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Police have arrested six persons on the charge of abducting a Chinese couple.

The District Police Range, Kathmandu said that police apprehended six persons for abducting a Chinese couple from Lainchaur and taking them hostage at Gongabu on Wednesday night.

They have also been accused of robbing Rs 800, 000 in cash and 27 sets of mobile phones from the couple.

It has been learnt that the kidnappers had demanded a ransom of Rs 10 million from the Chinese couple.

Police said that they are looking into the case.

A 62-year-old French man survived for 16 hours at sea by using an air bubble inside his boat after it capsized, BBC reported.

The 12-metre vessel, which had set sail from Portugal's capital Lisbon, sent out a distress signal late on Monday evening from the Atlantic Ocean.

Spanish coastguards found the upturned boat, but the sea was too rough to rescue him - so the sailor had to wait until morning.

The man's survival was "verging on the impossible", said coastguard divers.

His boat sent a distress signal at 20:23 local time on Monday, 14 miles (22.5 km) from the Sisargas Islands, near Spain's north-west Galicia region.

A rescue ship carrying five divers as well as three helicopters set off to find and rescue the man, who has not yet been named. 

A diver was winched onto the ship's hull to seek signs of life and the man responded by banging from inside.

The sea was rough and the sun had gone down, so the rescue team attached buoyancy balloons to the boat to stop it from sinking and waited until morning.

The next day, two divers swam under the boat to help the sailor out, who they found wearing a neoprene survival suit and submerged in water up to his knees, according to BBC.

The man then jumped into freezing water and swam under the boat towards the sea's surface. 

In a tweet, Spain's Maritime Safety and Rescue Society said: "Each life saved is our biggest reward."

A motorable bridge linking Nuwakot and Dhading districts remains more or less unused because there is no road link at one of its ends.

The bridge sits astride the Trishuli River that divides the two districts at the village of Keurini. Local residents say the structure was built nearly three years ago but there is no road link on the Nuwakot side. A small beaten path built on private land begins once you cross the bridge and reach its western end.

Authorities concerned including the Department of Roads have paid no attention, says Lawaraj Khatiwada, a local man.  

“Yes the bridge has connected Nuwakot and Dhading,” he says. “But what is the point of a motorable bridge when one end has no way for vehicles to pass?”

The peculiar bridge sticks like a sore thumb and is hard not to miss for anyone traveling through Trishuli-Devghat-Galchhi road. It sits there inviting passers-by’s amusement and laughter. But the local villagers are not amused.

They were hardly consulted when the bridge was constructed. The undertaking took seven years and cost the government more than Rs 150m. 

Local representatives say they learned about this anomaly only last year. But Khatiwada says the villagers had informed the local Road Division Office, on numerous occasions, about the absence of a roadway towards Nuwakot.

“The road office as well as the construction company were informed,” says another local, Madan Kumar Khatiwada. “They did not listen to us.”  

Whether the bridge is a bane or a boon, villagers living close to the bridge do not know. With a proper road, they say, their journey to Kathmandu could be shortened by 22 kilometers.

There are no signs the road will be constructed anytime soon. The road office has not even started the land acquisition process.    

Kedar Prasad Khatiwada, chairman of Galchhi Rural Municipality, says he sympathizes with the concern of Keurini villagers.

Amrit Mani Rimal, chief of Road Division Office, Nuwakot, says he has taken up the issue to the relevant authority after carrying out an on-field inspection of the bridge.

“The road office also expects cooperation from the local villagers,” he says. “Building the road is definitely our priority”

To start the road construction, the government will have to acquire the private land owned by six families. The concerned landowners are willing to give their land to the government, provided they are properly compensated.

But there is a problem here. Rimal says the government has no policy of handing out compensation for land acquisition close to the bridge.

“The concerned landowners should look at the bridge and the road as development,” he says. “They should help in the process.”

The villagers, however, say there will be no quid pro quo. If the road is not constructed, they have threatened to obstruct all movement on the bridge.    

A total of 28 cases of dengue were reported in Makawanpur district in the past 15 days.

According to the District Health Office (DHO), Makawanpur, cases of the mosquito-borne viral infection have been on the rise in the district lately. So was Coronavirus infection.
Of the 10 local levels in the district, Hetauda Sub-Metropolitan City reported the highest number of infections, informed Laxman Ghimire, Information Officer at the DHO, Makawanpur.
The infected ones who were mostly from ward 4 and 5 in Hetauda Sub-Metropolitan City were under treatment, shared Ghimire, adding that statistics on the same were yet to be received from private hospitals.
Meanwhile, scrub typhus was reported in nine people in the past 15 days while Kala-azar (Visceral leishmaniasis) in a person during the same period.