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Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will visit China on November 1 upon invitation by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Chinese Foreign Ministry announced on Wednesday, Global Times reported. Shehbaz is among the first batch of foreign leaders to visit China after the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) which concluded on Saturday, demonstrating the special friendship and strategic mutual trust between China and Pakistan, said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin on Wednesday's routine news conference. The visit will also be Shehbaz's first visit to China since taking office in April, a continuation of the positive momentum of close high-level contacts between the two countries, Wang said. During his visit, Shehbaz is scheduled to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He will also hold talks with Premier Li Keqiang, and meet with Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress Li Zhanshu. The leaders will have in-depth exchanges of views on bilateral relations and international and regional issues of common concern, and jointly plan and put forward the blueprint for the development of China-Pakistan relations, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry. Wang noted that China and Pakistan are all-weather strategic partners and ironclad brothers. The two countries have always understood each other, trusted each other and supported each other over the past 70 years since the establishment of diplomatic ties. In recent years, the two countries have moved forward side by side in the changing world, joining hands to tackle the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and major natural disasters, building the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor with high quality, deepening all-round exchanges and cooperation, and carrying out close coordination and cooperation on international and regional affairs, Wang said, according to Global Times. The spokesperson said that China looks forward to working with Pakistan in order to take this visit as an opportunity to further promote all-weather and high-level strategic cooperation, build a closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future in the new era, and make greater contributions to the maintenance of regional peace and stability and international fairness and justice.

Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has congratulated Rishi Sunak for his election as the leader of the Conservative Party and the next Prime Minister of the UK. “I extend warm congratulations to Rishi Sunak on being chosen as the leader of the Conservative Party and the next Prime Minister of the UK,” PM Deuba wrote in his Twitter account today. While wishing Sunak all the best, PM Deuba has said he looks forward to working with the British PM to advance the longstanding Nepal-UK relationship.  

Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Hou Yanqi said that her tenure has been completed. Taking to Twitter, Hou said that she is going to leave friendly and beautiful neighboring country Nepal. “Completed my tenure, I’m going to leave friendly and beautiful neighboring Nepal,” she said, adding, “I would like to extend my most sincere thanks to all Nepali friends! I will always cherish the profound friendship I forged with friends from all walks of life during my stay in Nepal.” Earlier, she had paid courtesy calls on Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota and Home Minister Bal Krishna Khand.

Rishi Sunak will take charge as Britain's first Indian-origin Prime Minister after an audience with King Charles III on Tuesday, a day after he was elected the new leader of the Conservative Party in a historic leadership run, The Times of India reported.

Outgoing Prime Minister Liz Truss will chair her final Cabinet meeting at 10 Downing Street on Tuesday morning before she makes her way to Buckingham Palace to formally tender her resignation to the 73-year-old monarch.

Sunak, 42, will then arrive at the palace for his meeting with the King, who will formally anoint him as the UK's new Prime Minister. The former chancellor will then make his first prime ministerial address on the steps of 10 Downing Street, expected to be joined by wife Akshata Murty and daughters Krishna and Anoushka. "The UK is a great country, but there is no doubt we face a profound economic challenge," said Sunak in his first address as Prime Minister-elect on Monday. "We now need stability and unity and I will make it my utmost priority to bring our party and our country together; because that is the only way we will overcome the challenges we face and build a better, more prosperous future for our children and our grandchildren," he said. "I pledge that I will serve you with integrity and humility and I will work day in and day out to deliver for the British people," Sunak said.

Sunak, who describes himself as a “proud Hindu”, is the UK's first Prime Minister of South Asian heritage and the youngest for more than 200 years at the age of 42. His victory on Diwali has resonated among the Indian diaspora groups across the UK, who have hailed it as a “historic moment” in British social history.

“Rishi Sunak becoming the first British Indian Prime Minister is a historic moment. This simply would not have been possible even a decade or two ago,” said Sunder Katwala, director of the British Future think tank.

“But we should not underestimate this important social change. When Sunak was born in Southampton in 1980, there had been no Asian or black MPs at all in the post-war era. There were still no black or Asian Conservative MPs when he graduated from university in 2001. That Rishi Sunak is set to be Prime Minister during the coronation of King Charles III next spring tells an important story about our society, where we have come from and where we are going in the future,” he said, according to The Times of India.

The Archbishop of Canterbury urged Britons to pray for Sunak as he enters No. 10 Downing Street at a turbulent time.

"At a time of great difficulty and uncertainty for this country, please join me in praying for Rishi Sunak as he takes on the responsibilities of leadership," Justin Welby wrote on Twitter.

"May he, and all leaders of all parties, work across divides to bring unity and offer stability for those who need it most," he said.

Sunak's victory in the Tory leadership race came at the end of a dramatic few days in Westminster since Truss resigned last Thursday in the wake of a disastrous tax-cutting mini-budget and several policy U-turns. Former prime minister Boris Johnson ruling himself out from the contest over the weekend and Leader of the Commons Penny Mordaunt conceding defeat just moments before the shortlisting deadline on Monday paved the way for a remarkable political comeback for Sunak – having lost the Tory membership vote to Truss just last month, The Times of India reported.

However, his popularity as the frontrunner among his party colleagues has been replicated yet again as more than half the Tory MPs came out publicly in his support. He now faces the enormous challenge of steering the UK economy through massive inflationary turbulence and also uniting the different wings of a divided Conservative Party.