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The US announced it will send an additional $1 billion in military aid to Ukraine, as America and its allies provide longer-range weapons they say can make a difference in a fight where Ukrainian forces are outnumbered and outgunned by their Russian invaders, Associated Press reported.

President Joe Biden and his top national security leaders said Wednesday the US is moving as fast as possible to get critical weapons to the fight, even as Ukrainian officials protest that they need more, faster, in order to survive. 

The latest package, the US said, includes anti-ship missile launchers, howitzers and more rounds for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) that U.S. forces are training Ukrainian troops on now. All are key weapons systems that Ukrainian leaders have urgently requested as they battle to stall Russia’s slow but steady march to conquer the eastern Donbas region.

“Gen. Milley and I have been in a number of fights. And when you’re in a fight, you can never get enough,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at a press conference in Brussels, referring to Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“I certainly understand where the Ukrainians are coming from, and we’re gonna fight hard to give them everything they need.”

The HIMARS and anti-ship systems are the kinds of longer range capabilities that over time can make a difference in the fight, Milley said. He said Ukraine will have trained HIMARS crews in the fight in a few weeks, according to Associated Press.

“If they use the weapon properly and it’s employed properly, they ought to be able to take out a significant amount of targets and that will make a difference,” he said. But he also noted that the numbers clearly favor the Russians.

“In terms of artillery, they do outnumber, they out-gun and out-range” the Ukrainian forces. 

The aid is the largest single tranche of weapons and equipment since the war began. Biden, who spoke by phone with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for about 40 minutes Wednesday, also said the U.S. will send $225 million more in humanitarian assistance to provide safe drinking water, medical supplies, food, health care, shelter and money for families to buy essential items.

The US remains committed, Biden said in a statement, “to supporting the Ukrainian people whose lives have been ripped apart by this war.”

The aid comes as Austin convened a meeting in Brussels of more than 45 nations to discuss support for Ukraine. At the start of the meeting, he warned that the West must step up weapons deliveries to Ukraine and prove its commitment to helping the country’s military fight along a 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line in a grinding war of attritionwith Russia.

He told the participating nations, “We can’t afford to let up and we can’t lose steam. The stakes are too high.”

Overall, since the war began in late February, the US has committed about $5.6 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, including this latest package. Officials said that about one-third of the latest $1 billion will be from presidential drawdown authority, which means the Pentagon will take weapons and equipment from it’s own stock and ship them to Ukraine. The remaining two-thirds would be equipment and weapons purchased from industry by the US and then transferred to Ukraine, Associated Press reported.

Nepal has set the goal of graduating from the category of least developed country (LDC) to a developing one by 2026. The deadline is just a little over four years away, and the country is badly off-track.

Economic downturns caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and more recently, the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, have only added to the challenge of achieving the ambitious target.

Least developed countries are currently facing multiple challenges, such as ballooning trade deficits, depleting foreign currency reserves, slow industrial growth, and rising inequality. These economic challenges figured prominently at the 12th World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Ministerial Conference held in Geneva, Switzerland, from June 12-15.

The first and immediate challenge faced by the LDCs is to secure additional support from donor agencies and bilateral partners to expedite the recovery of their economies battered by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

To this end, officials present at the conference were of the view that WTO and other international organizations should consider an immediate package to revive the faltering economies of LDCs.

A senior WTO official said LDCs should prepare a solid and pragmatic plan to switch to the developing country category, as they lose several international facilities with the graduation. If a sound plan is not in place, the official warned, there are chances of freshly graduated countries sliding back to the LDC category. 

To graduate from the LDC category is a major development success, but it comes with a host of challenges, including the loss of preferential access to lucrative markets.

So the organization’s LDC Group called on the preference-granting members to extend and gradually phase out their preferential market access schemes over a period of six to nine years. But developed countries are not ready to offer such a long transition period. China says it can provide a three-year transition, while other big powers like the US are yet to make their position on this clear. 

Addressing the conference, Nepal’s Minister for Commerce, Industry and Supply Dilendra Prasad Badu emphasized the need for continued international support for smooth graduation transition. He raised the issues of duty- and quota-free market access, special and differential treatments, preferential rules of origin, service waiver, aid for trade, and flexibilities in the implementation of multilateral trade rules and commitments.

The minister also told the conference that bilateral and multilateral development partners should allocate additional resources to implement the Doha Plan of Action for LDCs.

Supply-side constraints, weak productive capacity, insufficient trade infrastructures, and non-tariff barriers are some of the obstacles that keep LDCs from benefiting from the current multilateral system. The WTO’s LDC Group has been seeking international support to overcome these challenges.

High transit and transport cost of the LDCs is another constraint hindering their progress in the international trading system the WTO ensures. They have hence asked for uninterrupted, unconditional, and smooth transit rights.

The widening digital divide between rich and poor countries, which is slowing down integration in the global value chains, was also brought up during discussions.  

Minister Badu told the conference that Nepal is in need of help in transferring technologies, building ICT infrastructures, and developing human resources to reduce the digital divide.

Trade ministers from Australia, Japan and Singapore acknowledged the barriers faced by developing and least developed countries seeking to benefit from the digital economy.

Issuing a joint press statement, they said the ‘E-commerce Capacity Building Framework’ will help these countries better address those barriers and enjoy the benefits of digital trade.

In order to create sound and viable technological bases, LDCs want developed countries to effectively implement the Trade-related Intellectual Property (TRIPS) agreement and give incentives to their enterprises and institutions to promote the transfer of technology.

Considering the needs of least developed countries, the WTO and the UN have signed a partnership agreement aimed at boosting the participation of LDCs in the global trading system.

The WTO is joining hands with the UN to give renewed hope to the most vulnerable group of countries to ensure that LDCs have a special place in the multilateral trading system, the WTO said in a statement.

The WTO-UN partnership aims to support LDCs with analysis of the latest trade trends, joint capacity-building and joint outreach and awareness-raising.

Over the past decade, the WTO said, its members have provided increased trade opportunities in order to expand LDC exports. It added that the WTO remains the main forum to achieve the Doha Program of Action targets in the area of trade.

There are at present 46 LDCs on the UN list, 35 of which are WTO members. LDCs want effective implementation of the WTO provisions and decisions related to special and differential treatment or exemption in favor of LDC members. They are also in need of specific technical assistance and capacity building facilities provided under the WTO system.

Members from the least developed countries at the WTO Ministerial Conference jointly urged the WTO member countries to consider their proposal without any delay. They have asked for aid and assistance for trade-related capacity building, addressing the supply-side bottlenecks, development of trade-related infrastructures, and facilitating integration of LDC economies in regional and global trade. 

WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said priorities of LDCs naturally deserve particular attention. Some of them have done well enough to graduate, and are keen to smooth any bumps that might come with that step, he said.

As of 2021, 16 LDCs out of 46 are on the path to graduation. Of these, 10 are the WTO members (Angola, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Djibouti, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Nepal, Senegal, Solomon Islands and Zambia) while four (Bhutan, Comoros, Sao Tomé and Principe, and Timor-Leste) are in the process of negotiating their WTO accession. The other two LDCs are Kiribati and Tuvalu.

Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Govinda Prasad Sharma Koirala clarified that the government has not made any preparation to sign the State Partnership Program (SPP) agreement.

He said so while speaking at the meeting of the House of Representatives on Wednesday.

Minister Koirala made it clear that neither the government nor any side have urged the concerned authority to sign the agreement.

Responding to the queries on the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), Minister Koirala said that the US government welcomed the interpretative declaration on the same day when the $500 million pact was endorsed from the Parliament. Hence, he urged not to be in doubt as the declaration was part of the agreement.

Minister of Culture, Tourism, and Civil Aviation Prem Bahadur Ale today said that Tribhuvan International Airport would be made a model airport in terms of cleanliness.

He said this while handing certificates to the participants of a two-week international-standard sanitation training. One-hundred-and-fifty-two cleaning staffers, including employees from the private sector working at TIA attended the training.

"We have put to an end the situation of tourists arriving at the airport and covering their noses. It is the responsibility of the cleaning staffers to keep the airport neat and clean.

I urge you to make the maximum use of skills and knowledge learnt in the course of the training. I will support you in this," he said.

Minister Ale also claimed that a lot of good work had been done to beautify the airport under his direction.