Bangladesh: In an effort to increase its foreign exchange reserves, Bangladesh is requesting $2 billion from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), according to a Wednesday report by Bloomberg News.
Bangladesh’s $416 billion economy has long been among the fastest-growing in the world, but the Russia-Ukraine war’s rising energy and food prices have increased the country’s import bill and current account deficit.
The website of Taiwan’s presidential office received an overseas cyber attack on Tuesday and was at one point malfunctioning, a source briefed on the matter said.
The website was shortly brought back online, the source told Reuters. U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi was expected to arrive in Taipei later on Tuesday, people briefed on the matter said, as frictions rose across the sensitive Taiwan Strait. Reuters
India confirmed its first monkeypox death on Monday, a young man in the southern state of Kerala, in what is only the fourth known fatality from the disease in the current outbreak.
Last week, Spain reported two monkeypox-related deaths and Brazil its first. The death in India is also the first in Asia. The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a global health emergency on July 23.
The 22-year-old Indian man died on Saturday, Kerala’s revenue minister told reporters, adding that the government had isolated 21 people who had come in contact with him. (Reuters)
Reuters: Authorities in Myanmar detained a Japanese documentary filmmaker after he attended a protest in the city of Yangon on the weekend against recent executions carried out by the military government, activists said on Monday.
The activists and Myanmar media reports have identified the Japanese man as Toru Kubota.
Reuters could not independently confirm the activists’ accounts and the media reports and a spokesman for Myanmar’s junta did not answer a telephone call seeking comment.
A Japanese government spokesman in Tokyo said that a Japanese man has been detained in Myanmar and the government was calling for his release as soon as possible.
India: Beginning on Monday, Auguste-Tanoa-Kouame will serve as the World Bank’s country director for India. He takes over after Junaid Kamal Ahmad, whose five-year term just ended.
Cote d’Ivoirian Auguste most recently worked as the World Bank’s Country Director for Turkey, where he oversaw the growth of the nation’s program and strengthened the bank’s support for Ankara’s climate agenda.
Prior to that, from January 2017 to April 2019, he was the Independent Evaluation Group’s (IEG) Director of the Department of Human Development and Economic Management.
Additionally, he served as a practice manager for the World Bank’s Macroeconomics and Fiscal Management Practice, first in the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean and subsequently in the Middle East and North Africa.
Pakistan: Officials from Pakistan shut down two Parliament cafeterias after cockroaches were allegedly discovered in the food.
The lawmakers had previously voiced their displeasure with the cafeteria’s food quality. According to reports, some MPs discovered cockroaches and reported them to the district officials of Islamabad. According to reports, after conducting an inspection, the officials decided to close the café because they discovered inadequate hygiene conditions.
According to reports, Pakistan’s lawmakers prefer not to eat at Parliament cafe because of the unhealthy food it serves. Additionally, according to the reports, mice have also been spotted inside the Parliament lodges and a cockroach was once discovered in a ketchup bottle in the cafeteria.
At least 69 people have been killed in recent flooding and landslides that hit cities across Iran.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina are expected to jointly inaugurate the 1320 MegaWatt Maitree Super Thermal Power Station during the Hasina’s three-day visit to India in the first week of September.
Touted to be Bangladesh’s largest power plant, the coal-fired station is being set up by Bangladesh India Friendship Power Company Limited, a 50:50 joint venture between India’s NTPC and Bangladesh Power Development Board. The project is worth USD 1.5 billion.
Kathmandu: Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio has congratulated Nepal for achieving an impressive milestone in tiger conservation.
“Nepal has announced that the country has achieved its global commitment, made in the 2010 Year of the Tiger, to double the country’s wild tiger population by 2022. Congratulations to #Nepal for this impressive milestone,” he said in a post on social media.
“It’s an incredible achievement and testament to the conservation efforts of the government, partners like World Wildlife Fund, and local communities over the last 12 years,” DiCaprio added.
Stressing the need for more focus on safe co-existence between people and predators, he welcomed the launch of “Prime Minister Human Wildlife Rescue and Relief Fund”.
Nepal has become the first country to double the population of wild tigers. In accordance with the commitment, it made at the first Global Tiger Summit in St. Petersburg in 2010, Nepal has successfully doubled the number of tigers in its country by the year 2022.
Spain: The death of a person from monkeypox was reported in Spain on Friday. According to Spanish media, this is a first for a country in the European Union.
The latest virus report from Spain’s health ministry noted that one person had passed away and 120 individuals had been hospitalized with monkeypox. It was reported to be the first monkeypox death in the nation by Spanish state news agency Efe and other media outlets.
The ministry withheld any additional information about the passing. It stated that 4,298 persons in Spain have the infection. 3,500 of those incidents included guys who had sex with other men. Of the total, only 64 were women.
Kathmandu: Nepal has formally communicated with the US that it will not join the State Partnership Program (SPP).
Speaking at a meeting of the House of Representatives on Friday, Minister for Foreign Affairs Narayan Khadka said that the government, through the diplomatic channel, on July 25 informed the US government about not joining the program.
“I would like to inform the House that a letter has been written to the American government that Nepal has decided not to take ahead the SPP. The process was delayed due to the need for internal consultation,” said Minister Khadka.
Kathmandu: The Russia-Ukraine war coupled with the global Covid-19 pandemic has impacted the access of food, said Bishow Parajuli, the country director of the World Food Program in India.
“The war impacted the food crisis coupled with the Covid-19. It hit the supply, and the price went up. A significant portion of wheat to several countries comes from Russia, and Ukraine stopping that supply has serious consequences. Russia and Ukraine also play a major role in the supply of chemicals and due to the continuity of the war, availability is a concern,” he said in an event entitled ‘Vimarsh on Food and Nutrition Security-Key to National Security, Staying in Course’ organized by Vivekananda International Foundation.
“There will be more struggle and fight to get food if we don’t prepare and act now, given the challenges of climate change,” said Parajuli. “The challenge is still one in nine people are hungry on this planet.”
Although poverty levels have reduced in South Asia, Food Security and Nutrition remain areas of concern. The World Food Programme has repeatedly warned about the prevailing dire situation on the hunger front.
According to the World Food Programme, even today, nearly 650 million people around the world are suffering from chronic hunger, which is a situation worse than that in 2014. And nearly 270 million people needed urgent food assistance in 2021.
The disruption of grain exports from Russia and Ukraine has resulted in a spike in food prices all over the world. Likewise, the rise in food inflation has contributed to a surge in inflation worldwide.
“The challenge is still one in nine people are hungry on this planet. And we are talking about 7.5 billion, but the population is going to rise. There will be more struggle and fight to get that same amount of food, or even less amount of food, with the challenge of climate change, and others if we don’t prepare and act now, said Parajuli.
Based on the latest estimates, the Covid-19 alone doubled the number of people not getting enough food from 130 million to 270 million. Now, that number has gone to 345 million.
Parajuli mentioned four reasons for an increase in hunger. “Conflict is one of the major reasons as 60 percent of global hunger is attributed to conflict. Many conflict-affected countries are facing severe food problems. The second is climate change. The rise in temperature leads to changing rainfall patterns affecting the ability of crops to grow. High intensity of the rain or low intensity of rain or drought, cyclone, and melting of snow all have consequences. Next are the economic consequences of Covid-19. Next is that the costs are also at an all-time high. The extra now spent would have previously fed four million people for one month,” he added.
Regarding malnutrition, Parajuli states that there has been quite a significant decline in malnutrition.
“Food is not just food, it contributes to peace. It’s a pathway to peace,” he said. According to him, conflict causes 60 percent of food insecurity. “So without peace, it’s difficult to ensure food security, all these people are displaced. Second, protecting the poor is really important to ensure food security with programs like what India has brought. The third is the issue of responding and preparing to fight climate change. And lastly, looking into a food system approach, producing while protecting the environment can be a good measure.”
“There should be a good system of logistics and supply chain and adequate nutritional foods and access,” he said.
Kathmandu — The Nepali government has banned the production, import, sale and storage of plastic artificial flower bunches, which are growing popular during festivals and other occasions in the country.
In a notice issued in Nepal Gazette on Thursday, the Ministry of Forest and Environment stated that the ban was imposed as part of the efforts to control plastic pollution.
“The main reason behind the ban is to control plastic-based pollution,” Megh Nath Kafle, spokesman of the ministry, told Xinhua. “Another reason is to promote the production and use of natural flowers, which would also support the domestic economy.”
By encouraging the use of natural bunches, the government is aiming at preserving the culture and tradition of using natural flowers on various occasions, particularly during festivals, he said.
Nepal imported plastic and plastic products worth 72.34 billion Nepali rupees (568 million U.S.dollars) in the 2021-22 fiscal year that ended in mid-July, according to the Department of Customs.
In early 2022, the government banned the production, import, sale and use of plastic bags thinner than 40 millimeters, but the rule has hardly been enforced.
“We will strengthen our monitoring to enforce the rule starting from Aug. 17,” said Kafle.
In Nepal, plastic accounted for 16 percent of urban waste, which means 2.7 tons of daily plastic garbage production, according to an article released in 2018 by the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development.
– XINHUA
President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping spoke on the phone in “candid” conversations on Thursday, with Xi reportedly cautioning Biden against “playing with fire” in regards to Taiwan.
The virtual conference, which lasted more than two hours, occurred as Beijing and Washington ran the risk of escalating their standoff over the self-governing island, which China views as a part of its territory.
According to the state-run Xinhua news agency, Xi was quoted as saying to Biden in reference to Taiwan, “Those who play with fire will inevitably get burned,” using the same terminology he did when they spoke last November.
Xi told Biden, “I hope the US side fully understands that.”
Ukraine: The regional governor reported that a Russian missile attack on a flying school in the Ukrainian city of Kropyvnytskyi on Thursday resulted in five fatalities and 25 injuries.
At a press conference, Kirovohrad area governor Andriy Raikovych reported that two missiles had struck the National Aviation University Flight Academy’s hangars at roughly 12:20 p.m. (0920 GMT).
“Victims include the deceased and the injured. 25 of those, who were injured, have already been transferred to medical facilities. One military member was among the five fatalities, he claimed.
There have been material losses, including one AN-26 and two civilian aircraft.
Kathmandu: Police have arrested four persons including Chinese nationals for their alleged involvement in online gambling.
Acting on a tip-off, a police team deployed from Metropolitan Police Circle, Lainchour, and Metropolitan Police Range, Kathmandu arrested them from Thamel on Wednesday.
During the raid, police seized 472 mobile sets, 26 laptops, 1,620 SIM cards of Ncell, 20 SIM cards of Smart Cell, 10 pen drives, and recharge cards worth Rs 190,000.
Police said that further investigation was underway.
