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On May 23, American President Joe Biden launched the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF), with 13 majors of this region on board. Together, these countries represent 40% of world GDP.

 The countries joining IPEF are Australia, Brunei, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. The 13 countries have invited participation from additional Indo-Pacific partners that share common goals, interests, and ambitions for the region. So, more countries are likely to join this initiative in the coming days.

In the past few years, America’s investment in this region is continuously increasing. U.S. foreign direct investment in the region totaled more than $969 billion in 2020 and has nearly doubled in the last decade.  A connected, resilient, clean, and fair economy is the key pillar of America’s new initiative. This is a new effort to engage in this region economically after the U.S withdrew from Trans-Pacific Partnership known as TPP.

The aim of the new framework is to contain China’s growing economic influence in the Indo-Pacific Region.  Soon after the inaugural, American Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said that it marks an important turning point in restoring U.S. economic leadership in the region and presenting Indo-Pacific countries with alternatives to China’s approach to these critical issues.

India whose relationship with China remains strained after 2020 has fully backed the Biden’s initiative.  Speaking at the inaugural session, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said it is a declaration of our collective will to make the region an engine of global economic growth. He said there should be three main pillars of resilient supply chains: trust, transparency, and timeliness. Like another regional trade pact, the new one, however, does not provide any details.

China has strongly opposed IPEF saying that it is designed to advance US geopolitical strategy. In the name of cooperation, the framework seeks to exclude certain countries, establish US-led trade rules, restructure the system of industrial chains, and decouple regional countries with the Chinese economy, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on May 25. He further said: “The fact is, many countries in the region are worried about the huge cost of “decoupling” with China. People will see clearly that the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework is a design to disrupt regional cooperation and a tool to coerce regional countries.”

The new framework seeks to build high-standard, inclusive, free, and fair trade commitments. Further, it aims to develop new and creative approaches in trade and technology policy that advance a broad set of objectives that fuel economic activity and investment, promote sustainable and inclusive economic growth, and benefit workers and consumers.

The framework has committed to promoting fair competition by enacting and enforcing effective and robust tax, anti-money laundering, and anti-bribery regimes in line with existing multilateral obligations, standards, and agreements to curb tax evasion and corruption in the Indo-Pacific region. This involves sharing expertise and seeking ways to support capacity building necessary to advance an accountable and transparent system. The framework also plans to advance regional economic connectivity and integration through consultations among partners.

Four persons died and 39 others were injured when a bus they were traveling in met with an accident at Sisne in Aathbis Municipality-2 of Dailekh on Wednesday.

The deceased have been identified as Prem Sunar (32) and Kashiram Pandey (36) of Dullu Municipality-9, Dailekh, Gyan Bahadur Bam (35) and Dhankala Shahi (55) of Pantala Rural Municipality-3, Kalikot.

DSP Bhuwaneshwor Sah of the District Police Office, Dailekh said that the ill-fated bus (Ma 1 Kha 660) was heading towards Surkhet from Kalikot when the incident occurred last night.

The injured are undergoing treatment at the Karnali Pradesh Hospital in Surkhet.

There were 62 persons on board the bus when  the tragedy occurred.

Police said that the bus fell some 40 meters down the road into the Karnali River.

Further investigation into the incident is underway.

Royal Challengers Bangalore defeated Lucknow Super Giants by 14 runs to book a place in the Qualifier 2 of IPL 2022, where they will face Rajasthan Royals, The Hindustan Times reported.

Chasing a 208-run chase, KL Rahul (79) and Deepak Hooda (45) kept Lucknow's hopes alive but they, perhaps, accelerated a bit too late and left too much for their finishers, as LSG fell short by 14 runs in the chase.

Harshal Patel (1/25) and Josh Hazlewood (3/43) were immense in the final two overs of the game, while Wanindu Hasaranga (1/42) took the important wicket of Hooda.

Earlier, Rajat Patidar scored a brilliant unbeaten century (112* off 55 balls) to take RCB's score to 207/4, according to The Hindustan Times.

Rahul had won the toss and opted to bowl against Royal Challengers Bangalore in Kolkata. The toss was delayed due to rain at the Eden Gardens, and the match began at 8:10 PM – being pushed by 40 minutes.

Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was appointed as Finance Minister of the debt-ridden country on May 25 by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, an official statement said, The Hindu reported.

Mr. Wickremesinghe, 73 was sworn in as the Minister of Finance, Economic Stability and National Policies.

The five-time Prime Minister was re-appointed to the job on May 12 following the political circus precipitated by the unprecedented economic crisis in the island’s history. He replaced Mahinda Rajapaksa who resigned to make way for his brother’s plan to appoint an all-party interim government to handle the economic crisis.

Mr. Wickremesinghe’s office said during the two weeks he had been at the helm. He re-established the island’s foreign relations, took steps for constitutional reform with the draft of the 21 amendments to the constitution, ensured fuel supplies and has been making preparations for an interim budget, according to The Hindu.

Mr. Wickremesinghe with just his seat in the 225-member Assembly relies on all political parties to support him in his immediate task of reviving the ailing economy. Sri Lanka declared bankruptcy in mid-April saying it was unable to meet its international debt payments this year. 

President Rajapaksa on May 20 expanded the Cabinet to include nine Ministers, but did not appoint a Finance Minister. Ministers of a few portfolios including education, ports and shipping, health, justice, trade were sworn in. For the second time, on May 23, Mr. Rajapaksa expanded the Cabinet by inducting eight more Ministers but even this time he did not appoint a Finance Minister. The new Ministers inducted during the second time of the Cabinet expansion belong to the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna and its allies — the SLFP and the EPDP, a Tamil minority party in the north, The Hindu reported.

Frustrated onlookers urged police officers to charge into the Texas elementary school where a gunman’s rampage killed 19 children and two teachers, witnesses said Wednesday, as investigators worked to track the massacre that lasted upwards of 40 minutes and ended when the 18-year-old shooter was killed by a Border Patrol team, Associated Press reported.

“Go in there! Go in there!” nearby women shouted at the officers soon after the attack began, said Juan Carranza, 24, who saw the scene from outside his house, across the street from Robb Elementary School in the close-knit town of Uvalde. Carranza said the officers did not go in.

Javier Cazares, whose fourth grade daughter, Jacklyn Cazares, was killed in the attack, said he raced to the school when he heard about the shooting, arriving while police were still gathered outside the building.

Upset that police were not moving in, he raised the idea of charging into the school with several other bystanders.

“Let’s just rush in because the cops aren’t doing anything like they are supposed to,” he said. “More could have been done.”

“They were unprepared,” he added.

Minutes earlier, Carranza had watched as Salvador Ramos crashed his truck into a ditch outside the school, grabbed his AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle and shot at two people outside a nearby funeral home who ran away uninjured, according to Associated Press.

Officials say he “encountered” a school district security officer outside the school, though there were conflicting reports from authorities on whether the men exchanged gunfire. After running inside, he fired on two arriving Uvalde police officers who were outside the building, said Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson Travis Considine. The police officers were injured.

After entering the school, Ramos charged into one classroom and began to kill.

He “barricaded himself by locking the door and just started shooting children and teachers that were inside that classroom,” Lt. Christopher Olivarez of the Department of Public Safety told CNN. “It just shows you the complete evil of the shooter.”

All those killed were in the same classroom, he said.

Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw told reporters that 40 minutes to an hour elapsed from when Ramos opened fire on the school security officer to when the tactical team shot him, though a department spokesman said later that they could not give a solid estimate of how long the gunman was in the school or when he was killed, Associated Press reported.

“The bottom line is law enforcement was there,” McCraw said. “They did engage immediately. They did contain (Ramos) in the classroom.”

Meanwhile, a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation said the Border Patrol agents had trouble breaching the classroom door and had to get a staff member to open the room with a key. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing investigation.

Carranza said the officers should have entered the school sooner.

“There were more of them. There was just one of him,” he said.

Uvalde is a largely Latino town of some 16,000 people about 75 miles (120 kilometers) from the Mexican border. Robb Elementary, which has nearly 600 students in second, third and fourth grades, is a single-story brick structure in a mostly residential neighborhood of modest homes.

Before attacking the school, Ramos shot and wounded his grandmother at the home they shared, authorities said.

Neighbor Gilbert Gallegos, 82, who lives across the street and has known the family for decades, said he was puttering in his yard when he heard the shots, according to Associated Press.

Ramos ran out the front door and across the small yard to the truck parked in front of the house. He seemed panicked, Gallegos said, and had trouble getting the truck out of park.

Nepal violated the human rights of a 16-year-old girl who was tortured, raped and shot dead by army officers during the Nepalese Civil War, the UN Human Rights Committee has found.

The Committee issued its findings today after considering a complaint filed by the victim’s parents, who found their daughter’s body in a cornfield in their village in 2004. Despite their efforts over the years, they have not been able to bring those responsible to justice through the legal system in Nepal.

“The gravity of this case has not faded with time even though 18 years have passed,” said Committee member Hélène Tigroudja. “This is a particularly severe case in which a child was summarily executed. It also underscores the pattern of abuse and rape of girls during the civil war, the lack of investigation and de facto impunity,” she added.

During the Nepalese Civil War in February 2004, R.R., the victim, was a secondary school student who lived with her family in the village of Pokhari Chauri in Kavre District, an area where many Maoists gathered to celebrate the eighth anniversary of the start of the “People’s War”. On the night of 13 February, around 20 uniformed, armed soldiers of the Royal Nepalese Army stormed into the family’s home, accusing R.R. of being a Maoist.

Although R.R. had attended the compulsory Maoist Student Union at school, she was not involved in any other Maoist activity. She denied the soldiers’ accusation, but was taken outside of the house, interrogated, hit with a rifle butt, thrown against a wall and taken to a cornfield. A soldier was heard telling another soldier to kill R.R. Three gunshots were then fired.

R.R.’s body was discovered the next morning, with her salwar (trousers) pulled down to the mid-thigh. Her blouse had been lifted up to her neck, and there were scratches on her breasts. She was shot in the eye, the head and the chest. The army killed two more people in the village that night.

Following the complaints by her family, the National Human Rights Commission in 2005 found that R.R. was killed by security forces. The Supreme Court in 2009 endorsed the Commission’s findings and ordered a prompt investigation. Nevertheless, no one has been held criminally accountable for the violations inflicted on R.R. The main suspect was acquitted in 2013 due to lack of evidence.

After exhausting all national remedies, R.R.’s parents brought the case to the Human Rights Committee.

The Committee found that Nepal was responsible for the direct and arbitrary deprivation of R.R.’s right to life and for subjecting her to physical and mental torture, including rape. The Commission also found that R.R.’s rights not to be subjected to gender discrimination and to be protected as a child had been violated. The Committee criticised the lack of an effective remedy for R.R.’s parents.

“Nepal has failed to demonstrate how a 16-year-old unarmed girl posed any threat to a squad of twenty fully armed soldiers, much less justify how her rape and summary execution could serve any legitimate security aim” said Tigroudja.

“Such egregious crimes shall in all instances be timely and thoroughly investigated and their perpetrators, whoever they are, brought to justice and punished”, she added.

The Committee urged Nepal to conduct a thorough and effective investigation into R.R.’s arbitrary detention, torture, including rape, and extrajudicial execution, and to hold those responsible accountable. It also reiterated its call to Nepal to align its statute of limitations for the crime of rape with international standards, as well as to impose sanctions and remedies for torture that are proportionate to the gravity of such crimes.

Independent candidate Balen Shah and CPN-UML candidate Sunitia Dangol are all set to become the new mayor and deputy mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan City.

Shah will replace Bidya Subdar Shakya while Dangol will replace Hari Prabha Khadgi.

Though the voting counting is still underway in some wards of the metropolitan city, Shah and Dangol have ensured their victory for the post of mayor and deputy mayor respectively.

Shah has received 59, 149 votes against his closest contender Srijana Singh of Nepali Congress is trailing with 37, 542 votes. He is leading by 21, 607 votes.

CPN-UML candidate Keshav Sthapit is third with 37, 218 votes.

Dangol has garnered over 64, 000 votes in the deputy mayoral race.

Rameshwar Shrestha of CPN (Unified Socialist) is lagging far behind.

Spread over 66 pages and 145 points, the policies and programs President Bidya Devi Bhandari presented before the federal parliament on May 24 was rather unwieldy. Rather than being a concise list of its priorities, governments over the years have tried to cram in as many points as they possibly could in this pre-budget document. What this does is undercut the credibility of the policies and programs, or what should be the state’s most important priority. It also makes people question the government’s competence.

Many of the promises are unrealistic too. As we have been reporting over the past few months, progress on the Kathmandu-Tarai fast-track project has been glacial. In over five years that the project has been handed over to Nepal Army, only 16.1 percent of work has been completed. Yet the new policies and programs commit to completing the whole thing by its new 2024 deadline. If achieved, this would be a mini-miracle. The new government document also says construction of the Nijgadh International Airport the fast-track will connect to will also get momentum—even as the debate over its desirability rages on.

There are some good points about the document as well. For instance, it vows to take steps to prevent land fragmentation. This is vital at a time even agricultural and forest lands are being ‘plotted’ for residential purposes, often by wrecking the surrounding environment. Full digitization of land administration, the provision of identity cards for poor families, the new emphasis on organic farming, fast tracking of truth and reconciliation, more support for local industries and goods—these are all appreciable initiatives.

But then this coalition government could be gone in as early as next six months following federal elections. Successive governments have traditionally been very reluctant to embrace the policies and programs of their predecessors, especially if they happen to be of a different political persuasion. The other area of doubt is lack of focus on helping the country tide over the current economic crisis. Coming at such a vital time, this document could have represented a welcome break with the past. Alas, it’s more of the same.