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Independent mayoral candidate of Kathmandu Metropolitan City Balen Shah has continued to stretch his lead.

As of Tuesday morning, Shah is leading the vote count with his nearest rival Srijana Singh of Nepali Congress by 19, 263 votes.

He has garnered 50, 030 votes while Singh is trailing with 30, 767 votes.

Similarly, CPN-UML Keshav Sthapit is third with 30, 015 votes.

Likewise, Sunita Dangol is leading by a huge margin the deputy mayoral race.

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

 

A Ukrainian court sentenced a captured Russian soldier to the maximum penalty of life in prison for killing a civilian, and the Kremlin hinted that it may put on trial some of the fighters who surrendered at Mariupol’s steelworks,Associated Press reported.

Meanwhile, in a rare public expression of opposition to the war from the ranks of the Russian elite, a veteran Kremlin diplomat resigned and sent a scathing letter Monday to foreign colleagues in which he said of the invasion, “Never have I been so ashamed of my country as on Feb. 24.”

Also, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for “maximum” sanctions against Russia in a video address to world leaders and executives at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Separately, he revealed one of the deadliest single strikes of the war, a missile attack on a village near Kyiv that killed almost 90 people.

And on the battlefield, heavy fighting raged in the Donbas in the east, where Moscow’s forces have stepped up their bombardment. Cities not under Russian control were constantly shelled, and one Ukrainian official said Russian forces targeted civilians trying to flee.

In the first of what could be a multitude of war crimes trials held by Ukraine, Russian Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin, 21, was sentenced for the killing of a 62-year-old man who was shot in the head in a village in the northeastern Sumy region in the opening days of the war, according to Associated Press.

Shishimarin, a member of a tank unit, had claimed he was following orders, and he apologized to the man’s widow in court.

His Ukraine-appointed defense attorney, Victor Ovsyanikov, argued his client had been unprepared for the “violent military confrontation” and mass casualties that Russian troops encountered when they invaded. He said he would appeal.

Ukrainian prosecutors are investigating thousands of potential war crimes. Russian forces in Mariupol bombed a theater where civilians were sheltering and struck a maternity hospital. In the wake of Moscow’s withdrawal from around Kyiv weeks ago, mass graves were discovered and streets were strewn with bodies in towns such as Bucha.

Before Shishimarin’s sentencing, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow was unable to defend the soldier but will consider trying to do so “through other channels.”

Mary Ellen O’Connell, an expert on international law at the University of Notre Dame, said that putting Shishimarin on trial could prove “extremely detrimental to Ukrainian soldiers in the hands of Russia.” She said Russia may decide to hold “show trials” of Ukrainians to boost the morale of its own soldiers and spread disinformation.

Russian authorities have threatened to hold trials of captured Ukrainians — namely, fighters who held out at Mariupol’s shattered steel plant, the last stronghold of resistance in the strategic southern port city. They surrendered and were taken prisoner last week, at which point Moscow claimed the capture of Mariupol was complete, Associated Press reported.

Russia’s main investigative body said it intends to interrogate the Mariupol defenders to “identify the nationalists” and determine whether they were involved in crimes against civilians.

President Joe Biden opened his last day in Asia on Tuesday by holding talks with a trio of Indo-Pacific leaders that includes Australia’s new prime minister on his first full day on the job and India’s Narendra Modi, with whom differences persist over how to respond to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Associated Press reported.

Biden, Modi and Japan’s Fumio Kishida launched the Quad summit by welcoming Australia’s Anthony Albanese to the club and expressing awe at his determination to join the informal security coalition by rushing to Tokyo immediately after being sworn in on Monday.

“I don’t know how you’re doing it,” Biden told Albanese. The US president joked that it would be OK if the new premier happened to fall sleep during the meeting.

Turning serious, Biden said the leaders were “navigating through a dark hour in our shared history” because of Russia’s war on Ukraine. He added that it was ”more than just a European issue, it’s a global issue.”

Kishida, too, took note of Russia’s aggression and added: “We cannot let the same thing happen in the Indo-Pacific region.”

Modi, whose response to the Ukraine situation has disappointed Washington, did not address the issue in his public remarks as the summit got under way, according to the Associated Press.

Biden will meet separately with Albanese and with Modi after the four-way gathering of the security group known as the Quad. The partnership has become increasingly relevant as Biden has moved to adjust U.S. foreign policy to put greater focus on the region and to counter China’s rise as an economic and security power. He held bilateral talks with summit host Kishida on Monday.

Albanese told his fellow Quad leaders he was dedicated to the group’s mission to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific.

“We have had a change of government in Australia, but Australia’s commitment to the Quad has not changed and will not change,” Albanese said.

Looming over the Quad leaders’ talks is Biden’s blunt statement on Monday that the US would intervene militarily if China were to invade Taiwan, saying the burden to protect Taiwan is “even stronger’ after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The White House insists that Biden’s unusually forceful comments about Taiwan did not amount to a shift in US policy toward the self-ruled island that China claims as its own.

Biden has asked Modi not to accelerate the buying of Russian oil as the US and other allies look to squeeze Moscow’s energy income. The Indian prime minister made no public commitment to cut off from Russian oil, and Biden has publicly referred to India as “somewhat shaky” in its response to the invasion, Associated Press reported.

Unlike other Quad countries and nearly every other US ally, India has not imposed sanctions or even condemned Russia, its biggest supplier of military hardware. Facing Western pressure, India has condemned civilian deaths in Ukraine and called for an immediate cessation of hostilities. Yet it also has compounded fallout from a war that has caused a global food shortage by banning wheat exports at a time when starvation is a growing risk in parts of the world.

With Modi sitting nearby, Biden made the case that the world has a shared responsibility to do something to assist Ukrainian resistance against Russia’s aggression.

“The Russian brutal and unprovoked war against Ukraine has triggered a humanitarian catastrophe and innocent civilians have been killed in the streets and millions of refugees are internally displaced as well as in exile,” Biden said. “And this is more than just a European issue, it’s a global issue.”

The US president has been making his case to Modi for weeks.

Biden and Modi spoke about the Russia invasion during a virtual Quad leaders’ meeting in March, and last month they had a short video conversation when Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with their Indian counterparts in Washington.

“So it won’t be a new conversation,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said. “It will be a continuation of the conversation they’ve already had about how we see the picture in Ukraine and the impacts of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine on a wider set of concerns in the world.”

While Biden and Modi may avoid public confrontation over how to respond to Russia’s aggression, the issue remains a major one as the US and allies are looking to tighten the pressure on Putin., said Michael Green, senior vice president for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, according to the Associated Press.

Rajesh Man Singh, the common candidate of ruling coalition, has been elected as the mayor of Birgunj Metropolitan City, the only metropolis in Madhesh.

According to the final results of the counting of votes in all the 32 wards of the metropolis that ended on Tuesday morning, Janata Samajbadi Party candidate Singh from the ruling alliance has won the post of mayor.

Singh secured 46, 215 votes against his nearest rival Bijay Sarawagi of CPN-UML who garnered 23, 171 votes.

Similarly, Imtiaz Alam, the common candidate of ruling coalition, has been elected as the deputy mayor.

Nepali Congress candidate from the ruling coalition, Alam defeated Purushottam Lal Jha of the Democratic Socialist Party by a huge margin to become the deputy mayor.