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The main opposition CPN-UML demanded resignation of Finance Minister Janardan Sharma.

Speaking at the meeting of the House of Representatives, party Vice-Chairman and former Finance Minister Surendra Pandey demanded resignation of the Finance Minister saying that it is not morally appropriate for him to remain in the post after questions have been raised pertaining to changing tax rates on the eve of the budget presentation.

Saying that the issue of tax is highly confidential and a matter of national security, he said that the matter should be investigated.

Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota said that his serious attention has been drawn on the issue after the UML lawmakers stood from their seats in a gesture of protest demanding answers from the Finance Minister.

Annapurna Post, a leading broadsheet Nepali daily newspaper, in its Monday’s edition made a damning allegation that Sharma changed the tax rates by using a chartered accountant and a retired senior non-gazetted officer on the night of May 28, a day before the budget was presented in the Parliament.

Earlier on Monday, some lawmakers also demanded clarification from Sharma and investigation into the matter.

Indian money laundering investigators questioned opposition leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday as his supporters jostled with police outside the financial crime-fighting agency’s office in the capital, New Delhi, Reuters reported.

The investigation by the Enforcement Directorate is linked to a nine-year old complaint by a member of parliament from prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) against Gandhi and his mother, Congress party President Sonia Gandhi.

A spokesman for the opposition Congress Party said the Gandhis and the party had done nothing illegal and the investigation was politically motivated.

“We will fight undeterred, we will fight fearlessly,” the Congress spokesman, Randeep Singh Surjewala, told reporters.

“We will answer every question.”

A spokesman for the finance ministry’s Enforcement Directorate, which investigates money laundering and violations of foreign exchange laws, was not available for comment.

Police blocked off some parts New Delhi with barricades as Gandhi, along with Congress leaders and party workers, attempted to march to the directorate’s offices for the questioning.

Gandhi was questioned for about three hours, another Congress official said, adding that police had detained scores of party supporters outside, according to Reuters.

The BJP lawmaker behind the complaint, Subramanian Swamy, accused the Gandhis of forming a shell company and illegally gaining control of property worth $300 million.

The assets had belonged to a firm that published the National Herald newspaper, founded in 1937 by India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who was Rahul Gandhi’s great grandfather.

The UK government has published plans to get rid of parts of the post-Brexit deal it agreed with the EU in 2019, BBC reported.

It wants to change the Northern Ireland Protocol to make it easier for some goods to flow from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.

But the EU opposes the move, saying that going back on the deal breaches international law.

The government said there is "no other way" of safeguarding essential interests of the UK. 

It argues the term "necessity" is used in international law to justify situations where "the only way a state can safeguard an essential interest" is by disapplying - or breaking - another international obligation.

It adds that action taken must not "seriously impair" essential interests of other states. 

The alterations are set out in the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, to be debated and voted on by Parliament, according to BBC.

The government is promising to remove "unnecessary" paperwork on goods checks and that businesses in Northern Ireland will get the same tax breaks as those elsewhere in the UK.

The bill will also ensure that any trade disputes are resolved by "independent arbitration" and not by the European Court of Justice, it adds.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said it was "a reasonable, practical solution to the problems facing Northern Ireland" and that the UK could "only make progress through negotiations if the EU are willing to change the protocol itself", adding: "At the moment they aren't."

"We are very clear that we're acting in line with the law," she said, BBC reported.

The government said it would prefer a "negotiated solution" with the EU that avoids the need for the bill to become law.

China’s defense minister accused the United States on Sunday of trying to “hijack” the support of countries in the Asia-Pacific region to turn them against Beijing, saying Washington is seeking to advance its own interests “under the guise of multilateralism”, Associated Press reported.

Defense Minister Gen. Wei Fenghe lashed out at U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, rejecting his “smearing accusation” the day before at the Shangri-La Dialogue that China was causing instability with its claim to the self-governing island of Taiwan and its increased military activity in the area.

Austin had stressed the need for multilateral partnerships with nations in the Indo-Pacific, which Wei suggested was an attempt to back China into a corner.

“No country should impose its will on others or bully others under the guise of multilateralism,” he said. “ The strategy is an attempt to build an exclusive small group in the name of a free and open Indo-Pacific to hijack countries in our region and target one specific country — it is a strategy to create conflict and confrontation to contain and encircle others.”

China has been rapidly modernizing its military and seeking to expand its influence and ambitions in the region, recently signing a security agreement with the Solomon Islands that many fear could lead to a Chinese naval base in the Pacific, and breaking ground this past week on a naval port expansion project in Cambodia that could give Beijing a foothold in the Gulf of Thailand, according to the Associated Press.

Last year US officials accused China of testing a hypersonic missile, a weapon harder for missile defense systems to counter, but China insisted it had been a “routine test of a spacecraft.”

Answering a question about the test on Sunday, Wei came the closest so far to acknowledging it was, indeed, a hypersonic missile, saying, “As for hypersonic weapons, many countries are developing weapons and I think there’s no surprise that China is doing so.”

“China will develop its military,” he added. “I think it’s natural.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month said China represented the “most serious long-term challenge to the international order” for the United States, with its claims to Taiwan and efforts to dominate the strategic South China Sea, Associated Press reported.

The US and its allies have responded with so-called freedom of navigation patrols in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, sometimes encountering a pushback from China’s military.

Wei accused the US of “meddling in the affairs of our region” with the patrols, and “flexing the muscles by sending warships and warplanes on a rampage in the South China Sea.”

China has squared off with the Philippines and Vietnam, among others, over maritime claims and Wei said it was up to the countries in the region to find their own solutions.

“China calls for turning the South China Sea into a sea of peace, friendship and cooperation,” he said. “This is the shared wish and responsibility of countries in the region.”

Taiwan and China split during a civil war in 1949, but China claims the island as its own territory, and has not ruled out the use of military force to take it, while maintaining it is a domestic political issue, according to the Associated Press.