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The UK has agreed mutual security pacts with Sweden and Finland, agreeing to come to their aid should either nation come under attack, BBC reported.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited both countries to sign the deals, amid debate about them joining Nato. 

The pacts also state that Finland and Sweden would assist the UK in a crisis. 

Mr Johnson and Swedish PM Magdalena Andersson said co-operation was "even more important" given Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The second deal was announced in a joint press conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinistö.

Mr Johnson said the "solemn declaration" between the UK and Finland was reflective of the "extreme difficulty of the times we are in".

He emphasised the deal was "not a short-term stop gap" while Finland considered whether to join the Nato defensive alliance, but rather a "enduring assurance between two nations".

Asked if there would be "British boots on the ground" in Finland should a conflict break out, Mr Johnson said military assistance would be offered, but that the "nature of that assistance" would depend upon the "request of the other party". 

Mr Johnson added the agreement would become the "foundation of an intensification of our security and our defence relationship in other ways as well".

Mr Niinistö said his nation appreciated the UK's "strong support" of Nato's open-door policy to Finland's potential membership, according to BBC.

He said joining Nato would not be "against anybody" and the UK deal was intended to "maximise our security one way or another" while considering joining the defensive alliance.

However, when asked if the possible move could provoke President Vladimir Putin, Mr Niinistö said Russia would be responsible if Sweden or Finland joined Nato. 

He said Russia was suggesting the two nations did not have their "own will" by threatening them against applying for membership.

"They are ready to attack their neighbouring country, so... my response would be that 'you caused this - look at the mirror'".

Speaking earlier in Sweden Mr Johnson said: "If Sweden were attacked and looked to us for help and support, then we would provide it."

Asked by the BBC to spell out exactly what the UK would do if Russia attacked Sweden, Mr Johnson said the deal meant that "upon request from the other party, we would come to the other party's assistance".

Ms Andersson argued her country would be safer as a result of the mutual assistance agreement with the UK, adding: "Of course this means something. This is important whatever policy choice we make in Sweden."

She also explained the country was "exploring all possible options and Nato is one of them that is on the table".

Finland says applying to join Nato is all about defence. But Vladimir Putin doesn't see it that way. He's always viewed Nato's eastern expansion as a threat, BBC reported.

Finland shares an 800 mile (1300km) long border with Russia, bringing the alliance's military might that much closer Moscow.

Finnish and Swedish membership will make Nato more robust too - boosting its eastern flank and presence in the Baltic Sea. And the Kremlin has threatened retaliation.

Some fear it might deploy targeted nuclear weapons. But Finnish diplomats I've spoken to believe Russia has its military hands full in Ukraine and that it will instead focus on cyber and disinformation campaigns.

They say President Putin has himself to blame for Nato expanding. Before Russia invaded Ukraine, most Finns and Swedes preferred to work alongside, but not inside, Nato, according to BBC.

Russia's aggression - its expansionist zeal - changed all that.

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has said he will appoint a new prime minister and cabinet this week, after his elder brother and former PM Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned following deadly violence in the country, Aljazeera reported.

The new prime minister and cabinet will command a majority in the 225-seat parliament, Rajapaksa said, adding he will bring constitutional reforms to grant more power to the parliament.

“I am taking steps to form a new government to control the current situation, to prevent the country from falling into anarchy as well as to maintain the affairs of the government that have been halted,” he said in a statement on Wednesday.

The move followed comments earlier in the day from Sri Lanka’s central bank governor, who said he would quit within weeks unless political stability was restored.

P Nandalal Weerasinghe, appointed central bank chief last month to help the island nation of 22 million people find a way out of its worst-ever economic crisis, said a stable government was essential to stop the turmoil.

“I have clearly told the president and other political party leaders that unless political stability is established in the next two weeks I will step down,” Weerasinghe told reporters, according to Aljazeera.

“Without political stability, it doesn’t matter who runs the central bank,” he said. “There will be no way to stop the economic deterioration.”

Ordinary Sri Lankans blame the government of Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his family for the growing crisis on the island with down to just about $50m, and massive shortages of essentials including cooking gas, fuel and medicine.

After more than a month of mostly peaceful demonstrations, public anger exploded into violence this week, after ruling party supporters stormed an anti-government protest camp, triggering clashes nationwide and the prime minister’s resignation.

With ruling party politicians targeted by mobs, Mahinda Rajapaksa, once hugely popular and a former president, was whisked away to a military base in the country’s northeast, the defence secretary said.

“He will remain there for the next couple of days and when the situation is normalised, he can be moved to a location of his choice,” Kamal Gunaratne said, Aljazeera reported.

On Wednesday, police and soldiers patrolled the streets of Weeraketiya, the Rajapaksa family’s home town, where shops and businesses were shut amid a curfew that will remain in force until Thursday morning.

We knew an earthquake was due when a whopper of 7.6 magnitude struck in April 2015, followed by more than 300 aftershocks. The new constitution that was promulgated soon after had provisions for building an earthquake-resilient society. Various parties in the 2017 local elections made grandiose promises to do the same. With the wounds still fresh, national level policies were drafted. But as our memories faded and new priorities surfaced, most of these plans never materialized, and those that did were half-heartedly implemented. 

In the 2022 local elections, though disasters and climate change have made it into party manifestos, the potentially more devastating earthquakes seem to be missing. As we live in a seismically vulnerable zone, not prioritizing earthquake risk reduction could have devastating consequences, says experts ApEx spoke to. “We have seen the damage an earthquake can inflict, how it causes so much trauma and pushes back years of progress,” says Khadga Sen Oli, advocacy and outreach manager at National Society for Earthquake Technology, Nepal (NSET). 

Before the 2015 earthquakes, natural disasters were dealt with after the event, our efforts limited to management of its effects. But now the emphasis is on disaster risk reduction with action being taken before a calamity to mitigate loss of lives and infrastructure. Our approach to disaster has changed because the Gorkha earthquake that killed 9,000 people and injured over 100,000 more made us realize the importance of being prepared for tragedies. However, in a disaster-prone nation where floods, landslides, and forest fires have routinely claimed hundreds, if not thousands, of lives every year, earthquakes have slipped under the radar. 

Monika Jha, joint secretary at the National Earthquake Monitoring and Research Center under the Department of Mines and Geology, says nature was kind to us in 2015. There could have been a lot more damage, given how underprepared and ill-equipped we were to handle a disaster of that scale. Though people are more aware and knowledgeable about earthquakes now, it still isn’t enough to ensure we will be able to deal with another disaster. 

Jha blames lack of studies and research. Nepal just hasn’t invested enough in collecting data for earthquake hazard risk assessment. “There also aren’t many experts in the field. Moreover, our education system doesn’t have seismology in its curriculum,” she says.

“We need better strategies at the national level and, more importantly, for the local authorities to implement them,” says Jha. The work currently being done feels like an afterthought, carried out just for the heck of it. Raju Thapa, acting chairperson at Disaster Preparedness Network-Nepal, says government guidelines stipulate that earthquakes have to be the number one priority for those working in disaster-related sectors. But we are short sighted and only focus on immediate threats. “In western Nepal, it’s been 500 years since the last earthquake. That’s unnatural. We are, as scary as that sounds, sitting on a ticking time-bomb,” he says.

That doesn’t mean we should panic, even though Thapa wishes people would act like an earthquake could happen anytime, rather than [wrongly] believe we are safe as we recently had one. He says we shouldn’t forget that we live in an earthquake prone zone and that there is still no preparation whatsoever. “We didn’t learn from the past. We made commitments but once the initial shock wore off, we were back to our old ways,” he adds. Experts say that as a nation we have relegated the horrors of the 2015 earthquakes to the back of our minds. Not that we should be reliving it every minute but it’s unwise (even outright stupid) to forget its harsh lessons.   

Many homes that were battered in 2015 are still supported by beams. There are structures in narrow alleys of Ason, Kathmandu and Patan, Lalitpur that are on the verge of collapse. Old buildings have had facelifts in the form of additional floors. Building codes are still not followed owing to weak monitoring. People compromise on labor and construction material for short-term benefits. There is a general sense of indifference over earthquakes because ‘the worst is behind us.’ Some random middle-aged people ApEx questioned on the streets of Jawalakhel, Lalitpur, said they are sure there won’t be another earthquake for next 50 years or so and the country shouldn’t waste valuable resources preparing for one. 

But predicting an earthquake a few minutes or even seconds before can save lives. And that’s not something to be taken lightly, says Thapa. The primary wave in an earthquake comes a few seconds before the secondary wave and early warning gives you a better chance of survival. In Banke, the local communities have invested in an early warning system. It will arm them to take shelter during earthquakes, crucial seconds before the event. We need more such initiatives, including but not limited to better infrastructure to build a more resilient society that can withstand future shocks.

The constitution makes local bodies accountable for disaster prevention and management. The local government operation act has directives to prepare for future earthquakes. NSET’s Oli believes the onus lies on local governments to take concrete actions. Apart from launching awareness programs, they must also implement national level policies to build capacity in their communities. Training a few teams of volunteers to create emergency responders should, according to Oli, be another priority. “In an emergency, unskilled help can make the problem worse. So local government bodies must teach and train people to respond.” 

Ramesh Guragain, deputy executive director at NSET, says the biggest post-2015 earthquake achievement was the formation of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority. The focus shifted to studying risks in advance and working to reduce them. In many villages, as laborers worked on rebuilding damaged homes, they acquired the skill and understanding of how to build better, earthquake-resistant structures. “That awareness and knowledge need to be taken to other parts of the country, but that’s not happening. The soon-to-be elected local authorities must facilitate that kind of networking,” he says.

Soon after the local elections, NSET is launching a training program it plans on taking to all 753 rural municipalities and municipalities across Nepal. Guragain explains the point of doing this after the elections is so that the newly elected officials know what needs to be done and how, and so that they factor in earthquakes in their planning. It’s the local authorities’ responsibility to keep reminding people about the devastation earthquakes can cause. 

As they will be in office for the next five years, they can do a lot even if they take small steps—but they need to act fast. “In the past we weren’t able to effectively lobby at the political level. The participation of local authorities has also been unsatisfactory. But going forward, we are hoping for better understanding and cooperation from them,” he says. 

Clean environment is enshrined in the 2015 constitution as a fundamental right. Article 30 of the constitution says: “Every citizen shall have the right to live in a clean and healthy environment.” The victims, it further states, “shall have the right to obtain compensation for any injury caused from environmental pollution or degradation.” 

In other words, the constitution essentially allows citizens to file a case against the government if he/she feels pollution has harmed their health. Yet environmental degradation is still rampant in Nepal—and hardly anyone seems bothered.

Pollution in Kathmandu valley in particular is getting from bad to worse. In the last week of March this year, Kathmandu was ranked the world’s most polluted city, ahead of New Delhi and Beijing. Though the valley’s pollution is a public health emergency, it does not figure prominently in the agendas of political parties.

As the country heads to local level elections, ApEx studied the election manifestos of major political parties as well as those of some popular independent contenders from Kathmandu. While the mayoral candidates have mentioned the issue of pollution in their manifestos, no one seems to have a good plan.  

When the incumbent mayor of Kathmandu Bidya Sundar Shakya was elected to office in 2017 he had pledged to curb the city's pollution. But he has mostly disappointed. He did purchase some ‘broomer machines’ to sweep the city streets, but they were seldom put to use. Those machines were seen in action only when some foreign dignitaries were scheduled to visit the capital city.   

Mayor Shakya has also drawn flak for failing to manage solid waste. During his term, uncollected household waste piling up on roadsides and neighborhoods was a common sight.   

Kathmandu is now set to elect a new mayor. Will Shakya ’s replacement fare any better in pollution-control? 

Unlikely, says Ram Bahadur Budathoki, a former government official and resident of Baneshwor, Kathmandu.

“We have been talking about cleaning up the environment for years now. But what has happened?,” he asks. “We are still avoiding morning walks and outdoor exercises because of pollution.”

The 65-year-old Budathoki suffers from diabetes and hypertension. He says people like him who need to regularly exercise have suffered the most from pollution.  

Balen Shah, a popular independent mayoral candidate, has vowed to take measures to minimize air pollution in Kathmandu by ‘isolating’ construction sites emitting pollutants, establishing vehicle washing centers at all entry points of Kathmandu Valley, and installing incinerators to safely dispose bio-medical waste. 

He has also pledged to manage waste with ‘the use of technology’, while remaining vague about the exact kind of technology. Shah has promised to segregate waste, which is something that policy-makers have long suggested.

Nepali Congress mayoral candidate Srijana Singh, meanwhile, has pledged to transform Kathmandu into a zero-waste city. 

Institutional, legal, and structural arrangements will be in place to ensure clean air in Kathmandu, she says. But, again, with no particular plan of action, her pledge sounds hollow.  

Samikshya Baskota, a candidate from Sajha Bibeksheel Party, seems to have taken a similar tack. Her election manifesto mentions ‘an air quality management work plan’, but that’s about it. There is no further explanation. Other than this, she too has prioritized waste segregation and a permanent landfill site to manage Kathmandu’s waste, again offering little information on how she will make this happen.  

CPN-UML candidate Keshav Staphit does not offer anything concrete to tackle pollution. Measures will be taken to curb air pollution and waste management, is all he says. 

Bhupendra Das, air quality and clean energy expert, says the failure of prominent mayoral candidates to make pollution a big electoral agenda is most unfortunate.

“In other big cities like New Delhi, it gets the highest political priority. But in our case, the politicians seem unaware of the issue’s gravity,” he says. 

He adds though some young candidates have tried to tackle environmental pollution, it is the mainstream parties and their candidates who should be at the forefront of the effort. 

Much of the pollution in Kathmandu is caused by household waste, vehicles, and industry/bricks kilns. There are no indications of improvement in these areas. Waste management remains a chronic problem in Kathmandu valley due to the absence of a permanent landfill site. 

Though mayoral candidates have pledged to solve this problem, their pledges, again, sound unrealistic. In fact, there is no quick solution to Kathmandu’s waste problem. 

“Over the past 10 years, there have been many commitments to manage Kathmandu’s waste,” Das says. “But, if anything, the situation is getting worse.”  

The Ministry of Environment aims to create an enabling environment for both public and private sectors to treat industrial and municipal waste, including fecal sludge, by 2030. The process includes waste segregation, recycling, and waste-to-energy programs in at least 100 municipalities. To this end, the ministry has promoted ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’ approach to waste management, along with source segregation and management of degradable and non-degradable waste. But experts say implementation is nowhere near effective enough to meet the 2030 goal.

Vehicles are another big contributor to poor air quality. Transitioning to a sustainable transport system and phasing out fossil-fuel vehicles has long been the plan. But the government as well as the private sector are doing little to make this switch.  

Environmental experts say investment on a sustainable transport system with a focus on public transport should be a priority of local governments. They suggest adding incentives on import of electric vehicles. They have also emphasized promoting cycling culture and investing in cycle lanes. 

The Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) submitted by the Nepal government at the United Nations says sales of electric vehicles in 2025 will be 25 percent of all private passenger vehicle sales (including two-wheelers) and 20 percent of all four-wheeler passenger vehicle sales in 2025.  

Environment-friendly technology is also vital. Nepal lags in this too. Traditional brick factories are chief contributors to poor air quality in Kathmandu and other parts of the country, but there is no plan to replace them with cleaner and more sustainable technology.

Das says environmental regulations for factories have long been in the works but are yet to come on steam.

Other factories and industries in Nepal also appear reluctant to adopt new technology and equipment to reduce their emissions. 

Then there is the household contributing to air pollution. The NDC pledges to ensure electric stoves as the primary mode of cooking in 25 percent of households by 2030. It has also set a target of installing 500,000 improved cooking stoves, particularly in rural areas, by 2025.

These are achievable goals, say environmental experts, for which the government needs to promote the use of electricity by adjusting power tariffs. 

A 2019 World Health Organization study found that Nepal’s annual average air pollution concentration was five times above its air quality guidelines, posing grave health risks for hundreds of thousands of people—the most common air pollution-related diseases being ischemic heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), lung cancer, and acute lower respiratory infections. 

According to the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST), as many as 35,000 Nepalis die from air pollution every year. The State of Global Air Report 2020 ranks Nepal as a country with the highest outdoor PM2.5 level in the world. Ambient PM2.5 comes from vehicle emissions, coal-burning power plants, industrial emissions, and other human and natural sources.

For the record, the 10 countries with the highest PM2.5 levels are India, Nepal, Niger, Qatar, Nigeria, Egypt, Mauritania, Cameroon, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, according to the report. 

Many studies place Nepal among the most vulnerable countries to environmental pollution. But this has never registered with the country’s political parties and their leaderships. Environmental experts say pollution warrants more than a passing reference from the country’s leaders. It demands an urgent action, which doesn’t seem to be happening—not even from our aspiring future leaders. 

“Even if the parties talk about controlling pollution during their election campaigns, they abandon this agenda as soon as they get elected,” says Das.