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The Election Commission (EC) has started distributing voter identity cards from the offices of election officers for the local level elections.

The EC said that it would distribute voter identity cards till Thursday.

Voter education has also been provided at the place where voter identity cards have been distributed.

The Commission said that the voters should carry voter identity cards or other identity cards specified by the poll body while going to cast votes.

Rank Entertainment Holdings Pvt. Ltd signed a casino lease agreement with City Hotel, a company under Golyan Group, to operate a casino at the Hyatt Place Hotel located at Soalteemode, Kathmandu.

Rank Entertainment Holdings Pvt. Ltd. is Sri Lanka's largest entertainment conglomerate with worldwide portfolio of over 15 casinos.

Hyatt Place Hotel is one of the finest and most modern hotels in Kathmandu located in peaceful Tahachal, 3km from the Swayambhunath Stupa which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Akshay Golyan, Managing Director of Golyan Group and Ravi Wijeratne, Chairman of Rank Holdings Entertainment Pvt. Ltd signed that agreement amidst a program.

Pawan Golyan - Chairman of Golyan Group, Shakti Golyan, Chairman of City Hotel Limited, Asanga Warusavitharna, CEO of Rank Entertainment Holdings Pvt. Ltd were also present in the agreement signing program.

The Golyan Group is committed towards strengthening Nepal’s economic and social base through industry excellence. 

With this agreement, the group continues to open new areas of bringing in foreign income and investment benefitting the economy and tourism industry.

A man died after a truck hit a motorbike he was riding on in Ilam.

The deceased has been identified as Dhan Bahadur Rai (35) of Yangrup Rural Municipality-4, Panchthar.

The incident occurred when the motorbike (Me 1 Pa 6544) tried to overtake the truck (Na 4 Kha 5669).

Ganga Bahadur Thapa, Information Officer at the District Police Office, said that Rai died on the spot after being hit by the truck.

The truck driver fled the scene after the incident.

Police said that they are looking into the case.

A Shree Airlines plane made an emergency landing at the Kathmandu airport on Wednesday due to a technical glitch.

Tek Nath Sitaula, spokesperson at the Civil Aviation Authority Office at the Tribhuvan International Airport, said that the aircraft en route to Dhangadhi from Kathmandu landed a few minutes after the take off. 

"The plane that took off for Dhangadi landed safely at the Tribhuvan International Airport at around 12: 08 after it lost power to its left engine," he said. All the passengers onboard are safe.

There were 80 passengers on board the aircraft.

Elon Musk says if his bid to buy Twitter is successful he will reverse Donald Trump's ban from the platform, BBC reported.

The richest man in the world agreed a $44bn (£34.5bn) takeover bid with the Twitter board last month.

But he said it was not a done deal and that ideally it would be completed in the next two to three months.

Twitter's decision to ban the former US president was "morally wrong and flat-out stupid", Mr Musk told the Financial Times Future of the Car summit, according to BBC.

In January 2021, Twitter said Mr Trump's account was "permanently suspended... due to the risk of further incitement of violence" following the storming of the Capitol.

But the Tesla owner said: "I would reverse the permanent ban but I don't own Twitter yet so this is not a thing that will definitely happen."

He said the ban had not silenced Mr Trump, but by making him move onto his own Truth Social site, it had amplified his voice among the far right.

He pointed out that Mr Trump had previously said he would not return to Twitter even if his account was reinstated, BBC reported.

World Trade Organization (WTO) members said that the outcome document emerging from the informal process conducted with the Quad (European Union, India, South Africa and the United States) opens the prospect for text-based negotiations on an intellectual property response to COVID-19.

At a General Council meeting on 10 May, members welcomed the proposal as a positive development and thanked Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Deputy Director-General Anabel González, as well as the four members of the Quad, for their efforts in trying to find a way forward on this long-standing issue.

DG Okonjo-Iweala thanked delegations for the "constructive spirit" shown during the General Council meeting.

"Everyone is ready to pitch in together to get an outcome based on this," she said. "To me, it's pretty amazing. There's a lot of work still to be done, but I think if we put our minds to it, we can do it." 

Following an impasse of more than a year in the Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), the text was forwarded by DG Okonjo-Iweala and shared immediately by TRIPS Council Chair Ambassador Lansana Gberie (Sierra Leone) with all delegations, who had the opportunity to express their initial views about the proposal at a formal meeting on the TRIPS Council on 6 May. 

In their discussions facilitated by DG Okonjo-Iweala and working with Deputy Director-General Anabel González, the Quad adopted a problem-solving approach aimed at identifying practical ways to clarify, streamline and simplify how governments can override patent rights, under certain conditions, to enable diversification of production of COVID-19 vaccines.

While acknowledging that the proposal sets out a solid basis for further discussion and could lead to a long-awaited and urgently needed outcome, many delegations said more time was needed to review the document internally before they could engage in substantive discussions. Some members noted that further engagement is needed to assess specific issues, such as which members are eligible to benefit from the new proposal. 

China announced at the meeting that it will not avail itself of the flexibilities under the Quad waiver text provided that language is used opening benefits of the waiver to all developing members while encouraging those with capacity to export vaccines to opt out. China and several other members rejected a second option in the text that would restrict waiver eligibility to those developing countries that exported more than 10 per cent of the world’s vaccine doses in 2021.

A CPN-UML cadre was murdered after abduction in Rukum East.

Police said that they have apprehended three CPN (Maoist Centre) cadres including a people's representative for their alleged involvement in the incident.

The arrestees have been identified as Ward Chairman Jaya Kumar Buda of Putha Uttarganga Rural Municipality-11 of Rukum East, his brother Arjun Buda and ward chairman candidate Kumar Singh Buda.

The Maoist Centre cadres abducted Jung Maya Buda (39) following a dispute over the election campaign in Taksera Village on May 2.

Police found the body of Buda at a jungle four kilometers away from Taksera on Tuesday.

The body of Buda has been brought to the Lumbini Provincial Hospital in Butwal for postmortem.

UML Politburo member Madhav Sharma said that Buda was murdered after rape by the Maoist cadres.

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Government of Bangladesh have signed a USD200-million on-lending facility to Infrastructure Development Co. Ltd (IDCOL) to finance infrastructure projects in Bangladesh, marking AIIB’s first investment through a financial institution into infrastructure in the country.

IDCOL is a government-owned nonbanking financial institution established for infrastructure financing in Bangladesh. AIIB’s investment will provide IDCOL with financing that it will further onlend to private companies to support infrastructure projects.

The large infrastructure deficit in Bangladesh is one of the most critical development challenges facing the country.

Bangladesh’s Perspective Plan 2041 highlights the need for an annual investment of USD10 billion in infrastructure over the next two decades. Despite the impressive development achievements, Bangladesh faces several development challenges that were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The project will support Bangladesh’s goal to bridge its infrastructure deficit and achieve sustainable growth, as highlighted by the government’s both short-term and long-term plans.

The project will make long-term financing available for infrastructure subprojects in power generation, renewable and low-carbon electricity, information and communications technology infrastructure, cross-regional transportation and others, thereby enhancing economic activity and creating employment opportunities.

“By providing long-term financing to the private sector in Bangladesh, AIIB will promote infrastructure investment, help alleviate the funding constraints faced by private sponsors, and help mobilize private capital by attracting additional financing,” said AIIB Vice President, Investment Operations (Region 1) Urjit R. Patel.

“This project also aligns with AIIB’s thematic priority to finance green infrastructure. Aside from further strengthening the partnership between AIIB and Bangladesh to promote sustainable infrastructure development, this will also help facilitate the country’s economic and financial recovery amid the pandemic.”

As of today, AIIB has approved 15 projects amounting to over USD2.8 billion in Bangladesh, in which more than half of the projects are focusing on energy, transport and water sector.