Former British Ambassador to Nepal Richard Morris took his own life, inquest finds
A diplomat who vanished while working for the government's Covid taskforce took his own life, an inquest has found, BBC reported.
The body of Richard Morris was discovered in a forest near to his home in Bentley, Hampshire, in August 2020.
The 52-year-old former ambassador to Nepal was last seen running in the area on 6 May 2020.
The inquest in Winchester heard he was under "severe stress" prior to his death.
Mr Morris had worked long hours under high-pressure, helping co-ordinate briefings to ministers at a time when the UK was battling the fierce first wave of coronavirus, the inquest heard.
On Tuesday, a coroner concluded that Mr Morris had taken his own life after suffering stress working for the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and amid worries about his future.
Senior coroner Christopher Wilkinson said: "Richard Morris took his own life while suffering severe and acute stress.
"I recognise the very difficult circumstances in which Richard, the wider taskforce and the FCDO were working in at the time against the backdrop of a very fast-moving pandemic."
He described the taskforce in the early days of the coronavirus crisis as "much like a plane being flown at the same time as building it".
Mr Wilkinson mentioned Mr Morris' history of stress and worries about performing to the best of his ability.
Previously at the inquest, his widow Alison Morris said her husband feared there was not enough time to process information in the fast-moving period and if any information error got past him the government "would be torn apart in the press".
As a result he was "desperate" to keep on top of what was going on, working every day with "no real time off", she said.
She said her husband was a "quiet extrovert" who "thrived on interactions with others".
"He was genuinely interested in people.
"His kindness and compassion shone through even when there was a language barrier."
Covid vaccination during pregnancy helps protect babies after birth: US study
Vaccinating pregnant women against the coronavirus may help prevent Covid-19 hospitalizations in infants after they are born, especially if the expecting mothers got the shots later in their pregnancy, US researchers reported on Tuesday.
The findings shed light on whether the benefits of vaccination during pregnancy extend to infants who would be too young to receive vaccines.
Researchers from several pediatric hospitals and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) looked at children under six months old between July 2021 and January 2022.
The study analyzed data from 379 hospitalized infants - 176 with Covid-19 and 203 who were admitted for other issues. It found that Covid-19 vaccines were 61 percent effective overall at preventing hospitalizations in children whose mothers were vaccinated during pregnancy.
That protection rose to 80 percent when the mothers were vaccinated 21 weeks through 14 days before delivery. Vaccination effectiveness fell to 32 percent for the babies whose mothers were inoculated earlier during pregnancy.
The study authors warned that the estimates for effectiveness earlier in pregnancy should be interpreted with caution due to the small sample size.
“Right now we want to ensure that we are protecting both the mom and the infant,” CDC’s Dana Meaney-Delman told reporters. “So as soon as a pregnant woman is willing to be vaccinated, she should so ahead and do so.”
Pregnant women are at increased risk for severe illness from Covid-19, and having Covid during pregnancy can increase the risk of preterm birth, stillbirth and possibly other pregnancy complications, according to the CDC.
The CDC recommends that women who are pregnant, are breastfeeding, are trying to get pregnant now, or might become pregnant in the future get vaccinated and stay up to date with Covid-19 shots.
Previous studies have shown that Covid-19 vaccination during pregnancy was not associated with preterm delivery or underweight newborns
US official: Russia adds 7K more troops near Ukraine border
Ukrainians defied pressure from Moscow with a national show of flag-waving unity Wednesday, while the U.S. warned that Russia had added as many as 7,000 troops near Ukraine’s borders despite Kremlin declarations that forces were being pulled back from the region, Associated Press reported.
While a Russian invasion of Ukraine did not materialize as feared, the United States and its allies maintained that the threat is still strong, with Europe’s security and economic stability in the balance.
Russia has massed more than 150,000 troops east, north and south of Ukraine, according to Western estimates. Russian President Vladimir Putin has signaled that he wants a peaceful path out of the crisis, and U.S. President Joe Biden promised that the U.S. would continue to give diplomacy “every chance,” but he struck a skeptical tone about Moscow’s intentions. Biden also insisted that Washington and its allies would not “sacrifice basic principles” respecting Ukraine sovereignty.
Russian Defense Ministry video showed a trainload of armored vehicles moving across a bridge away from Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. It also announced that more tank units were being loaded on trains to move back to their permanent bases after training exercises.
But at the same time, Russia continued war games near Ukraine’s borders and across its vast territory.
A senior U.S. administration official said the West detected that Russia had increased its force near Ukraine by 7,000 troops, with some arriving as recently as Wednesday, and that there had been a marked increase in false claims by Russians that the Kremlin might use as pretext for an invasion.
The official said those claims included reports of unmarked graves of civilians allegedly killed by Ukrainian forces, statements that the U.S. and Ukraine are developing biological or chemical weapons, and claims that the West is funneling in guerrillas to kill Ukrainians.
The official was not authorized to speak publicly about sensitive operations and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The official did not provide underlying evidence for the assertions.
The U.S. and Europe are maintaining threats of harsh sanctions. Trust between East and West remains elusive.
“We haven’t seen a pullback,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ABC News. “He (Putin) can pull the trigger. He can pull it today. He can pull it tomorrow. He can pull it next week. The forces are there if he wants to renew aggression against Ukraine.”
State Department spokesman Ned Price said the U.S. had seen “more Russian forces, not fewer.”
Asked why Russians would claim to be withdrawing when government intelligence, commercial satellite photos and social media videos showed no evidence of that, Price said: “This is the Russian playbook, to paint a picture publicly … while they do the opposite.”
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance also had not seen “any withdrawal of Russian forces,” as did multiple European governments. Before chairing a NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels, he said: “If they really start to withdraw forces, that’s something we will welcome, but that remains to be seen.”
In the meantime, the alliance is examining this week how and when to rapidly dispatch troops and equipment to countries closest to Russia and the Black Sea region should Moscow order an invasion.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy similarly dismissed the Russian withdrawal claims.
“What is this? Rotations, withdrawal, returning back again,” he said on a visit to the southeastern city of Mariupol. “It’s too early to rejoice.”
The Ukrainian leader has repeatedly sought to project calm as well as strength during the crisis, declaring Wednesday a “Day of National Unity.”
“We are united by a desire to happily live in peace,” Zelenskyy said in an address to the nation earlier in the day. “We can defend our home only if we stay united.”
Across the country, Ukrainians of all ages waved flags in the streets and from apartment windows.
Hundreds unfolded a 200-meter (650-foot) flag at Kyiv’s Olympic Stadium, while another was draped in the center of a shopping mall in the capital.
In the government-controlled part of Ukraine’s eastern region of Luhansk, where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian troops since 2014, residents stretched another huge flag across a street.
“This event, this number of people united around Ukrainian flag will show that we stand for united Ukraine,” said resident Olena Tkachova.
A 2015 deal brokered by France and Germany helped end the worst of the fighting in eastern Ukraine, but implementation has stalled. The deal, known as the Minsk agreement, would offer broad self-rule to the separatist territories and thus is resented by many in Ukraine.
A Ukrainian government official said in a television interview that Zelenskyy would consider holding a referendum on the Minsk agreement “if there are no other options or instruments.” But Vice Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said she was unaware that such an idea was under serious discussion.
Russia has repeatedly complained that the U.S. and NATO have not responded satisfactorily in writing to its security concerns. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Wednesday that Russia is in the final phase of preparing its formal response to the West. “After that, a schedule of further steps will be developed,” she said on state television.
The Kremlin wants the West to keep Ukraine and other former Soviet nations out of NATO, halt weapons deployments near Russian borders and roll back forces from Eastern Europe. The U.S. and its allies have roundly rejected those demands, but they offered to engage in talks with Russia on ways to bolster security in Europe.
For now, Russia is flexing its muscle. Russian fighter jets flew training missions Wednesday over neighboring Belarus and paratroopers held shooting drills at firing ranges there as part of massive war games that the West feared could be used as cover for an invasion of Ukraine. Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei reaffirmed that all Russian troops and weapons will leave the country when the maneuvers end Sunday.
Maxar Technologies, a commercial satellite imagery company that has been monitoring the Russian buildup, reported Wednesday that new photos show heightened Russian military activity near Ukraine, including the construction of a pontoon bridge in Belarus less than 6 kilometers (4 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
Russia has mocked Western warnings about an imminent invasion as “paranoia” and “madness.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov pointed sarcastically at warnings of an invasion that could start Wednesday, saying that Russian officials had a good sleep.
Asked by German daily Welt if Russia was going to attack Wednesday, Russia’s ambassador to the European Union, Vladimir Chizhov, quipped: “Wars in Europe rarely start on a Wednesday.”
“There won’t be an escalation next week either, on in the week after, or in the coming month,” he said.
But British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told Sky News that instead of a Russian withdrawal, “we’ve seen continued buildup of things like field hospitals and strategic weapons systems.”
The White House will lean on Vice President Kamala Harris to help with diplomatic efforts when she travels to Germany to take part in this weekend’s Munich Security Conference, officials said. Harris is scheduled to meet Friday with Stoltenberg and hold a multilateral meeting with the leaders of the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. She’s also scheduled to deliver a major address Saturday on the administration’s efforts to stop Russian aggression. After the speech, Harris is slated to meet with Zelenskyy and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
SC issues order to register earlier rejected writ petition on local polls
The Supreme Court (SC) has issued an order to register a writ petition on the civic polls.
A single bench of SC Justice Iswar Prasad Khatiwada issued an order to register the writ petition related to local election, said SC Spokesperson Baburam Dahal.
According to him, the writ petition was earlier rejected on February 9. “It is rationale to resolve the issue relating to the tenure of local level office-bearers by interpreting constitutional and legal provisions through judicial review”, reads the apex court order. “It is not appropriate to settle such issue relating to the constitution and law by rejecting the application at an administrative level without bringing this to the judicial process”.
It may be noted that the Mayor of Bhangaha municipality of Mahottari, Sanjeev Kumar Sah had attempted to register a writ petition demanding not to conduct local election in a single phase.
He argued that the conduction of the local election announced for May would deprive them to complete the constitutionally-stipulated five-year term.
The government had decided to hold the local election on May 13. The civic poll was held in three phases earlier in 2017. In the past election, the civic poll was held late on 16 June 2017 in the then Province-2, recently named Madhes province.
Dahal informed that the writ petition of Mayor Sah would now be registered with this. RSS
NRNA's election schedule made public
The election of the Non-Resident Nepali Association (NRNA) will be held on March 21 and 22.
The NRNA Election Committee has made public the election schedule in a statement here today.
As per the schedule, the list of delegates for the preliminary general convention will be published from February 17 to 22.
The Election Committee has stated that the voter list will be published on February 23, the protest against the voter list can be registered from February 24 to 27, the decision on the protest will be made on March 2 and the final list will be published on March 3.
Candidate nomination papers will be registered on March 4 and 5, first list of candidates will be published on March 6, protest against candidate's candidature will be registered from March 6 to 7, examination of candidate's nomination papers and decision on complaints will be published on March 8 and second list of candidates will be published on March 9.
Similarly, candidates can withdraw their nominations on March 11 while the final list of candidates will be published on March 12 and voting will be held from 10 am on March 21 to 10 am of March 22, according to Chief Election Officer Bhimsen Banjara.
Registration fee for filing of nominations for the post of President of the Association has been fixed at Rs 1 million. Elected office bearers and members will have to pay the nomination fee before taking oath.
Elections will be held for 53 different posts including one chairperson, four vice chairpersons, one female vice chairperson, one youth vice chairperson, one general secretary, one secretary, three women secretaries, one treasurer, one co-treasurer and one female co-treasurer. The International Coordinating Council will have one woman coordinator, one youth coordinator, six regional coordinators, six regional deputy coordinators, six regional women coordinators, six regional women deputy coordinators and six regional youth deputy coordinators.
For the NRNA election, the Association has formed an election committee comprising Secretary Bhushan Ghimire (Japan) and Ram Pratap Thapa (Germany), Chiranjeevi Dhakal (UK) and Dr Bishnumaya Pariyar (US) under the coordination of Advocate Bhimsen Banjara.
Election for the new executive committee is being held through an online system, first time in the history of the association.
For online voting, the General Convention delegate (Voter) will have to verify his/her face during the voting. RSS
Nepal records 639 new Covid-19 cases, 3 deaths on Wednesday
Nepal logged 639 new Covid-19 cases and three deaths on Wednesday.
With this, the country's active caseload mounted to 1,112,537. Similarly, the death toll has climbed to 11,905
According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 6, 782 swab samples were tested in the RT-PCR method, of which 548 returned positive. Likewise, 2, 974 people underwent antigen tests, of which 185 tested positive.
The Ministry said that 1, 600 infected people recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours.
As of today, there are 18,251 active cases in the country.
The Ministry said that 17, 580 people are staying in home isolation while 671 are in institutionalized isolation.
The Ministry said that 156 are undergoing treatment in the Intensive Care Unit while 26 are on ventilators.
Meanwhile, the Kathmandu Valley reported 226 new cases today.
According to the Ministry, 126 cases are reported in Kathmandu, 25 in Lalitpur and 12 in Bhaktapur.
Russia says it pulls back more troops amid Ukraine standoff
Russia said Wednesday it was returning more troops and weapons to bases, yet another gesture apparently aimed at easing fears it is planning to invade Ukraine, even as the U.S. said the threat of an attack remained.
Russia has massed about 150,000 troops east, north and south of Ukraine, sparking Western concerns it was planning an assault. There have been no indications of a significant withdrawal of those forces, but this week has seen a handful of gestures from Moscow that offered hope that Europe might avoid war following weeks of escalating East-West tensions.
On Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry released a video showing a trainload of armored vehicles moving across a bridge away from Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. It said the movement was part of a return of forces to their permanent bases.
A day earlier, the ministry reported the start of a pullback of troops following military exercises near Ukraine. And Russian President Vladimir Putin signaled he wanted a diplomatic path out of the crisis, emphasizing that he did not want war and would rely on negotiations to achieve his key goal of keeping Ukraine from joining NATO.
While the U.S. and its allies continued to express skepsticism about Russia’s intentions, the moves nonetheless changed the tenor amid the worst East-West security crisis since the Cold War.
Still, Putin did not commit to a full withdrawal, saying Russia’s next moves in the standoff will depend on how the situation evolves. The Russian military hasn’t given the number of troops or weapons being withdrawn and offered few other details.
President Joe Biden noted Tuesday that American officials had not verified Russia’s claim.
“Indeed, our analysts indicate that they remain very much in a threatening position,” Biden said in remarks at the White House. Still, he promised that the U.S. would give diplomacy “every chance.”
British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace also said “it’s too soon to tell” whether the pullback is genuine, noting that the Russians “haven’t taken the foot of the gas.”
“I think what we haven’t seen is evidence of withdrawal that has been claimed by the Kremlin,” he told Sky News. “In fact we’ve seen continued buildup of things like field hospitals and strategic weapons systems. Until we see a proper de-escalation, I think we should all be cautious about the direction of travel from the Kremlin.”
On Wednesday, Russian fighter jets flew training missions over Belarus that neighbors Ukraine to the north and paratroopers held shooting drills at firing ranges there as part of massive war games that the West feared could be used as cover for an invasion of Ukraine.
Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei reaffirmed that all Russian troops will leave the country after the maneuvers wrap up Sunday.
Russia has denied having any invasion plans and has mocked Western warnings about an imminent invasion as “hysteria” and “madness.”
Asked by German daily Welt if Russia was going to attack Wednesday — named by Western officials as a possible invasion date — Russia’s ambassador to the European Union Vladimir Chizhov quipped: “Wars in Europe rarely start on a Wednesday.”
“There won’t be an escalation next week either, on in the week after, or in the coming month,” he said.
Russia wants the West to keep Ukraine and other former Soviet nations out of NATO, halt weapons deployments near Russian borders and roll back forces from Eastern Europe. The U.S. and its allies have roundly rejected those demands, but they offered to engage in talks with Russia on ways to bolster security in Europe.
Speaking after meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Putin said Tuesday that the West agreed to discuss a ban on missile deployment to Europe, restrictions on military drills and other confidence-building measures — issues that Moscow put on the table years ago. He added that it would do so only in combination “with the main issues that are of primary importance for us.”
While Scholz reiterated that NATO’s eastward expansion “is not on the agenda — everyone knows that very well,” Putin retorted that Moscow will not be assuaged by such assurances.
“They are telling us it won’t happen tomorrow,” Putin said. “Well, when will it happen? The day after tomorrow? We want to solve this issue now as part of negotiation process through peaceful means.”
Scholz also said diplomatic options are “far from exhausted,” and praised the announcement of a troop withdrawal as a “good signal,” adding: “We hope that more will follow.”
But Ukrainian officials expressed skepticism, saying they want to see evidence of the Russian pullback and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that there have been no signs, so far, of a reduced military presence on Ukraine’s borders.
Ukrainian leaders have repeatedly sought to project calm but also strength during the crisis. In a show of resolve, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared Wednesday the “day of national unity,” calling on citizens to display the blue-and-yellow flag and sing the national anthem in the face of “hybrid threats.”
In Moscow, Russian lawmakers on Tuesday sent an appeal to Putin urging him to recognize rebel-held areas in eastern Ukraine as independent states — where Russia has supported rebels in a conflict that has killed over 14,000 since 2014. Putin signaled that he wasn’t inclined to back the motion, which would effectively shatter a 2015 peace deal that was a diplomatic coup for Moscow.
Efforts continue to forge political consensus on MCC: Minister Badu
Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, Dilendra Prasad Badu said efforts are being made to forge an agreement for introducing the US-aid proposal Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) in the House.
As he said, time has been fixed till Friday to forge consensus for the same.
Talking to mediapersons after the meeting of House of Representatives (HoR) today, Minister Badu explained that the document was required to be tabled in the House to address related discourses and disputes at the public and political sphere. “We aim to find a common ground for taking the proposal to the parliament for deliberations.” As he said, political parties have realized they need more time to have an agreement on the matter.
The Lower House will meet again at 1 pm on Friday and top leaders of ruling partners will be sitting a day before the session for further discussions on the proposal.
Similarly, CPN (Unified Socialist) senior leader Jhalanath Khanal argued that the document needed to be revised before proceeding towards the parliamentary actions as the public were not informed while signing it. “Consensus on some issues is followed by amendments and revisions. Hence, force is not applicable in such cases.”
In his response to a media query that it was possible to be part of the government and to get engaged in street protest at the same time, the former Prime Minister argued, “Of course it is possible and you can see it happening at the moment.”
CPN (Maoist Centre) leader Onsari Gharti Magar termed the MCC proposal the issue of national concern and it was agreed to not float the document in today’s HoR meeting with the realisation of the need of further discussions so as to establish a widespread agreement before advancing towards the House proceedings. “We urged the same before the meeting.” RSS
