Submit your Article

Ethnic clashes in Sudan's Blue Nile state in a deadly land dispute killed 105 people and wounded 291, the state's health minister said, providing a new toll Wednesday, NDTV reported.

Fighting broke out in the southern state on the borders with Ethiopia and South Sudan on July 11 between members of the Berti and Hausa ethnic groups.

"The situation is now calm," state health minister Jamal Nasser told AFP by telephone from the state capital al-Damazin, some 460 kilometres (285 miles) south of Khartoum.

The deployment of the army had eased the fighting since Saturday, he said.

"The challenge now is in sheltering the displaced," Nasser said.

The United Nations said Tuesday that more than 17,000 people have fled their homes from the fighting, with 14,000 "sheltering in three schools in al-Damazin."

Between January and March this year, the UN said aid was provided to 563,000 people in Blue Nile.

Sudan, one of the world's poorest countries and mired in an economic crisis that has deepened since an October coup led by army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has seen only rare interludes of civilian rule since independence, according to NDTV.

In Sudan, deadly clashes regularly erupt over land, livestock and access to water and grazing, especially in areas still awash with weapons left over from decades of civil war.

Fighting in Blue Nile reportedly broke out after Bertis rejected a Hausa request to create a "civil authority to supervise access to land", a prominent Hausa member said.

But a senior Berti leader said the group was responding to a "violation" of their land by the Hausas.

While fighting is reported to have stopped and relative calm returned to Blue Nile, tensions have escalated in other states, where the Hausa people have taken to the streets demanding "justice for the martyrs."

Thousands protested Tuesday in Khartoum, North Kordofan, Kassala, Gedaref, and Port Sudan, according to AFP correspondents, NDTV reported.

US President Joe Biden plans to speak with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, by the end of the month at a moment of simmering tensions between the countries over Taiwan and trade, Reuters reported.

"I think I'll be talking to President Xi within the next 10 days," Biden told reporters as he returned from a climate-related trip to Massachusetts.

The long-discussed call between the two leaders, their first in four months, would come at a crucial moment given tensions over the status of Taiwan, and as the Biden administration weighs cutting import duties on goods from China to help reduce inflation pressures on American consumers.

The United States calls China its main strategic rival and says high-level engagement is important to keeping the difficult relationship stable and preventing it from veering inadvertently into conflict. Last month, Washington pushed NATO to adopt a strategic document calling China a security challenge.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Biden appeared to cast doubt on a trip reportedly planned by House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to visit Taiwan next month.

"I think that the military thinks it's not a good idea right now, but I don't know what the status of it is," Biden said.

Beijing said on Tuesday that it would respond with "forceful measures" should Pelosi visit the Chinese-claimed island, and that such a visit would "seriously undermine China's sovereignty and territorial integrity."

Pelosi's office declined to comment on whether the visit is moving forward, citing security concerns. The State Department has called the trip "hypothetical." Plans for the trip were reported by the Financial Times, which also said the White House had expressed concerns, according to Reuters.

China considers the democratically-governed island its own territory, and the issue is a constant irritant in ties between Beijing and Washington.

Biden's administration has repeatedly spoken of its "rock-solid" commitment to the island's security.

US military vessels were conducting transits through the Taiwan Strait as recently as Tuesday, angering Beijing, which sent fighters across the strait's median line this month following a visit to Taipei by US Senator Rick Scott.

On trade, the Biden administration has been at odds with China over fulfilling its commitments to existing agreements.

But rising inflation has prompted a look at possible tariff relief, including on the 'Section 301' tariffs imposed by former President Donald Trump, covering some $370 billion in Chinese imports.

People familiar with the tariff deliberations have told Reuters that Biden also is weighing whether to pair a removal of some tariffs with a new investigation into China's industrial subsidies and efforts to dominate key sectors, such as semiconductors. Such a probe could lead to more tariffs, Reuters reported.

Wildfires are raging across Europe, where a heatwave has intensified drought conditions, BBC reported.

Though temperatures have cooled in France and the UK, firefighters are still tackling blazes in Greece, Spain and Italy.

The fires in France's badly hit south-west have started to be brought under control.

And as the heatwave moves north-east, low water levels are hampering transport on rivers in Germany.

Heatwaves have become more frequent, more intense, and last longer because of human-induced climate change. The world has already warmed by about 1.1C since the industrial era began and temperatures will keep rising unless governments around the world make steep cuts to emissions.

More than 1,000 deaths have been linked to the extremely high temperatures in Portugal while in Spain it is at least 500.

In Greece, firefighters were tackling a blaze on Mount Penteli, to the north-east of the capital Athens.

In the nearby town of Pallini, state electricity workers were scrambling to remove burnt pylons, the BBC's Kostas Koukoumakas reports.

Panagopoulos, 87, woke up at 03:00 (00:00 GMT) to a red sky. "The fire surrounded the house and I managed to leave the area by car," he said.

Mr Panagopoulos, who was for many years an amateur actor, said his house could be rebuilt but his collection of more than 1,200 theatre books had been turned to ashes.

Firefighting helicopters were dropping water, one after the other. Winds in excess of 80km/h (49mph) have made it harder to contain the fire.

Almost all the water carriers in the region have been deployed. Greece's fire service said additional support was expected from other regions.

Hundreds of people have been evacuated from surrounding areas, including eastern Gerakas, which is home to nearly 30,000 people. A paediatric hospital and the National Observatory of Athens have also been vacated.

France has had some of the worst fires, particularly in the southwest region of Gironde, though conditions for tackling them have improved. Temperatures fell from 40C (104F) on Tuesday to the mid-20s on Wednesday.

"The conditions are favourable" to tackle the blazes, the mayor of La Teste-de-Buch - one of the affected areas in Gironde - told the BBC. Patrick Davet added, however, that it was necessary to stay "humble" as conditions could change.

Visiting fire crews in Gironde, French President Emmanuel Macron said the shift in climate, which is leading to more wildfires, would force the EU to take "structural decisions". 

Ahead of his arrival, one firefighter told BBC News he thought France had been underprepared. While he understood the planes needed were very expensive, similar fires would happen in the future and France needed to bite the bullet and invest, the unnamed firefighter said.

Spain has also been battling multiple wildfires. 

Though one in the central province of Zamora has been brought under control, according to the local government, two large wildfires are still out of control in the north-western region of Galicia. A fire in the Gredos mountain range is also spreading east towards the Madrid region, the BBC's Guy Hedgecoe reports.

Some 5,600 hectares (13,800 acres) of land have also been burnt in the north-eastern region of Aragon. 

In Portugal, some 900 firefighters were fighting two active fires in the country's far north.

Major fires have also affected Italy in the past days, causing the country to be put on its highest heatwave alert for Thursday. Italian infrastructure has also been heavily impacted, with temporary closure of a key rail route between Rome and Florence, Italian media report. 

As the heatwave moves north-eastwards, parts of Germany have recorded 38C (100.4F) on Wednesday, according to its national weather service, DWD. 

Despite the hot temperatures, heavy rain, strong gusts of wind of around 100km/h and even hail are forecast.

Thunderstorms are also expected in Belgium. 

On Wednesday, Sweden recorded its hottest day of the year, with temperatures in the south-west reaching 32C.

There is no intelligence that Vladimir Putin is unstable or in bad health, the director of the CIA has said, BBC reported.

There has been increasing unconfirmed media speculation that Mr Putin, who turns 70 this year, may be suffering from ill health, possibly cancer.

But William Burns said there was no evidence to suggest this, joking that he appeared "too healthy". 

His comments came as the US announced it would provide Ukraine with more long-range weapons, according to BBC.

Earlier Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia's military focus in Ukraine was no longer "only" the east and implied Moscow's strategy had changed after the West supplied Ukraine with such weapons.

The special probe committee of the House of Representatives has decided to record former Finance Minister Janardan Sharma's statement on Thursday.

The committee, which had grilled former finance secretaries and a journalist of the Annapurna Post who had published the news, has decided to record the statement of former Minister Sharma tomorrow.

Sharma is accused of inviting two unauthorized persons to tweak tax rates a day before he presented the budget in the Parliament on May 29.

He has been summoned at 8 am tomorrow, committee secretary Surendra Aryal said.

Aryal said that the term of the committee will expire tomorrow.

"The term will expire tomorrow. Discussions have been held to extend the time," he said.

Transitional justice is a tricky balancing act between, on the one hand, upholding universal human-rights norms and ensuring justice to conflict victims and, on the other, respecting the legitimacy of a political settlement to a conflict. Sixteen years after the guns in Nepal fell silent following the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2006, the Nepali state is still struggling to maintain the delicate balance. The government has just tabled a bill to amend the transitional justice law; make it more ‘victim-centric’ and in keeping with ‘international norms’. The amendment underlines the need for recognition of injustice meted out to conflict victims. Unlike the earlier law, it also bars amnesty in cases of grave human rights violations. The government argues that the amendments are adequate and just. 

But rights activists and conflict victims are not buying it, for various reasons. For instance, although the amendment penalizes killing, rape and torture, it does not specify that such cases can be retrospectively pursued. (The relevant penal code came into effect only in 2018.) New provisions also allow the government to recommend light punishment if the perpetrators confess to their crimes. Moreover, there will be no provision of challenging the court verdict. In other words, the new amendment is no more than a fig leaf for Nepal to cover its transitional justice blunders. 

It was clear from the start that no transitional justice law would be universally acceptable to the two sides to the conflict as well as to the conflict victims. The goal was always to find a middle-ground where neither grave rights violations from conflict-time were excused nor did the victims feel left in the lurch. The proposed amendment bill could have been that middle-ground had there been adequate buy-in of conflict victims. It wasn’t meant to be. 

The National Human Rights Commission has already made public its dissatisfaction with the amendment bill. Victims want more tweaks in it. Yet there is no political will to fairly pursue all war-time cases. The cumbersome transitional justice process will drag on.

Nepal and China have agreed to jointly inspect the border.

During a Nepal-China border affairs virtual meeting held on July 14, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nepal and the desk which looks after the border of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China had agreed to inspect the border jointly.

Nepal and China have failed to conduct joint inspection of the border since 2011.

Because of this, the two countries have been facing problems at the border frequently.

Earlier, Nepal had to search for pillar number 11 in Humla district which was said to have been missing.

As the two countries have not carried out joint inspection of the border for a long time, Nepal had faced problems to determine the pillar.

The missing border pillar had created a dispute between the two countries, after reports that China built some infrastructure in the area.

Similarly, the border dispute has also been seen in Limi-based Lolungjong of Humla.

Likewise, the Chinese side has also been found putting up barbed fences in the northern part of Gorkha unilaterally.

Nepal had requested China for joint inspection after the disputes started to surface in the northern part of the country.

Sewal Lamsal, spokesperson at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the meeting has agreed to jointly inspect the border.

The meeting has also decided to open the Kerung and Tatopani border by adopting the Covid-19 safety protocols, Lamsal said.

She said that the meeting has decided to open the Hilsa border one way.

Nepal reported 391 new Covid-19 cases on Wednesday.

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 2, 562 swab samples were tested in the RT-PCR method, of which 340 returned positive. Likewise, 1, 419 people underwent antigen tests, of which 51 were tested positive.

The Ministry said that no one died of the virus in the last 24 hours. The Ministry said that 46 infected people recovered from the disease.

As of today, there are 2, 276 active cases in the country.