Motorbike rider killed in Ilam truck hit

A man died after a truck hit a motorbike he was riding on in Ilam.

The deceased has been identified as Dhan Bahadur Rai (35) of Yangrup Rural Municipality-4, Panchthar.

The incident occurred when the motorbike (Me 1 Pa 6544) tried to overtake the truck (Na 4 Kha 5669).

Ganga Bahadur Thapa, Information Officer at the District Police Office, said that Rai died on the spot after being hit by the truck.

The truck driver fled the scene after the incident.

Police said that they are looking into the case.

Shree Airlines plane makes emergency landing after engine failure

A Shree Airlines plane made an emergency landing at the Kathmandu airport on Wednesday due to a technical glitch.

Tek Nath Sitaula, spokesperson at the Civil Aviation Authority Office at the Tribhuvan International Airport, said that the aircraft en route to Dhangadhi from Kathmandu landed a few minutes after the take off. 

"The plane that took off for Dhangadi landed safely at the Tribhuvan International Airport at around 12: 08 after it lost power to its left engine," he said. All the passengers onboard are safe.

There were 80 passengers on board the aircraft.

 

 

Elon Musk would reverse Donald Trump's Twitter ban

Elon Musk says if his bid to buy Twitter is successful he will reverse Donald Trump's ban from the platform, BBC reported.

The richest man in the world agreed a $44bn (£34.5bn) takeover bid with the Twitter board last month.

But he said it was not a done deal and that ideally it would be completed in the next two to three months.

Twitter's decision to ban the former US president was "morally wrong and flat-out stupid", Mr Musk told the Financial Times Future of the Car summit, according to BBC.

In January 2021, Twitter said Mr Trump's account was "permanently suspended... due to the risk of further incitement of violence" following the storming of the Capitol.

But the Tesla owner said: "I would reverse the permanent ban but I don't own Twitter yet so this is not a thing that will definitely happen."

He said the ban had not silenced Mr Trump, but by making him move onto his own Truth Social site, it had amplified his voice among the far right.

He pointed out that Mr Trump had previously said he would not return to Twitter even if his account was reinstated, BBC reported.

 

WTO members welcome Quad document as basis for text-based negotiations on pandemic IP response

World Trade Organization (WTO) members said that the outcome document emerging from the informal process conducted with the Quad (European Union, India, South Africa and the United States) opens the prospect for text-based negotiations on an intellectual property response to COVID-19.

At a General Council meeting on 10 May, members welcomed the proposal as a positive development and thanked Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Deputy Director-General Anabel González, as well as the four members of the Quad, for their efforts in trying to find a way forward on this long-standing issue.

DG Okonjo-Iweala thanked delegations for the "constructive spirit" shown during the General Council meeting.

"Everyone is ready to pitch in together to get an outcome based on this," she said. "To me, it's pretty amazing. There's a lot of work still to be done, but I think if we put our minds to it, we can do it." 

Following an impasse of more than a year in the Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), the text was forwarded by DG Okonjo-Iweala and shared immediately by TRIPS Council Chair Ambassador Lansana Gberie (Sierra Leone) with all delegations, who had the opportunity to express their initial views about the proposal at a formal meeting on the TRIPS Council on 6 May. 

In their discussions facilitated by DG Okonjo-Iweala and working with Deputy Director-General Anabel González, the Quad adopted a problem-solving approach aimed at identifying practical ways to clarify, streamline and simplify how governments can override patent rights, under certain conditions, to enable diversification of production of COVID-19 vaccines.

While acknowledging that the proposal sets out a solid basis for further discussion and could lead to a long-awaited and urgently needed outcome, many delegations said more time was needed to review the document internally before they could engage in substantive discussions. Some members noted that further engagement is needed to assess specific issues, such as which members are eligible to benefit from the new proposal. 

China announced at the meeting that it will not avail itself of the flexibilities under the Quad waiver text provided that language is used opening benefits of the waiver to all developing members while encouraging those with capacity to export vaccines to opt out. China and several other members rejected a second option in the text that would restrict waiver eligibility to those developing countries that exported more than 10 per cent of the world’s vaccine doses in 2021.