the earliest known animal predator has been identified by UK scientists, BBC reported.

The 560-million-year-old specimen, which was found in Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire, is likely a forerunner of cnidaria - the group of species that today includes jellyfish.

The researchers have named it Auroralumina attenboroughii in honour of Sir David Attenborough. 

The first part of the name recalls the Latin for "dawn lantern".

"I think it looks like the Olympic torch, with its tentacles being the flames," said Oxford University's Dr Frankie Dunn, who is reporting the discovery in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

Not only does it push back evidence for predation in the animal kingdom by about 20 million years, it's probably also the first example of an organism with a true skeleton.

The outline of the 20cm (8 inches)-tall creature was imprinted on a long, sloping slab of quarry siltstone, surrounded by other fossil forms.

It's thought all were smothered in a turbid flow of sediment and ash that ran down the underwater flank of an ancient volcano. 

The death scene was originally uncovered in 2007 when researchers cleaned the Charnwood rock face with high-pressure hoses.

It's taken the 15 years that have passed since then to make sense of the assemblage and Auroralumina's position within it.

The Leicestershire location is internationally famous for what it tells us about the Ediacaran (635 to 538 to million years ago). 

This is the period in geological history that immediately precedes the Cambrian, which witnessed a great explosion in the numbers and diversity of lifeforms on Earth, according to BBC.

It was in the Cambrian (538 to 485 million years ago) that the blueprint for many modern animal groups was fixed.

But Auroralumina proves that its grouping - the cnidaria - have a heritage that stretches further back, into the Ediacaran.

"This is the cast-iron evidence of modern-looking organisms in the Pre-Cambrian. That means the fuse for the Cambrian explosion was probably quite long," said Dr Phil Wilby, palaeontology leader at the British Geological Survey.

Although the name cnidaria may not be that familiar, everyone will recognise its members. They include corals, jellyfish and anemones. One of their characteristics are stinging cells they use to capture their prey.

Dr Dunn's analysis of Auroralumina's features links it to the medusozoa sub-grouping within the cnidaria. 

Medusozoans transition through various stages in the course of their complex life cycles. During one stage they are a mass anchored to the seafloor. Later they morph into a free-floating, sexual phase during which they engage in reproduction. 

During that free-floating stage, they assume an umbrella-shaped body with stinging tentacles. They become a jellyfish.

Auroralumina therefore most closely resembles a medusozoan in its immobile, rooted stage, BBC reported.

"What's really interesting is that we think it's bifurcating, so you have these two 'goblets' which are attached near their base, and then there would have been a continuous bit of skeleton going down to the seafloor, which we don't see. Unfortunately, the fossil is incomplete," Dr Dunn told BBC News.

Bifurcation - the division of something into two branches or parts - is another first for Auroralumina in the fossil record, according to BBC.

Russian energy giant Gazprom says it will once again drastically cut gas supplies to the EU through its main pipeline due to maintenance work, BBC reported.

Gazprom said stopping another turbine at the Nord Stream 1 pipeline would cut daily gas production to 20%, halving the current level of supply. 

The German government said there was no technical reason to limit gas supply. 

It is likely to make it more difficult for EU countries to replenish their stores of gas before winter.

The Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which pumps gas from Russia to Germany, has been running well below capacity for weeks, and was completely shut down for a 10-day maintenance break earlier this month.

Russia supplied the EU with 40% of its gas last year, and the EU has accused Russia of using energy as a weapon. 

The European Commission has urged countries to cut gas use by 15% over the next seven months after Russia warned it could curb or halt supplies altogether.

Under the proposals, the voluntary target could become mandatory in an emergency. 

European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, has said the prospect of Russia cutting off all supplies to the EU is a "likely scenario".

On Tuesday energy ministers will meet in Brussels in an attempt to sign off the plans.

But numerous opt-outs are expected amid resistance from some member states, according to BBC. 

Wholesale gas prices have soared since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, with a knock-on impact on consumer energy bills.

Reacting to Gazprom's announcement, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said this was "an overt gas war that Russia is waging against a united Europe - this is exactly how it should be perceived".

Gazprom said the latest reduction in supply would begin at 04:00 GMT on Wednesday due to the "technical condition" of one of the last two operating turbines. 

But a German economy ministry spokeswoman told AFP news agency: "According to the information we have there is no technical reason for a reduction of deliveries."

The Kremlin maintains that it is a reliable energy partner, and blames Western sanctions for the recent disruption of gas supplies to the EU. 

Gazprom says the delayed return - because of sanctions - of equipment serviced in Canada has forced it to keep the gas flow through Nord Stream 1 to just 40% of capacity.

"Our product, our rules. We don't play by rules we didn't create," Gazprom chief executive Alexei Miller has said, BBC reported.

The continued reduction in gas supply through Nord Stream 1 is likely to make it more difficult for countries to replenish their stores before winter, when gas usage is much higher.

Gazprom has cut gas supplies altogether to Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Poland, over their refusal to comply with aKremlin order to pay their bills in roubles, instead of euros or dollars.