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Police on Tuesday arrested an Indian national on the charge of illegally operating a call bypass center in Birgunj Metropolitan City-2.

The detainee has been identified as Irphan Suphiyan Khan (38) of Telakuwa, Badshahgram, Uttar Pradesh.

Acting on a tip-off, a joint team of the Central Investigation Bureau of Nepal Police and the District Police Office, Parsa raided a house in Birgunj and apprehended him.

Police have also confiscated a 32-port GOIP gateway device, two routers, an inverter, 40 NTC SIM cards and 58 Ncell SIM cards among others from the house.

Police said that they are investigating the case.

After pushing Nepal to approve the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) economic pact, the US may have also urged the Himalayan country to join its military alliance, the State Partnership Program (SPP), widely believed to be another component of the US' Indo-Pacific Strategy, The Global Times reported.

Observers from both Nepal and China warned against the program's heavy military focus on the containment of China in the region.

Nepalis media reported that the US renewed a push last week on Nepal to participate in the SPP during the visit of Commanding General of the US Army Pacific, Charles Flynn, to Nepal. Flynn called for the signing of the SPP when he met with Nepalese Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and Chief of Staff of the Nepal Army General Prabhu Ram Sharma, the report said. 

The disclosed six-page draft US proposal triggered a debate and faced backlash in Nepal for the possible US military presence in Nepal, which, many warned, contradicts Nepal's non-aligned foreign policy.

The SPP, once approved, would draw Nepal one step closer to the US' military alliance, despite Washington's denial and calling it development assistance, said experts.

Under huge pressure from the public and lawmakers, during his meeting with coalition partners on Wednesday, Deuba said that he will not sign any agreement with any country, including the SPP, that could bring harm to Nepal, according to Global Times. 

The American embassy called the SPP draft circulating online "fake."

Inspite of this, many suspect the disclosure of the SPP in Nepal could be intended as a tactic to test the waters, as the ambition and intention of the US to strengthen its military presence in Nepal have long been clear under the core purpose of the US' Indo-Pacific Strategy to contain China, according to the Global Times.

Concluding his four-day trip to Nepal, Flynn said on Twitter that "we cherish our decades-long defense partnership and look forward to opportunities for collaboration."

Observers told the Global Times that the US has increased its penetration and interference in Nepalese politics in recent years, and the approval of the US-pushed MCC program in Nepal in February is an example.

If the MCC has supported US control and influence in Nepal economically, the SPP could be used to strengthen the US' military ties in the Asian country, Qian Feng, director of the Research Department of the National Strategy Institute at Tsinghua University, said.

"The US has always valued the geographical importance of Nepal which borders Southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region. Since the Trump administration, the US has been trying to include Nepal in its Indo-Pacific Strategy to achieve its multiple political and security goals toward China," Zhang Yongpan, a research fellow of the Institute of Chinese Borderland Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, suggested. "In recent years, the political situation in Nepal has been turbulent, and the divided parties are vulnerable to pressures of external forces. The US takes the opportunity to increase influence and infiltrations in Nepal via multiple ways, trying to make it a tool to promote the US' Indo-Pacific Strategy," Zhang told the Global Times.

But such US tactics to contain China are bound to be futile, and Nepal will not easily become the frontline of the US' attempts to suppress China, experts concluded.
 

A bicycle rider died after being hit by a bus at Suda in Bedkot Municipality-7, Kanchanpur on Wednesday.

The deceased has been identified as Bimala Joshi (30).

Police said that the bus (Na 4 Kha 8077) heading towards Dhangadhi from Mahendranagar hit Joshi while she was crossing the road this morning.

The District Police Office, Kanchanpur has taken driver Rajendra Prasad Joshi (40) of Bhimdutta Municipality-7 under control after the incident.

Following the incident, locals obstructed the road demanding stern action against the driver.

Police said that they are looking into the case.

An earthquake struck eastern Afghanistan early Wednesday, killing at least 255 people, authorities said, Associated Press reported.

Information remained scarce on the magnitude 6 temblor that struck Paktika province, but it comes as the international community largely has left Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover of the country last year amid the chaotic withdrawal of the US military from the longest war in its history.

That likely will complicate any relief efforts for this country of 38 million people.

The state-run Bakhtar news agency reported the death toll and said rescuers were arriving by helicopter. The news agency’s director-general, Abdul Wahid Rayan, wrote on Twitter that 90 houses have been destroyed in Paktika and dozens of people are believed trapped under the rubble.

Footage from Paktika province near the Pakistan border showed victims being carried into helicopters to be airlifted from the area. Images widely circulating online from the province showed destroyed stone houses, with residents picking through clay bricks and other rubble, according to Associated Press.

“A severe earthquake shook four districts of Paktika province, killing and injuring hundreds of our countrymen and destroying dozens of houses,” Bilal Karimi, a deputy spokesman for the Taliban government, separately wrote on Twitter. “We urge all aid agencies to send teams to the area immediately to prevent further catastrophe.”

Neighboring Pakistan’s Meteorological Department put the earthquake at a magnitude 6.1. Tremors were felt in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, and elsewhere in the eastern Punjab province.

The European seismological agency, EMSC, said the earthquake’s tremors were felt over 500 kilometers (310 miles) by 119 million people across Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

Mountainous Afghanistan and the larger region of South Asia, where the Indian tectonic plate collides with the Eurasian plate to the north, has long been vulnerable to devastating earthquakes.

In 2015, a major earthquake that struck the country’s northeast killed over 200 people in Afghanistan and neighboring northern Pakistan. A similar 6.1 earthquake in 2002 killed about 1,000 people in northern Afghanistan. And in 1998, a 6.1-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tremors in Afghanistan’s remote northeast killed at least 4,500 people, Associated Press reported.

Singapore has confirmed an imported case of monkeypox, the health ministry said late on Tuesday, the first such case reported in Southeast Asia during this year's outbreak of the viral disease, Reuters reported.

The patient, who tested positive on June 20, is a 42-year-old British man who works as a flight attendant and had flown in and out of Singapore around mid-June, the health ministry said in a statement.

He is in stable condition in a ward at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases in Singapore, the ministry said.

Thirteen close contacts of the man were identified as of Tuesday, and all will be placed under quarantine for 21 days since their last contact with him, the statement added.

Contact tracing is ongoing for affected flights and for the duration of the man's stay in Singapore.

The last monkeypox case detected in the Southeast Asian city-state was three years ago, according to Reuters.

Australia, which on May 20 reported its first case, had confirmed eight as of June 10.

More than 35 countries where monkeypox is not endemic have reported outbreaks of the viral disease, and confirmed cases now exceed 2,500, Reuters reported.

With the arrival of monsoon season, paddy plantation has started in various places of the country including the Kathmandu Valley.

Following the arrival of monsoon, farmers across the country are busy with paddy plantation. 

The farmers, however, have been reeling under acute shortages of chemical fertilizers during the planting season.

The Kathmandu District Court sent two teachers of the St. Lawrence College to judicial custody for sexually harassing students.

A single bench of Justice Kedarnath Paudel issued the order to send Janardan Adhikari and Rajan Kumar Paudel to judicial custody for investigation, Court’s registrar Gyanendra Itani said.

The District Police Range Kathmandu said that the duo have been sent to the Dillibazaar-based prison on the charge of sexually harassing the students of the college.

WTO Deputy Director-General Anabel González said that companies worldwide need to invest in building a stronger and more agile global trading system for the benefit of all.

The WTO Deputy Director said so during a meeting a meeting of more than 800 Spanish business leaders in San Sebastián on 21 June.

“More than ever, businesses need stable, predictable and uniform conditions to access global markets, something that only the WTO rules-based trading system can provide”, she said.

DDG González highlighted that businesses everywhere face growing uncertainty in global trade due to continued supply chain disruptions, the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, trade tensions, war, a looming food crisis and galloping inflation. “But this is also a time of opportunity, and businesses that are nimble, flexible and imaginative will be in a strong position to reap the gains from a rapidly changing trade landscape”, she said.

Pointing to the growing importance of services and knowledge in global value chains, DDG González called on businesses and governments to “work together to bring trade policies up to speed with the realities of a knowledge-based economy and a global, data-driven services market.” She noted that not doing so would deprive countries of a major driver of growth and development in the 21st century.

DDG González also called on business representatives to embrace climate-friendly solutions and to help accelerate the transition to a low carbon economy for the benefit of all. “Trade policy can be your ally in the green transition”, the DDG said, adding that “reforming trade policies to allow green and circular businesses to scale up their activities is essential to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement”.

“We are also seeing a gradual relocation of supply chains that could open the door to new business and growth opportunities, especially for small businesses in developing countries”, the DDG said, warning that policies to unwind supply chains and retreat from trade “would harm everyone and benefit no one”.

“Governments should promote diversification, not decoupling”, she said, while “businesses need to find new ways to compete in a global market that puts a premium not just on efficiency, but also on due diligence, decarbonization and shifting consumer preferences for speedy delivery and personalized products”.

DDG González said that the result of the WTO's 12th Ministerial Conference “is a hopeful sign that the WTO can respond to the big challenges of our time.” The landmark package of agreements reached by ministers “is good for people, good for the planet and good for business”.

She concluded by saying that the decision by ministers to start the process of reforming the WTO is a golden opportunity for businesses and other stakeholders from around the world to help build a trading system that “works for businesses, communities and people in today's world.”