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The number of chronic diseases is increasing in society today due to ignorance towards health, carelessness in diet and lifestyle leading to complications such as high blood pressure, diabetes, liver, kidney and heart ailments. People must be aware of their diet and lifestyle to prevent diseases rather than working to cure it later, said Director of Shaheed Dharmabhakta National Transplant Center, Dr Pukarchandra Shrestha. He was speaking at an interaction on legal arrangements and implementation status of organ donation after brain death organized by the center in collaboration with the federal Ministry of Health and Population. He said that the transplant center has now started a social campaign for posthumous organ donation considering the need for organs to save the lives of people with severe disease. Lives of many patients can be saved if people opt for organ donation and give prior permission for the same. Due to the lack of public awareness, the organs that can be used after brain death are being wasted by either burning to ashes or burring. He suggested creating awareness among the general public at the community level as eight organs can be used for other people after brain death. According to Dr Shrestha 1,000 people die of brain death in Nepal every year and hence there is a possibility that 8,000 organs can be obtained in a year. "Eight people can get a life donation from one brain dead person," he said. Any healthy person can donate organs and the law now provides that transplants can be done through 52 kinds of relatives. Also speaking at the program, Dr Kalpana Shrestha said there is a possibility that even the brain can be preserved and transplanted within 24 hours after death. She also pointed out gender-based discrimination in kidney transplantation in Nepal. "The number of female kidney transplant patients receiving organs from men is very low", she said, "compared to this, the number of male patients receiving kidneys from women is very high." Transplant specialist Dr Dipesh Shrestha and nephrologist Dr Shakti Basnet said that it is necessary to raise awareness about transplants in the society.  

A tense atmosphere lingered in Nanterre on Saturday following the funeral of a French teenager who was fatally shot by police in the Paris suburb earlier this week, CNN reported.

Arrests continued to mount with more than 1,300 people detained Friday overnight into Saturday and another 121 people arrested Saturday during the fifth night of nationwide protests in France after the 17-year-old’s death, according to the French Interior Ministry.

Family and friends gathered Saturday afternoon local time for the funeral service at a mosque in Nanterre. The funeral was solemn and quiet, according to CNN’s team on the ground, with people waiting in silence for his coffin to leave the mosque and be taken for burial. The teenager has been buried in the Mont Valérien cemetery in Nanterre, CNN’s team reported.

A heavy security presence was in place around the mosque.

The boy’s mother, Mounia, told television station France 5 on Friday that she blamed only the officer who shot her son, Nahel Merzouk, for his death. Nonetheless, the killing has sparked widespread destructive unrest and questions over whether race was a factor in his death.

Protests continued into the early hours of Saturday in defiance of a ban announced a day earlier on all “large-scale events” in the country, with rioting breaking out in several cities, CNN affiliate BFMTV reported.

France’s Interior Ministry said Saturday that 1,311 people had been detained following the fourth night of violence, an update on its previous figure. It said 2,560 fires had been reported on public roads, with 1,350 cars burned, and that there had been 234 incidents of damage or fire in buildings, according to CNN.

France activated 45,000 police and gendarmes across the country Saturday night, according to the country’s interior minister, Gérald Darmanin.

“I think everyone understands that the government won’t back down,” Darmanin said.

He added the French government will heavily reinforce security forces in Lyon and Marseille, where violent clashes took place Friday night.

Many of those detained since the unrest began on Tuesday are minors. The average age of the more than 2000 detainees is 17 years old, Darmanin said.

Seventy-nine police and gendarmes were injured over the course of Friday night and there were 58 attacks on police and gendarme stations, according to the Interior Ministry.

Two police officers suffered gunshot wounds in Vaulx-en-Velin, a suburb of Lyon, the office said, one to the nose and the other to the thigh.

Social media videos of scenes in Lyon, geolocated by CNN, showed rapid gunfire from an automatic rifle at night, fireworks being released at a protest and demonstrators next to burning fires.

The Interior Ministry said it would send its elite unit of riot police, CRS 8, to Lyon on Saturday night as it seeks to clamp down on the violence, CNN reported.

More than 700 businesses across France have been damaged since the start of the protests, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said at a news conference Saturday. The businesses, which include shopping centers and bank branches, have been attacked, looted or in some cases, burned to the ground, he said.

Pappu Construction operator Hari Narayan Rauniyar has been arrested on Friday. A team deployed from the Metropolitan Police Circle, Baneshwor nabbed Rauniyar, also the former lawmaker, from Chhetrapati area this afternoon. A fraud case was filed against him in Banke. Earlier, Banke police had sent a letter to the Metropolitan Police Circle, Baneshwor asking the latter to apprehend Rauniyar. Preparations are underway to take him to Banke, police said.

Same-sex couples in Nepal said on Friday they were preparing to register their marriages after the Supreme Court issued a temporary order clearing the way for gay marriage for the first time in the largely conservative country, Reuters reported.

The Supreme Court has been considering a petition on the issue filed by gay right activists and on Wednesday it issued an interim order allowing for same-sex couples to register their marriages pending a final verdict.

"This is a very big and historic decision," said Pinky Gurung, chairperson of the Blue Diamond Society gay rights organisation.

Gurung said about 200 same-sex couples were expected "to come out openly and register their marriages".

Majority-Hindu Nepal has become increasingly progressive since a decade-long Maoist rebellion ended in 2006. Two years later, political parties voted to abolish the 239-year-old Hindu monarchy, a key demand of the Maoists.

In Asia, Taiwan is the only place that recognises gay marriage, though pressure is building for reform in Japan, Thailand and South Korea.

In 2007, Nepal's Supreme Court ordered the government to end discrimination against LGBT people and put in place measures to guarantee equal rights.

Since then, some same-sex couples have held unofficial weddings and gay pride parades have been held in the capital, Kathmandu.

But activists say there is still no clear legislation and people can face abuse from their families and communities and discrimination in education, government offices and hospitals, according to Reuters.

Maya Gurung, another member of the LGBT community, said that being able to officially register a marriage would help overcome a range of difficulties.

"We will now approach the authorities to formally register our marriage," Gurung said, referring to her partner of nearly a decade, Surendra Pandey.

"It may take some time for this, though.”