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The main opposition CPN-UML has made public its election manifesto on Friday.

Party Chairman KP Sharma Oli made public the election manifesto prepared by the Central Committee for the local level elections slated for May 13 amidst a program this afternoon.

The Central Committee endorsed the manifesto prepared by the Election Manifesto Drafting Committee.

General Secretary Shankar Pokharel said that the party will made public the commitment paper of 753 rural municipalities today itself.

Police have arrested two persons with a Red Panda hide from the Mahendrasalik-based Hotel Mirchi in Kathmandu Metropolitan City-1.

The arrestee has been identified as Tulsang Dorje Gole (29) of Bhedpu, Melung Rural Municipality-5, Dolakha and Ram Kumar Shrestha (38) of Panchkhal Municipality-2, Kavre.

Acting on a tip-off, a police team deployed from the Metropolitan Police Circle, Durbarmarg raided the hotel and confiscated the hide of an endangered animal.

Police said that they are looking into the case.

Chennai Super Kings beat Mumbai Indians by three wickets in their Indian Premier League match here on Thursday, The Indian Express reported.

CSK chased down the target of 156 in the final ball with MS Dhoni hitting the winning runs — a four — and remaining not out on 28. Ambati Rayudutop-scored for CSK with a 35-ball 40 while Robin Uthappa chipped in with a 30.

For MI, Daniel Sams took four wickets for 30 runs while Jaydev Unadkat got two.

Earlier, Mumbai Indians posted 155 for 7 with Tilak Varma top-scoring with 51 not out from 43 balls while Suryakumar Yadav chipped in with a 21-ball 32, according to the Indian Express.

Shanghai authorities doubled down on their offensive against Covid-19 on Friday, launching a new round of city-wide testing and warning residents their three-week lockdown would only be lifted in batches once transmission is stamped out, Reuters reported.

The Shanghai government said on its official WeChat account, the city's epidemic was showing a "positive trend" and that life in the city could return to normal soon as long as people stuck to strict rules to curb the spread of Covid-19.

And while some Shanghai districts tightened restrictions on movement, officials in neighbourhoods that met criteria for people to be allowed to leave their homes were still preventing them from doing so, fuelling anger and frustration among residents who have endured weeks of lockdown.

"Our goal is to achieve community zero-Covid as soon as possible," the government said.

"This is an important indication that we win this major, hard battle against the epidemic ...so that we can restore normal production and life order."

Shanghai locked virtually all of its 25 million people into their homes at the start of April after infections began to surge. Residents have faced income losses, difficulty getting food, family separations and poor conditions in quarantine, according to Reuters.

Frustration with the rigid enforcement of draconian restrictions has reached new heights this week.

Health officials raised hopes for some return to normal by saying transmission had been curbed, only for city officials to pour cold water over such expectations as the highly-transmissible Omicron variant has proven hard to eliminate.

Late on Thursday, Shanghai announced a new round of "nine major" actions, including daily city-wide testing from Friday, accelerating transfers to quarantine centres, minimising people movement and ensuring enforcement of the rules, Reuters reported.

The UN Chinese Language Day was marked in the Nepali capital of Kathmandu on Wednesday by displaying the beauty of the language mostly spoken in the world, Xinhua reported.

On the occasion, the Nepali version of late Chinese leader Mao Zedong's poems was released, Chinese songs were sung by Nepali students, and a China tea art show was performed with a vivid narrative by Chinese teachers, while seven Nepali teachers recited a classic Chinese prose passage.

Addressing the event held at Kathmandu University, Devendra Paudel, Nepal's minister for education, science and technology, said language learning and exchanges between countries will help enhance diplomatic relations. He acknowledged China's tea culture and support for Nepal's education.

"From ancient civilizations to the modern era, the relationship between Nepal and China is old and closely linked," he said, adding that "so the exchanges of literature and language will nurture the relationship between Nepal and China."

According to incomplete statistics, there are now more than 100 million learners and users of the Chinese language outside China, said the Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Hou Yanqi.

Hou attributed the growing popularity of the Chinese language to the promotion by the United Nations and other international organizations, the efforts to spread the language by the Chinese government, cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative, and China's cooperation in education with Nepal and other developing countries, according to Xinhua.

Since 2010, the United Nations has marked Chinese Language Day on April 20 over the language's contribution to the world while encouraging more people to learn it.

Dr. Harish Chandra Shah, president of Nepal China Cultural and Educational Council, said that his command of traditional Chinese medicine through Chinese learning has made it the foundation of his life and enabled him to serve the Nepali people.

In their speeches, the presidents of Hebei University of Economics and Business, Qinghai Nationalities University and East China University of Technology, which are cooperating with Kathmandu University and Tribhuvan University on the operation of two Confucius Institutes in Nepal, voiced readiness to deepen bilateral educational and cultural exchanges, Xinhua reported.

Prof. Dharma Kanta Baskota, vice chancellor of Tribhuvan University, said "everyone wants to engage with China" as the country is a rising economic powerhouse.

"The Chinese language is creating its value, so both governments need to promote the languages and cultures between the countries," he added, according to Xinhua.

Nepal's economy is not in crisis as feared by many amid dwindling foreign exchange reserves and ballooning current account deficit caused by surging imports and declining inflows of remittance, a senior economist from the World Bank said Thursday, Xinhua reported.

"We don't see any economic crisis in Nepal based on current economic indicators of the country," Alice Joan Brooks, senior country economist of the World Bank for Nepal, told the press. "There is no alarming situation," she said.

The assessment came when there is growing fear about Nepal heading in the direction of crisis-hit Sri Lanka since a number of economic indicators have been negative in recent months.

According to the data released by Nepal's central bank on April 12, the current account had registered a deficit of 3.88 billion U.S. dollars and the balance of payment had remained at a deficit of 2.17 billion dollars as of mid-March in the current fiscal year that began in mid-July 2021.

Likewise, the gross foreign exchange reserves had decreased 18.5 percent to 9.58 billion dollars in mid-March, from 11.75 billion dollars at the beginning of the current fiscal year, according to Xinhua.

The forex reserves are adequate to sustain the import of goods and services for 6.7 months only, below the central bank's target of at least seven months.

The depletion of forex reserves began with surging imports from the beginning of the current fiscal year, as merchandise imports had dropped 38.6 percent during the first eight months of the current 2021-22 fiscal year. Falling inflows of remittance, the largest source of foreign exchanges for Nepal, have made things worse.

Brooks sees Nepal's surging imports in a positive light, describing it as part of the country's recovery from the devastating COVID-19 pandemic, Xinhua reported.

"The imports are the first to recover from the impact of the pandemic and the import items are dominated by capital goods such as machinery and intermediary goods, including raw materials which contribute to economic growth," she said.

"We see the revival of many other sectors including tourism," she added. "Once tourism recovers, it will help to ensure a balanced current account."

In its Nepal Development Update released last week, the World Bank noted that high frequency indicators suggest Nepal's economy had continued to recover in the first half of the current fiscal year after rebounding in 2020-21 from a contraction in 2019-20, with the service sector estimated to have been a primary driver of growth.

In response to depleting forex reserves, Nepal's central bank had instructed the commercial banks to stop issuing letters of credit for the import of vehicles, alcohols and many other goods considered as luxuries.

Brooks said she would suggest targeted restrictions only for the Nepali government. "Nepal needs to create an environment to attract foreign investments which will help finance imports," she said, according to Xinhua.

A Nepali woman and her nine-month-old child were found hanging  Ratnari Village in the Jubbal-Kotkhai area of Shimla district, police said on Tuesday, Hindustan Times reported.

The woman's husband, a labourer, had found them hanging when he returned from work on Sunday. The family worked in a local apple orchard.

A team from the Kotkhai Police Station reached the incident site and launched a probe soon after they got the information.

The police have sent the bodies for postmortem.

American President Joseph R. Biden has expressed his government’s desire to advance the common agenda of the two countries and deepen the strong and abiding friendship between two countries.  

Acknowledging the receipt of the Letters of Credence from the newly appointed Nepali Ambassador to America Sridhar Khatri, Biden also welcomed the Nepali Ambassador as a member of the diplomatic corps in Washington D.C, according to a statement issued by Nepali Embassy in Washington.

Submitting his Letters of Credence to the White House through the Department of State, Ambassador Khatri addressed a note to the President conveying the best wishes and warm felicitations to Nepali President Bidya Devi Bhandari and Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba. 

Ambassador thanked the President Biden for the continued support of the United States in the overall development efforts of Nepal and expressed his firm belief that the longstanding close friendship and partnership between the two countries will further deepen and expand in the days ahead.