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A person died when an excavator fell off a cliff in Gulmi.

The deceased has been identified as driver Yagya Oli (33) of Tilakpur, Shantinagar Rural Municipality-1, Dang.

The vehicle (Lu 1 Ka 4771) was heading towards Lumcha from Ratapani of Chatrakot Rural Municipality-2 of the district when the incident occurred, the District Police Office, Gulmi said.

DSP Madhav Raj Kharel of the District Police Office, Gulmi said that the excavator fell some 500 meters down the road.

Floods and landslides triggered by incessant rainfall have caused damage in various places of Gorkha.

Ward Chairman Bhejraj Pandey said that the landslide swept away a house in Palungtar Municipality-6.

He said that the flood washed away a motorable bridge and thousands is ropanis of land in ward-9.

The flood swept away the house of local Keshav Bahadur Thapa at Kalleri in Palungtar-6.

Police said that the flood damaged the houses of Saraswati BK, Khel Bahadur Gurung, Padam Bahadur Thapa, Bir Bahadur Rana and Jyoti Rana among others.

Similarly, Ward Chairman Chet Bahadur Gurung said that four houses are at high risk of being swept away at Chapthok Ukhubari.

Likewise, a flooded river damaged the house of Rammaya Kunwar at Jogibesi in Palungtar-9.

Police said that the Chuti Khola washed away a bridge at Bardi.

Ward Chairman Gurung said that landslides have obstructed roads in various places.

Police said that the Abukhaireni-Manakamana road section has also been obstructed due to the landslide.

Vehicular movement along the Prithvi Highway has been obstructed after the road caved in near the dam of Abukhaireni Rural Municipality -5 of Tanahun.

Police said that two persons were found dead near the Marsyangdi River where the road was caved in.

Sub-Inspector Gokarna Nepal of the District Traffic Office, Tanahun said that the identities of the deceased have not been established yet.

A rescue team from Pokhara and Chitwan are searching the river as parts of a motorbike and a car were found in the river, he said.

Two persons died and nine others sustained injuries when a Bolero Jeep they were traveling in met with accident at Gorkhakot in Junichande Rural Municipality-5 of Jajarkot.

The identities of the deceased have not been ascertained yet.

Among the injured, five are in critical condition,    Chief District Officer Ram Bahadur Shahi said.

The incident occurred when the jeep (Karnali Province 02001 Cha 0341) was heading towards Junchande Rural Municipality from Surkhet.

Meanwhile, Home Minister Bal Krishna Khand has directed to rescue the injured from the helicopter and make arrangements for their treatment.

Portugal and Spain picked up victories in the Nations League on Thursday to set up a battle between the Iberian neighbors for a spot in the Final Four, Associated Press reported.

Portugal took sole possession of the lead in Group 2 of the top-tier League A by defeating the Czech Republic 2-0, while Spain earned a first win and moved into second place by edging past struggling Switzerland 1-0 in Geneva.

Portugal, the inaugural champion in 2019, is two points ahead of Spain and three in front of the Czechs after three matches. Only the group winners make it to the Final Four, while the last-placed teams will be relegated.

“It’s still wide open,” Portugal coach Fernando Santos said.

It was the second consecutive win for Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal after it had opened with a draw against Spain, last year’s runner-up to France. 

The Spaniards ended their winless run with the victory over last-place Switzerland, which has lost all its matches. The Swiss hadn’t been beaten at home in eight years in a run of 23 matches, according to Associated Press.

“Professional soccer is about results,” Spain coach Luis Enrique said. “We were able to impose our style.”

Portugal opened the scoring with João Cancelo’s low shot from a narrow angle in the 33rd minute, and Gonçalo Guedes added to the lead five minutes later from inside the area after an assist by Bernardo Silva.

Defender Pepe made his 127th appearance, joining Luis Figo for third-best all-time for Portugal. The duo are behind the 145 appearances of João Moutinho and the 188 of Ronaldo. 

Spain got on the board in the 13th minute with Pablo Sarabia redirecting a cross by Marcos Llorente for a goal that had to be confirmed by video review to check for offside. 

“It was about time we won,” Sarabia said. “These three points are very valuable for us.”

It was the teams’ first meeting since Spain defeated the Swiss on penalties in the quarterfinals of the European Championship last year.

Portugal will close play in the June international window in Switzerland on Sunday, while Spain host the Czech Republic.

In the second-tier League B, Erling Haaland drew a blank in Norway’s 0-0 home draw with Slovenia. Haaland arrived as one of the Nations League’s leading scorers with three goals, Associated Press reported. 

Norway leads Group 4 while Slovenia, which was a man down from the 63rd after Miha Blazic was sent off, is in last place. Serbia won 1-0 at Sweden with a goal by Luka Jovic to jump to second place, three points ahead of the Swedes.

In League C, Kosovo defeated Northern Ireland 3-2, Greece routed Cyprus 3-0, Gibraltar drew 1-1 with Bulgaria and Georgia defeated North Macedonia 3-0.

Georgia’s Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Greece’s Tasos Bakasetas each scored Thursday to join Haaland and Turkey’s Serdar Dursun with three goals.

Estonia won 2-1 at Malta in League D, according to the Associated Press.

Sri Lanka’s former Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa on June 9 said he was resigning from Parliament, even as he sought to deflect blame for Sri Lanka’s economic grave crisis, The Hindu reported.

Mr. Basil stepped down from his ministerial post early in April amid furious public protests demanding that the Rajapaksa clan quit office, taking responsibility for the downturn that has left citizens struggling amid record inflation and acute shortages of essentials. In May, former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa stepped down, but remains a legislator.

Although he was resigning as a legislator, Mr. Basil said he would continue to be politically active in the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP, or People’s Front) that he built from scratch after former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s poll defeat in 2015.

His family was “better at politics than governance,” the resigning MP told reporters, adding: “India’s RSS has been around for years, but they do not govern directly. The BJP has taken on that role.” This is not the first time Mr. Basil has likened his party’s politics to that of India’s ruling party. He has in the past vowed to model the SLPP on the Chinese Communist Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party that he called “the best two” examples.

In July 2021, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa appointed Mr. Basil, the youngest of the Rajapaksa brothers, as Finance Minister. He became the fourth Rajapaksa brother to enter cabinet at that time. Until then, Mr. Mahinda who was Prime Minister at that time also helmed the Finance Ministry. As it faced wide public criticism owing to the economic meltdown, the ruling party projected Mr. Basil – who was Economic Development Minister in the former Rajapaksa administration – as the man who would bring much-needed pragmatic solutions to the raging crisis. Except, power cuts, shortages, and price rise worsened in the following months, leading to greater citizens’ mobilization from the beginning of this year, according to The Hindu.

A senior Ukrainian presidential aide has told the BBC that between 100 and 200 Ukrainian troops are being killed on the front line every day, BBC reported.

Mykhaylo Podolyak said Ukraine needed hundreds of Western artillery systems to level the playing field with Russia in the eastern Donbas region.

He also said Kyiv is not ready to resume peace talks with Moscow. 

Ukrainian troops are under relentless bombardment as Russian forces attempt to take control of the whole of Donbas.

"The Russian forces have thrown pretty much everything non-nuclear at the front and that includes heavy artillery, multiple rocket launch systems and aviation," Mr Podolyak said.

He repeated Ukraine's appeal for more weapons from the West, saying that the "complete lack of parity" between the Russian and Ukrainian armies was the reason for Ukraine's heavy casualty rate. 

"Our demands for artillery are not just some kind of whim... but an objective need when it comes to the situation on the battlefield," he said, adding that Ukraine needs 150 to 300 rocket launch systems to match Russia - a much higher number than it has received so far. 

Mr Podolyak also said peace talks could only resume if Russia surrendered the territory it had gained since it invaded on 24 February, according to BBC.

Mr Podolyak's suggestion that 100 to 200 Ukrainian soldiers are dying each day is higher than previous estimates. On Thursday, Ukraine's Defence Minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said Ukraine was losing 100 soldiers a day, and 500 more were injured. 

The differing casualty figures are a sign of how difficult it is to get precise information from the battlefield. 

Despite the heavy losses, Mr Reznikov claimed that a high number of Russian soldiers are also being killed. 

"The Kremlin continues to press by sheer mass, stumbles, faces strong rebuffs and suffers huge casualties," Mr Reznikov said. "But yet still has forces to advance in some parts of the front." 

Similarly, Luhansk regional governor Sergei Gaidai said Russians were "dying like flies" but echoed Mr Podolyak's claim that Ukraine is facing difficulties with a "catastrophic" lack of artillery. 

Russian forces have concentrated their assault on the city of Severodonetsk. On Wednesday Mr Zelensky said "the fate of the Donbas is being decided there" and officials said it has been reduced to rubble by intense Russian artillery and missile barrages, BBC reported.

In addition to the frontline fighting, two Britons and a Moroccan man who fought for Ukraine's armed forces were sentenced to death on Thursday by an unrecognised court in the so-called Donetsk People's Republic. 

They were found guilty of being mercenaries and of "taking action towards the violent seizure of power".

Two British citizens and a Moroccan were sentenced to death Thursday for fighting on Ukraine’s side, in a punishment handed down by the country’s pro-Moscow rebels, Associated Press reported.

The proceedings against the three captured fighters were denounced by Ukraine and the West as a sham and a violation of the rules of war.

Meanwhile, as the Kremlin’s forces continued a grinding war of attrition in the east, Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to liken his actions to those of Peter the Great in the 18th century and said the country needs to “take back” historic Russian lands.

A court in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in Ukraine found the three fighters guilty of seeking the violent overthrow of power, an offense punishable by death in the unrecognized eastern republic. The men were also convicted of mercenary activities and terrorism.

Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti reported that the defendants — identified as Aiden Aslin, Shaun Pinner and Brahim Saadoun — will face a firing squad. They have a month to appeal, according to Associated Press.

The separatist side argued that the three were “mercenaries” not entitled to the usual protections accorded prisoners of war. They are the first foreign fighters sentenced by Ukraine’s Russian-backed rebels.

Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko condemned the proceedings as legally invalid, saying, “Such show trials put the interests of propaganda above the law and morality.” He said that all foreign citizens fighting as part of Ukraine’s armed forces should be considered Ukrainian military personnel and protected as such.

British Foreign Secretary Luz Truss pronounced the sentencing a “sham judgment with absolutely no legitimacy.” Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman Jamie Davies said that under the Geneva Conventions, POWs are entitled to immunity as combatants.

Saadoun’s father, Taher Saadoun, told the Moroccan online Arab-language newspaper Madar 21 that his son is not a mercenary and that he holds Ukrainian citizenship.

Aslin’s and Pinner’s families have said that the two men were long-serving members of the Ukrainian military. Both are said to have lived in Ukraine since 2018.

The three men fought alongside Ukrainian troops before Pinner and Aslin surrendered to pro-Russian forces in the southern port of Mariupol in mid-April and Saadoun was captured in mid-March in the eastern city of Volnovakha, Associated Press reported.

Another British fighter taken prisoner by the pro-Russian forces, Andrew Hill, is awaiting trial.

The Russian military has argued that foreign mercenaries fighting on Ukraine’s side are not combatants and should expect long prison terms, at best, if captured.

In other developments, Putin drew parallels between Peter the Great’s founding of St. Petersburg and modern-day Russia’s ambitions.

When the czar founded the new capital, “no European country recognized it as Russia. Everybody recognized it as Sweden,” Putin said. He added: “What was (Peter) doing? Taking back and reinforcing. That’s what he did. And it looks like it fell on us to take back and reinforce as well.”

Putin also appeared to leave the door open for further Russian territorial expansion.

“It’s impossible — Do you understand? — impossible to build a fence around a country like Russia. And we do not intend to build that fence,” the Russian leader said.

In other developments, French President Emmanuel Macron told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that France was ready to send more “heavy weapons” to Ukraine, according to Macron’s office. French officials did not elaborate on the weaponry. The phone conversation came after Macron angered Ukrainian officials by saying world powers should not “humiliate” Putin.”

Zelenskyy said the Ukrainian army continued to push Russian forces back from Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, which lies to the north of the Donbas. The transmission of Ukrainian television was restored after a TV tower was shelled, Associated Press reported.

“Hitting television centers, destroying communication channels, leaving people isolated – this is the tactic of the occupiers that they cannot do without, for openness and honesty also are weapons against all that the Russian state does,” he said late Thursday in his evening address.