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Turkey says a deal has been reached with Russia to allow Ukraine to resume exports of grain through the Black Sea, BBC reported.

It is to be signed on Friday in Istanbul by Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. 

The world shortage of Ukrainian grain since Russia's 24 February invasion has left millions at risk of hunger.

The invasion sent food prices soaring, so the deal to unblock Ukraine's ports is crucial. Some 20 million tonnes of grain is stuck in silos in Odesa.

Ukraine's foreign ministry confirmed that another UN-led round of talks to unblock grain exports would take place in Turkey on Friday - and a document "may be signed".

But one Ukrainian MP close to the talks voiced caution over the deal.

"We don't have [an] agreement yet," Odesa MP Oleksiy Honcharenko told BBC Radio 4's World Tonight programme. "We don't trust Russians at all. So let us wait till tomorrow for a final decision and that there will not be some pushbacks from Russians and last minute changes."

"I keep fingers crossed tomorrow we'll have a deal and Russia will really respect it."

The US State Department welcomed the UN-brokered deal, but said it was focusing on holding Russia accountable for implementing it.

"We should never have been in this position in the first place. This was a deliberate decision on the part of the Russian Federation to weaponise food," said the department's spokesman Ned Price, according to BBC.

Diplomats say the plan includes:

• Ukrainian vessels guiding grain ships in and out through mined port waters
• Russia agreeing to a truce while shipments move
• Turkey - supported by the United Nations - inspecting ships, to allay Russian fears of weapons smuggling. 

The deal is also meant to facilitate Russian exports of grain and fertiliser via the Black Sea.

The UN and Turkey have been working for two months to broker a grain deal, amid global anxiety about the food crisis.

Russia denies blockading Ukraine's ports - it blames Ukraine for laying mines at sea and Western sanctions for slowing Russia's own exports.

Ukraine however says the Russian navy prevents it shipping grain and other exports and accuses Russian occupation forces of stealing grain from Ukrainian farms.

If the signing goes ahead as planned it will be the first significant deal between Russia and Ukraine since the invasion began. There have been some prisoner exchanges, but a ceasefire still appears a long way off.

"The grain export agreement, critically important for global food security, will be signed in Istanbul under the auspices of President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan and UN Secretary General Mr Guterres together with Ukrainian and Russian delegations," said Mr Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin.

Sergiy Kyslytsya, the Ukrainian ambassador to the UN, said the devil would be in the detail of the deal, which was still being worked on by all parties, BBC reported.

If the deal was signed and implemented, it would "ensure a significant number of ships can approach or leave the Ukrainian ports and we can export about 20 million tonnes of grain, which is ready to be exported," he told BBC World News.

He added that Turkey would play a "very important part ensuring the security" and monitoring the process.

Ex-US President Donald Trump watched last year's Capitol riot on TV at the White House, ignoring his children and aides who "begged him" to rebuke the mob, a congressional inquiry has heard, BBC reported.

"He chose not to act," said Adam Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the Democratic-led committee.

The primetime hearing was told Mr Trump did not place a single call to law enforcement or national security staff.

He was motivated by "his selfish desire to stay in power", the inquiry alleged.

On Thursday night, the House of Representatives select committee used its eighth hearing of the summer to draw a timeline of Mr Trump's activities over 187 minutes on 6 January 2021 as a mob of his supporters raided Congress.

The panel is seeking to build a case that Mr Trump, a Republican, acted illegally in a bid to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden, a Democrat, in the November 2020 presidential election.

Mr Trump, who has been hinting he may run again for president in 2024, has dismissed the inquiry as a "kangaroo court" designed to distract Americans from the "disaster" of Democratic governance.

Amid the highest inflation in four decades, Mr Biden's approval rating has fallen to the lowest level of any White House incumbent in the modern era at this stage in a presidency. 

The hearing was told that former President Trump had watched coverage of the riot on Fox News in the private dining room at the White House for more than two-and-a-half hours, according to BBC.

Elaine Luria, a Virginia Democrat on the committee, said: "President Trump sat at his dining table and watched the attack on television while his senior-most staff, closest advisers and family members begged him to do what is expected of any American president."

The lawmaker also said the chief White House photographer had wanted to take pictures during the historic event, but was told not to.

A former White House national security staffer, whose voice was obscured to conceal his identity, said officials in the executive mansion were "in a state of shock" over what was unfolding at the Capitol.

The committee also played parts of a videotaped testimony by former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone, who said he had pushed for a strong statement from the president condemning the onslaught.

"I said that people need to be told, there needs to be a public announcement, fast, that people need to leave the Capitol," said Mr Cipollone.

The president's children, Ivanka Trump and Don Jr, had also wanted him to call off the rioters, the committee heard.

But former press aide Sarah Matthews testified that an unnamed White House colleague had argued that if Mr Trump were to disavow the violence it would be "handing a win to the media".

At 14:24 that day, Mr Trump sent a tweet attacking his Vice-President, Mike Pence, saying he "didn't have the courage to" spurn his constitutional duty of certifying Mr Biden's election win at Congress, BBC reported.

Ms Matthews said the post amounted to "pouring gasoline on the fire". She and Matthew Pottinger, who was deputy national security adviser to the president, testified that that tweet had prompted them both to resign.

Three hours and seven minutes after the assault began, Mr Trump released a video at 16:17, recorded from the White House Rose Garden, in which he praised the rioters as "very special", but asked them to disperse.

Bennie Thompson, chairman of the committee and a Mississippi Democrat, said in his opening remarks: "For 187 minutes on Jan 6, this man of unbridled destructive energy could not be moved. 

"Not by his aides, not by his allies, not by the violent chants of rioters, or the desperate pleas of those facing down the mob. He could not be moved."

The committee also aired a previously unseen video outtake of Mr Trump on 7 January repudiating the violence at the Capitol of the day before.

"I don't want to say the election is over," Mr Trump said during the recording as he apparently read from a script.

The panel has suggested there might be enough evidence to charge Mr Trump with such counts as obstructing an official proceeding of Congress, conspiracy to defraud the American people, or witness tampering, according to BBC.

Police in Brazil say 18 people have been killed during a raid against a criminal gang that controls one of Rio de Janeiro's most violent favelas, BBC reported.

Four hundred heavily-armed military police were deployed to the Alemão favela in the early hours of Thursday.

Sixteen of the dead were suspected criminals, while a police officer and a bystander were the other two victims, officials said.

The operation lasted all day and left thousands trapped in their homes.

The objective of the raid was to locate and arrest criminals who were planning operations in rival slums, police said.

Some of the targets were wearing uniforms similar to military police, which made them harder to spot, local media outlet O Dia reported.

The 400 officers were backed up by 10 bullet-proof vehicles and four helicopters.

Locals were seen carrying injured people into vehicles as police watched, according to BBC.

Gilberto Santiago Lopes, from the Anacrim Human Rights Commission, said police refused to help.

The police "don't aim to arrest them, they aim to kill them, so if they're injured, they think they don't deserve help", he told Reuters.

Deadly raids are not uncommon in Rio de Janeiro's favelas, as police seek to hunt down drug trafficking gangs. 

But human rights groups in Brazil are highly critical of police operations in overcrowded, low-income communities, saying they put the lives of residents at risk without really curbing the power of the gangs. 

In May, 22 people were killed, also including a female bystander, in the Vila Cruzeiro favela.

Last year, at least 25 people, including a police officer, were killed in a shootout in the Jacarezinho area of the city, BBC reported.

Astronomers can for the first time detect the smashing together of dead suns know as neutron stars, thanks to a powerful new telescope, BBC reported.

Collisions of neutron stars are key to our understanding of the Universe. 

They are thought to have created heavy metals that formed stars and planets like our own billions of years ago. 

Light from the crashes is only visible for a couple of nights so the telescope must race to locate them. 

Astronomers observed one of these collisions in 2017, but largely came across it by luck.

The British built Gravitational Wave Optical Transient observer (GOTO), located above the clouds on the volcanic Spanish island of La Palma will now systematically hunt for them. 

"When a really good detection comes along, it's all hands on deck to make the most of it," Prof Danny Steeghs, of Warwick University told me on La Palma. 

"Speed is of the essence. We are looking for something very short-lived - there's not much time before they fade away". 

Neutron stars are so heavy that a small teaspoon of their material weighs four billion tonnes. 

The telescope allows astronomers to effectively crack one open to see what is inside.

So that it can get a clear view of the sky, the telescope is situated on a mountain peak, home to a dozen instruments of all shapes and sizes, each studying different phenomena, according to BBC.

When its twin domes open, they reveal two jet-black batteries of eight cylindrical telescopes bolted together - structures that look more like menacing rocket launchers. Each battery covers every patch of sky above it by rapidly rotating vertically and horizontally 

A neutron star is a dead sun that has collapsed under its immense weight, crushing the atoms that once made it shine. They have such strong gravity that they are drawn to each other. Eventually they crash together and merge. 

When that happens, they create a flash of light and a powerful shockwave ripples across the Universe. It makes everything in the Universe wobble, including, imperceptibly, the atoms inside each one of us. 

The shockwave, called a gravitational wave, distorts space. When it is detected on Earth, the new telescope scrambles into action to find the exact location of the flash.

The operators aim to locate it within hours, or even minutes of the gravitational wave detection. They take photographs of the sky and then digitally remove the stars, planets and galaxies that were there the previous night. Any speck of light that wasn't there before may be the colliding neutron stars. 

This normally takes days and weeks, but now it must be done in real time. It's a big task, done using computer software. 

"You would think that these explosions are very energetic, very luminous, it should be easy," said astrophysics professor Dr Joe Lyman. "But we are having to search through a hundred million stars for the one object that we are interested in, BBC reported.

"We have to do this very rapidly because the object will disappear within two days."

The team work with other astronomers to study the collision in greater detail. 

Once they pinpoint the collision, they turn to larger, more powerful telescopes across the world. These probe the collision in much greater detail, and at different wavelengths. 

This process is "telling us about physics at the extreme," Dr Lyman explains. 

The mountain peak brings the astronomers a little bit closer to the stars. With the telescope they have a new way to peer into the cosmos, says GOTO's instrumentation scientist, Dr Kendall Ackley, according to BBC.

Traditional astronomy was about being lucky, she says. "Now we're not hoping for new discoveries anymore. Instead, we're being told where to find them, and getting to uncover, piece-by-piece what lies out there in the Universe."

Security forces in Sri Lanka have raided the main anti-government protest camp in the capital Colombo and have begun pulling down tents, BBC reported.

Hundreds of troops and police commandos moved on the protesters outside the presidential offices, hours before they were due to leave the area.

A BBC video journalist was beaten by the army and one soldier snatched his phone and deleted videos.

It comes after Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as president.

Sri Lanka's ex-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country last week.

Mr Wickremesinghe - the former prime minister - is seen as deeply unpopular with the public, and has vowed tough action against demonstrators. But some protesters have said they will give him a chance.

Sri Lanka has seen months of mass unrest over an economic crisis.

Many blame the Rajapaksa administration for mishandling the nation's finances, and see Mr Wickremesinghe as part of the problem. But there were few demonstrations on the streets the day after he won the parliament vote, according to BBC.

Soon after Mr Wickremesinghe was sworn in, he made clear that any attempt to topple the government or occupy government buildings was not democracy and warned that those who indulge in such activities will be dealt with firmly according to the law.

There had been concerns among demonstrators that the government might gradually crack down on the protest movement sooner or later.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has raised interest rates for the first time in more than 11 years as it tries to control soaring eurozone inflation, BBC reported.

The ECB increased its key interest rate by 0.5 percentage points to 0.0% and plans further hikes this year.

The rate has been negative since 2014 in a bid to boost the region's economy after years of weak growth.

But consumer prices rose at a record 8.6% in the 12 months to June as food, fuel and energy costs soared.

That is well above the bank's 2% target.

Inflation is the pace at which prices are rising. For example, if a bottle of milk costs €1 and that rises by 5 cents compared with a year earlier, then milk inflation is 5%.

The Ukraine war and Covid supply chain issues have driven up everyday costs across the eurozone, putting pressure on households.

The bloc is vulnerable because it relies heavily on Russia for its oil and gas. This week it urged member states to begin rationing supplies amid fears Moscow will halt gas deliveries this year, causing further price spikes, according to BBC.

Explaining its decision to raise rates in July, ECB president Christine Lagarde said: "Economic activity [in the eurozone] is slowing. Russia's unjustified aggression towards Ukraine is an ongoing drag on growth.

"We expect inflation to remain undesirably high for some time owing to continued pressure from energy and food prices and pipeline pressures in the pricing chain," she added. 

The bank says further rate hikes "will be appropriate" and that it will take a "meeting-by-meeting" approach to raising rates.

It comes after the Bank of England and the US Federal Reserve put up their rates to try and rein in rising prices. 

The idea is that by making it more expensive to borrow, people will spend less, bringing down demand and therefore prices. 

However, there are also concerns that higher rates could push countries into recession - which is defined as two successive quarters of economic decline, BBC reported.

These fears helped push the euro to a 20-year low against the dollar in recent weeks.

The ECB began cutting interest rates after the 2008 financial crisis to stimulate growth, and took them as low as -0.5% during the pandemic.

However, earlier this year it signalled it planned to increase them again, although economists had only expected an increase of 0.25 percentage points in July, according to BBC.

Nepal reported 435 new Covid-19 cases on Thursday.

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 1, 667 swab samples were tested in the RT-PCR method, of which 317 returned positive. Likewise, 1, 092 people underwent antigen tests, of which 18 were tested positive.

The Ministry said that no one died of the virus in the last 24 hours. 

As of today, there are 2, 537 active cases in the country.

The Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) plunged by 5. 87 points to close at 2,044.72 points on Thursday.

Similarly, the sensitive index dropped by 0. 86 points to close at 391. 64 points.

A total of 3,908,395 units of the shares of 225 companies were traded for Rs 1. 64 billion.

Meanwhile, Central Finance Co. Limited was the top gainer today with its price surging by 3. 16 percent. Likewise, ICFC Finance Limited Debenture was the top loser with its price dropped by 6. 71 percent.

At the end of the day, the total market capitalisation stood at Rs 2. 91 trillion.