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Three more persons have been detected with cholera in Kathmandu Valley on Friday.

With this, the number of people suffering from cholera has reached 17, the Ministry of Health and Population said.

Among them, 12 are men and five are women. 

Lakpa Sherpa set a record by scaling Mt Makalu three times in 16 days.

Mt Makalu, which lies in Makalu Rural Municipality of Sankhuwasabha district, is 8, 485 meters.

He successfully stood atop the mountain on May 12, 20 and 28, 2022.

Sherpa, however, could not complete the fourth ascent at the same time due to bad weather.

“I could not complete the fourth ascent and was compelled to return to the base due to bad weather,” Shepa said, adding, “This is a world record and I think it would be written in the Guinness Book of World Records.”

Sherpa (30) said that he climbed the mountain not for the record but to identify his village and place.

He scaled the mountain three times in 16 days with the help of Seven Summit Treks.

Before this, Sherpa has climbed Mt Makalu two times, Mt Everest one time, Mt Manaslu two times and Lhotse one time.

Sherpa, who is also the field manager of Seven Summit Treks, has successfully scaled Mt Amadablam, world’s technical mountain, six times.

Nepal reported 50 new Covid-19 cases on Friday.

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 1, 467 swab samples were tested in the RT-PCR method, of which 35 returned positive. Likewise, 1, 347 people underwent antigen tests, of which 15 were tested positive.

The Ministry said that no one died of the virus in the last 24 hours. The Ministry said that 18 infected people recovered from the disease.

As of today, there are 297 active cases in the country.

The Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) plunged by 8. 87 points to close at 2,028.77 points on Monday.

Similarly, the sensitive index dropped by 3. 17 points to close at 388. 62 points.

A total of 3,663,220 units of the shares of 221 companies were traded for Rs 1. 45 billion.

Meanwhile, Adhikhola Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha Limited was the top gainer today with its price surging by 9. 99 percent. Likewise, Standard Chartered Bank Limited was the top loser with its price dropped by 4. 77 percent.

At the end of the day, the total market capitalisation stood at Rs 2. 89 trillion.

India has raised its basic import duty on gold to 12.5% from 7.5%, the government said in a notification on Friday, as the world's second biggest consumer of the precious metal tries to dampen its demand, Reuters reported.

India fufills most of its gold demand through imports, which were putting pressure on the rupee INR=IN which hit a record low earlier this week.

A six-year-old girl, who was critically injured in a school bus hit at Rangeni in Morang on Tuesday, died during the course of treatment on Friday morning.

The deceased has been identified as Sunam Kumari Mandal.

Police said that she was hit by the bus of Mount Makalu Boarding School in Rangeli Municipality-6. Mandal was a student of the same school.

Incapacitated in the incident, she was rushed to the Neuro Hospital in Biratnagar for treatment.

Police said that four-year-old Ritik Mandal of Rangel-7, who sustained critical injuries in the incident, died on the same day.

The school bus hit Sunam and Ritik while they were heading towards their home after school.

NATO leaders concluded their three-day meeting in Madrid Thursday with the Western security alliance strengthening its defense against Russian aggression, warning of global challenges posed by China and inviting neutral countries Finland and Sweden into the group, Voanews.com reported.

US President Joe Biden described the summit as “historic.”

“The last time NATO drafted a new mission statement was 12 years ago,” Biden said, referring to a document also known as the alliance’s Strategic Concept.

“At that time, it characterized Russia as a partner, and it didn't mention China. The world has changed, changed a great deal since then, and NATO is changing as well. At this summit, we rallied our alliances to meet both the direct threats that Russia poses to Europe and the systemic challenges that China poses to a rules-based world order. And we've invited two new members to join NATO,” Biden said.

Biden reiterated that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine has only strengthened NATO.

“He tried to weaken us, expected our resolve to fracture but he's getting exactly what he did not want,” Biden said. “He wanted the ‘Finland-ization’ of NATO. He got the ‘NATO-ization’ of Finland.”

On Wednesday Putin dismissed the imminent expansion of the Western alliance.

“With Sweden and Finland, we don't have the problems that we have with Ukraine. They want to join NATO, go ahead," Putin told Russian state television.

“But they must understand there was no threat before, while now, if military contingents and infrastructure are deployed there, we will have to respond in kind and create the same threats for the territories from which threats towards us are created,” he warned.

As it sets to expand, NATO leaders agreed on a massive increase in troop deployments across Europe. A total of 300,000 soldiers will be placed at high readiness across the continent starting next year to defend against potential military attacks by Moscow on any member of the alliance – what Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg characterized as “the most serious security crisis” since the Second World War.

To bolster NATO’s defense, the United States is also set to establish a permanent headquarters for the U.S. 5th Army Corps in Poland, add a rotational brigade of 3,000 troops and 2,000 other personnel to be headquartered in Romania, and send two additional squadrons of F-35 fighter jets to Britain.

Reaffirming commitments made by other Western leaders, Biden said the U.S. will stand firm against Russia’s aggression. He offered little indication the conflict would conclude anytime soon, suggesting that Americans would have to bear high gas prices longer.

“As long as it takes, so Russia cannot in fact defeat Ukraine and move beyond Ukraine," he said.

The main opposition CPN-UML boycotted the clause-wise discussion on the Finance Bill 2079 in the National Assembly.

The UML lawmakers obstructed the meeting soon after it started.

As soon as National Assembly Chairman Ganesh Timilsina gave time to Finance Minister Janardan Sharma to present a proposal asking to start clause-wise discussion on the Finance Bill 2079 endorsed by the House of Representatives with a message, UML lawmakers stood from their seats in a gesture of protest.

Later, Timilsina gave time to UML lawmaker Bhairab Sundar Shrestha to speak.

He said that they would not take part in the discussion until Finance Minister Sharma resigns from his post.

The lawmakers walked out of the hall after lawmaker Shrestha said that the party had decided not to take part in the discussion on the proposal presented by Minister Sharma.

The UML had been demanding resignation of Sharma saying that it is not morally appropriate for him to remain in the post after questions have been raised pertaining to changing tax rates on the eve of the budget presentation.