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A massive fire broke out at Kamalnagar Chowk in Narayangarh Bazaar of Chitwan on Thursday.

Police said that the fire broke out at the four-storey house of Tulsiram Sapokota in Bharatpur Metropolitan City-3 at around 2 am today.

The fire also destroyed six shops operating in the house.

Police said that the details of the property destroyed in the fire is yet to be ascertained.

The flame was later taken under control with the help of locals, Nepal Police, Armed Police Force and Nepal army personnel backed by the fire engines of Khaireni Municipality and Nepal Army at around 7 am, police said.

The World Bank has agreed to provide Sri Lanka with $600m in financial assistance to help meet payment requirements for essential imports, the Sri Lankan president’s media division has said, Aljazeera reported.

“The World Bank has agreed to provide $600 million in financial assistance to address the current economic crisis,” the media division said in a statement on Tuesday.

The World Bank would release $400m “shortly”, it said.

According to the statement, the World Bank said it would continue to help Sri Lanka to overcome the current economic crisis.

Sri Lanka stocks rallied on the news and the Colombo All-Share Index climbed as much as 4.1 percent, after losing about 15 percent in the past two days. The bluechip S&P Sri Lanka 20 Index surged more than 7 percent. Trading had to be suspended within minutes of the open in the prior two sessions as the S&P gauge fell by its daily set limit.

Sri Lanka’s worst financial crisis since independence in 1948 was caused by a drastic drop in its reserves that dropped 70 percent over the past two years, hitting $1.93bn at the end of March. This left Colombo struggling to pay for essentials, including fuel, medicines and food, according to Aljazeera.

Earlier this month, Sri Lanka kicked off talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for financial assistance. Before the IMF finalises a programme for Sri Lanka, the country needs $3-4bn in bridge financing to help meet its essential expenses.

The Sri Lankan government has also appealed to multiple countries and multilateral organisations for bridge financing until the IMF comes up with its aid.

India has helped Sri Lanka by assisting with $1.9bn, and Colombo is in talks with New Delhi for an extra $1.5bn to fund imports, including fuel.

Sri Lanka is also negotiating with China for up to $1bn in a syndicated loan.

Sri Lanka’s Finance Minister Ali Sabry said Colombo would also seek assistance from the Asian Development Bank.

The country announced a suspension on some of its foreign debt repayments earlier this month and said it would divert its meagre reserves to fund essential imports such as fuel, cooking gas and medicine, Aljazeera reported.

The parents of a US Marine freed in a prisoner swap with Russia have spoken of their joy at his release, BBC reported.

Trevor Reed had been held in a Russian jail since 2019. He was traded for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian jailed on drug-smuggling charges.

Speaking outside the Reed home in Texas, his mother said she felt "almost as good as the day he was born".

Reed is currently on his way back to the US, where he is expected to spend several days in hospital. 

President Joe Biden said he had been "delighted" to share the news of Mr Reed's return with his parents in a phone call.

"The negotiations that allowed us to bring Trevor home required difficult decisions that I do not take lightly," he said.

According to parents Joey and Paula Reed, their son was poorly treated in prison and appeared to have contracted tuberculosis, according to BBC.

The couple protested outside the White House last month, ultimately securing a meeting with the president.

In a media interview outside their home in a suburb of Dallas on Wednesday, they thanked Mr Biden, who his father said "probably saved our son's life".

They added that Mr Biden's phone call came while they were on the other line with their son. When they told the president they were at that very moment speaking with Trevor, Mr Biden told them to hang up on him.

"Anyone who says he's [Mr Biden's] not a compassionate or kind man is just a liar or an idiot," his father said about Mr Biden. 

Mr Reed, 30, went to Moscow in 2019 to learn Russian and visit his Russian girlfriend.

On a drunken night out, he was detained by two police officers after attending a party. While being driven to the police station, he is said to have grabbed the police officer driving, causing him to swerve, and elbowed the other officer who tried to intervene, BBC reported.

Maintaining that he had no recollection of the incident, he pleaded not guilty but was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2020 on assault charges.

The US government raised concerns about the fairness of his trial, with US Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan recently saying that Mr Reed "remains in prison for a crime he didn't commit".

Senior US officials said on Wednesday that Mr Reed's release was "the result of months and months of hard, careful work" and there had been "growing concern" over his health while in detention.

The prisoner swap was carried out via Turkey after President Biden commuted the sentence of Mr Yaroshenko.

The Russian pilot had been serving a 20-year sentence since 2011 for smuggling cocaine into the US. Mr Yaroshenko's lawyer has confirmed his client is also homeward bound, according to BBC.

Officials have said Wednesday's exchange was not the start of a broader diplomatic dialogue with Russia and instead focused narrowly on a "discrete set of prisoner issues".

That means the fate of other Americans currently detained in Russia - including Brittney Griner, a double Olympic gold medallist in women's basketball - remains unclear for now.

Ms Griner has been in regular contact with her Russian lawyer and is awaiting a trial date, a person close to the situation told the BBC. An earlier motion challenging her arrest was denied. 

In a statement, the family of Paul Whelan, a former US Marine being held on spying charges, said they were "full of happiness for the Reeds", but time was running out for Mr Whelan, BBC reported.

"Paul has already spent three-and-a-quarter years as a Russian hostage," they wrote. "Is President Biden's failure to bring Paul home an admission that some cases are too hard to solve? Is the administration's piecemeal approach picking low-hanging fruit?" 

Nepal reported 11 new Covid-19 cases on Wednesday.

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 4, 119 swab samples were tested in the RT-PCR method, of which eight returned positive. Likewise, 1, 772 people underwent antigen tests, of which three were tested positive.

The Ministry said that no one died of virus in the last 24 hours. The Ministry said that 17 infected people recovered from the disease.

As of today, there are 252  active cases in the country.