Submit your Article

Prices are continuing to rise at their fastest rate for 40 years as food, energy and fuel costs climb, BBC reported.

UK inflation, the rate at which prices rise, edged up to 9.1% in the 12 months to May, from 9% in April, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

Food price rises, particular for bread, cereal and meat, were a big factor in the latest rise, the ONS said.

Cost of living pressures have led to unions and workers calling for pay rises.

But the government has warned against employers handing out big increases in salaries over fears of a 1970s style "inflationary spiral", where prices continued to rise as wages went up.

Currently, inflation is at the highest level since March 1982, when it also stood at 9.1% and the Bank of England has warned it will reach 11% this year.

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

In a BBC-commissioned survey of more than 4,000 people, 82% said they thought their wages should increase to match the rising price of goods and services.

Households were hit by an unprecedented £700-a-year increase in energy costs in April, and fuel price rises in June mean it costs more than £100 to fill an average family car with petrol.

The country's railways were severely disrupted on Tuesday as rail workers begun a series of strikes in a dispute over pay, jobs and conditions.

About 40,000 members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union working for Network Rail and 13 train operators walked out, with union bosses calling for a pay rise of 7%, while employers have offered a maximum of 3%.

Jon Richards, assistant general secretary Unison, accused ministers of "living on another planet" over "talks of public sector pay restraint".

"Under-pressure health, care, school and council services desperately need staff to be given a pay boost that matches runaway prices," he said, BBC reported.

But Dominic Raab told the BBC's Today programme: "We have got to stop making the problem worse by fuelling pay demands that will only see inflation stay higher for longer and that only hurts the poorest the worst."

The ONS said rising prices for food and non-alcoholic beverages helped fuel inflation in May.

Russia's war in Ukraine has severely restricted wheat and maize supplies, which are used to make bread and cereals, from two of the world's biggest exporters.

Ukraine is also a major producer of of sunflower oil, meaning to the costs of alternatives have also climbed.

Market reach firm Kantar has forecast that the average annual grocery bill in the UK is set to rise by £380 this year.

Supermarket Asda told the BBC some shoppers are setting £30 limits at checkouts and petrol pumps, with customers are putting less in their baskets and switching to budget ranges.

Grant Fitzner, chief economist at the ONS, said the prices of goods leaving factories rose at their fastest rate in 45 years in May, driven by "widespread food price rises".

Mr Fitzner added the cost of raw materials "leapt at their fastest rate on record".

But he said the steep rises in food and record high petrol prices in May had been stemmed by the price of clothes rising less than they did this time last year, along with a drop in computer game costs.

Responding to the latest inflation rate, Chancellor Rishi Sunak said the government was "using all the tools at our disposal to bring inflation down and combat rising prices".

"I know that people are worried about the rising cost of living, which is why we have taken targeted action to help families, getting £1,200 to the eight million most vulnerable households," he added, according to BBC.

But Rachel Reeves, Labour's shadow chancellor said the country needed "more than sticking plasters to get us back on course - we need a stronger, and more secure economy". 

"Though rapid inflation is pushing family finances to the brink, the low wage spiral faced by many in Britain isn't new. Over the last decade, Tory mismanagement of our economy has meant living standards and real wages have failed to grow."

One way to try to control how fast prices are rising is to raise interest rates. This increases the cost of borrowing and encourages people to borrow and spend less, and save more.

In a bid to stem the pace of soaring prices, the Bank of England recently increased UK interest rates from 1% to 1.25%.

The move was the fifth consecutive rise, pushing rates to the highest level in 13 years. However, when inflation was last at 9.1% in March 1982, interest rates were 13%, Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown said, BBC reported.

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.