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China reports 233 new local COVID-19 cases in past 24 hours

Posted on by SAT News Desk

Beijing —  China on Tuesday reported 233 new local COVID-19 cases, the National Health Commission said on Wednesday.


Of these infections, 94 were reported in Jilin, 59 in Shandong, 17 in Shaanxi, 12 in Tianjin, 11 each in Hebei and Jiangsu and the rest were reported in other nine provincial-level regions, Xinhua reported citing the commission’s daily report.

As many as 104 imported COVID-19 cases were reported on Tuesday, according to the commission.
No deaths from COVID-19 were reported in the past 24 hours.
A total of 15 new suspected cases, all arriving from outside the mainland, were reported in Shanghai, Xinhua reported citing the commission. (ANI)

How can we guarantee gender equality in every election?

Posted on by SAT News Desk

Alex Sangha


We can cut the number of ridings in the House of Commons in half and elect one man and one woman from each new riding. 

 

This would result in the number of men and women elected to be equal and the number of MP’s would remain the same.

 

Why cannot we do this?  It’s so simple.

 

Special provisions would need to be made to ensure the representation of transgender and non-binary people and other underrepresented groups.  However, this can easily be done in the Canadian Senate which is appointed.

 

I really don’t understand why men and women have to compete with each other in elections.

 

It’s really not a level playing field in the first place!

 

Men have more power and privilege and earn more money than women in society.

 

Men don’t have to worry about being pregnant which can limit career opportunities for women, unfairly I might add.

 

Why do you think almost all the Prime Ministers of Canada have been men, white men.

 

It’s really a miracle that The Right Honourable Kim Campbell even made it to the top job by default I feel when her party was not expected to form the government.  The men in power basically made her take the fall.

 

True lasting change will never happen unless there is a diversity of voices around the decision-making table, and fundamental to this is the equal representation of women.

 

Men and women bring different issues, ideas, and approaches to solving problems.

 

There are many similarities and differences between men and women.  You can learn this in any beginner university-level gender studies course.

 

It is really a profound injustice that men continue to dominate and impose their power and privilege on the world at the expense of women.  And the people and the planet are paying the price!

 

Time for women to demand an equal voice in Parliament everywhere!

 

Alex Sangha is a social worker, counsellor, documentary film producer, and the Founder of Sher Vancouver which is a registered charity for LGBTQ+ South Asians and friends.  For more information on Sher Vancouver check out www.shervancouver.comor his latest documentary check out www.emergencefilm.net.  Alex is the recipient of the Meritorious Service Medal from the Governor General of Canada for social work.

NBC UK’s Founding Day and AGM held

Posted on by SAT News Desk

London — Nepalese British Community UK (NBC UK) organized its 12th founding day and  annual general meeting in West London on Sunday.

The program was inaugurated by chairman of the Organisation, Rajendra Ojha and founder chairman Kamal Poudel by lighting a lamp.

During the programme, Secretary Rabindra Adhikari presented the annual report and provided information about regular and charitable activities of the organisation.

Secretary Adhikari informed that the NBC UK community organised a special entertainment program during the COVID lockdown period by inviting famous artists from Nepal . Similarly, a Mental Health and Well Being Awareness program was organized with doctors and experts on the panel during the Covid. The NBC UK also donated NRs 550,000 to covid  victims in Nepal through its  team and Hundred’s Group.

The organization distributed 70 Tablets to Nepali parents over the age of 65 in the UK with the help of the Big Lottery Fund project. The Tablets were distributed to make it easier for the elderly to use social media, listen to Nepali radio programs and communicate with their family members in Nepal. They were also given training for two weeks.

The NBC UK organized an event in association with Nepal Run in which 428 people participated. The organization also organized ten festivals.

The NBC UK has been publishing informative bulletins on a fortnightly basis and also organising  free ‘Yoga and Fitness’ program every Saturday and Sunday through Zoom.

Treasurer Khemraj Joshi presented the details of income and expenditure of the organisation. NBC UK President Rajendra Ojha thanked the executive committee, Advisors and members of the organisation for their active participation and appreciated their community and humanitarian sentiments.

Nearly 115 members including founding chair Kamal Poudel, former chairman Kamal Khanal, Ganga Rana as well as guests took part in the programme.

Hindus festival Maha Shivaratri observed in Nepal

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Kathmandu — Hundreds of thousands of devotees have crowded to worship at a revered Hindu temple in Nepal’s capital as coronavirus cases drop and life returns to normal.

Around a million devotees were expected on Tuesday to visit the temple of Hindu god Shiva on Maha Shivaratri, one of Nepal’s most cherished festivals, as temples, schools and markets have all begun to open up in recent weeks after the number of COVID-19 cases dropped in Nepal.

On Monday, 180 new infections were reported, down from a peak of over 9,000 in January.

The Pashupatinath Temple located in Kathmandu is among the most important Hindu temples and is popular among pilgrims. During the festival, devotees fast all day and visit the temple and take a dip in the Bagmati River.

The festival is also famed for freely smoking marijuana, which is classified as a narcotic and punishable by jail. In the forested area and riverside next to the temple, Hindu holy men were joined by devotees smoking marijuana.

Nepal was famous for marijuana and other narcotics in the 1960s, when hippies made their way to the Himalayan nation. Shops and teahouses used to advertise and sell it legally – until marijuana was outlawed in 1976.

Though still against the law in Nepal, a group of ruling party lawmakers and campaigners are trying to legalise the farming and use of marijuana. Currently, the use of marijuana is punishable by prison sentences of up to a month for users and 10 years for traffickers.

Pasa Puchah Guthi to organise Bisket Jatra in the UK

Posted on by SAT News Desk

London — Pasa Puchah Guthi, UK is organizing the Biska (Bisket) Jatra in the UK for the first time on Sunday 10 April 2022. It will be the first face2face event in over 2 years.

Biska Jatra is one of the most popular festivals of Bhaktapur. Pasa Puchah Guthi UK plans to celebrate this festival as the theme for Newah Muna( Newah Bhela).

Newah Bhela is celebrated as 2 yearly events by Pasa Puchah Guthi, UK. Pasa Puchah Guthi, UK plans to build Rath and pull it on the occasion of Biska Jatra Celebration. The event will be hosted by the South-East London Branch of Pasa Pucha Guthi UK and the event coordinator is Branch President, Mr. Madhav Shrestha.

According to the organiser, about 500 participants are expected from all over the UK. The venue for this event will be Asian Community Centre, Plumstead London. The ticket Price is £15 which includes two-course Newah meal

Sri Lanka imposes longest power cuts in 26 years

Posted on by SAT News Desk

Colombo — Sri Lanka on Tuesday announced nationwide seven-and-a-half hour daily power cuts, the longest in more than a quarter of a century, as its foreign exchange crisis leaves it unable to import oil.
The Public Utilities Commission said it was a “black day” for the island nation as it approved the electricity rationing starting Wednesday with power stations running out of fuel.
“What we are facing is not an issue of electricity capacity, but a foreign exchange crisis,” the regulatory commission said adding that the country was unable to find dollars to finance oil imports.
The cuts are the longest imposed since 1996, when the country relied on hydropower for as much as 80 percent of its electricity and a prolonged drought saw reservoirs run dry.
Under a new directive, all state institutions were also ordered to switch off their air conditioners in the afternoon to save energy,
Bus operators said they were unable to get diesel and about half the 11,000 fleet did not operate, although a public holiday Tuesday limited the consequences.
“We will see the full impact of the diesel shortage tomorrow when people go back to work,” the chairman of the private bus operators association, Gemunu Wijeratne, told AFP.
One of Sri Lanka’s biggest fuel suppliers, Lanka IOC, put up prices by as much as 12 percent on Saturday while the state-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) said it too asked the government to allow it to raise prices.
Nonetheless, many pumps were dry on Tuesday and there were long queues at petrol stations which were still open.
Energy minister Udaya Gammanpila told reporters on Saturday that the power crisis had been brought on by the dollar shortage, which he described as the “worst economic crisis since independence” from Britain in 1948.
Sri Lanka’s tourism sector, a key foreign-exchange earner, collapsed in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the government imposed a broad import ban in March 2020 to save foreign currency.
The country is now in the grip of an economic crisis, with widespread shortages, including food, medicines, automotive parts and cement, and supermarkets forced to ration staple foods including rice, sugar and milk powder.
The shortages pushed food inflation to 25 percent in January with overall inflation at 16.8 percent.

298 Nepali nationals fled from Ukraine

Posted on by SAT News Desk

Kathmandu —  298 Nepali nationals have fled Ukraine, which is facing undergoing Russian aggression.

According to the Nepali embassy in Germany, three Nepalis trapped in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv have also escaped safely.

Most of those who have left Ukraine have entered Poland.

According to the embassy, out of 298 people, 232 have arrived in Poland, 39 in Slovakia, 23 in Romania and four in Hungary.

Another Nepali student is still with Indian students in Kharkiv and preparations are being made to rescue him along with Indian students.

Death of Indian student in Ukraine unfortunate collateral damage, says Defence Expert

Posted on by SAT News Desk

New Delhi — Security experts in India have asked Indian nationals in war-hit areas of Ukraine to leave for safer places after an Indian student lost his life in shelling in Kharkiv city on Tuesday.
They call the incident unfortunate collateral damage in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis.
Major General (Retd) K K Sinha said, “The thing is that you have been told not to come out. He might have gone to the Kharkiv supermarket there. He must have gone to buy some food. There are many kinds of casualties. Collateral damage is always there.”
Naveen Shekharappa, a medical student from Karnataka’s Haveri died when Russian soldiers blew up a government building in Kharkiv this morning. Naveen was standing outside a grocery store when he was hit.
Sinha said, “See these people are not leaving in spite of all these advisories. Even through the media, we were telling them to please leave because it is a serious matter. The advisory is that people should just tag along with Russians as 80 per cent of Kharkiv and Kyiv are Russian and they all are on the Russian side”. (ANI)

Pakistani PM announces incentive package to promote industrial sector

Posted on by SAT News Desk

ISLAMABAD — Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday announced an incentive package to attract investment from local and expatriate business communities to strengthen Pakistan’s export-oriented industrial and manufacturing base.

Addressing businessmen and representatives of chambers of commerce and industry in the country’s eastern city of Lahore, Khan said that the policies are made to invite and incentivize overseas Pakistani entrepreneurs to invest in the industrial sector of Pakistan.

Besides, local businessmen in the joint venture will also enjoy five-year tax holiday, according to a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office.

The government is taking all these initiatives to promote export-oriented industries, which is vital for Pakistan’s socio-economic development and progress, he said, adding that these include measures to strengthen small and medium-sized enterprises and revival of sick industrial units.

“There was a need to attract 9 million overseas Pakistanis, which is a precious asset for the country, to invest in their homeland by incentivizing and giving them confidence in the protection of their hard-earned capital,” the prime minister added.

– Xinhua

Chef Santosh Shah’s book, Ayala, published in London

Posted on by SAT News Desk

London – The BBC Masterchef rematch title winner Chef Santosh Shah has come up with a cook book called Ayala. The book published well known publisher from London, DK books, is a collection of recipes of Nepali foods.

 

Shah left his village in Sarlahi in south-eastern Nepal at the age of 14 to look for a job in India. After his father Sitaram Shah’s death he had to leave his village so that he could earn enough to look after his mother Sumari Devi Shah and his family.

 

Santosh has 3 brothers, Ramashish Shah, Devnarayan Shah, Shrinarayan Shah, Dilip Shah and sisters, Prem Jyoti Mahato and Tiliya Shah. After spending many years in Indian restaurants and gradually rising on the Chef ladder, he became a celebrity chef.

 

Shah started his culinary journey in the UK working at Dishoom, an Indian chain restaurant, and since then he has worked with Michelin-starred Atul Kochhar, at Kochhar’s restaurant, Benares, and was also the executive chef at The LaLit London. He is now the head chef at the famed Cinnamon Kitchen, also in London.

 

The book is available  online on Amazon and also on major book shops in the United Kingdom.

 

“It is my effort to introduce Nepali recipe in simplistic form to promote Nepali food worldwide,” Shah told Southasiatime.

Lawmakers in Nepal voted in favor of the US $500-million grant

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Kathmandu — Nepal’s Parliament on Sunday approved a $500 million (€444 million) aid grant from the United States.

The government was able to convince enough lawmakers to approve the proposal following a brief debate, Speaker Agni Sapkota said. While the session was ongoing, protesters against the measure clashed with police outside the parliament building.

The grant was agreed in 2017 by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a US aid agency, to provide funds for a new electricity transmission line and road improvement project.

The Nepalese government, which originally sought the grant, says the aid is critical for the socio-economic development of the country and will benefit 24 million of Nepal’s 30-million population.

The aid does not need to be repaid and Washington says it comes with no strings attached.

This is the best time to invest in Nepal:  CNI VP Dhakal 

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London – Vice President of Confederation of Nepalese Industries (CNI), Hemraj Dhakal, said that Nepal is a suitable place for foreign investment despite some policy hurdles.

Addressing an interaction programme organised by Britain Nepal Chamber of Commerce (BNCC), Mr Dhakal, who is also Managing Director of the IME Group, appealed British businessmen to invest in Nepal saying  this is the best time to invest in Nepal.

‘Nepal is a virgin land for foreign investment,’ said Dhakal adding, ‘Where there is crisis and risk, there is an opportunity too. Political instability is not something that will last for a long time,’ he added.

Mr Dhakal said that he is  lobbying with the government to do away with the double taxation system and other practical hurdles for foreign investors. He said tourism, infrastructure, hydropower are major areas of investment in Nepal. He urged Nepali businessmen in the UK to support Nepal’s  prosperity by investing.

Speaking on the occasion, BNCC Vice President Biraj Bhatt and Honorary Chief Executive Richard Pelly said that the BNCC was working as a bridge between the two countries by encouraging British businessmen to invest in Nepal.

More than two dozen businessmen from the UK including Kul Acharya, Uttam Nepal, Kamal Poudel, Ravi Lamichhane and Yogen Chhetri participated in the event. Some businessmen inquired about the investment environment in Nepal along with the potential lucrative areas for investment.

Photo: Everest Gautam

 Coordinator of the program and BNCC Vice President Mr. Biraj Bhatt thanked all the participants stating that the discussion with the Director of Nepal’s Successful Business Group was useful for Nepali businessmen based in the UK.

South Korea: SK Bioscience to develop COVID-flu combo vaccine

Posted on by SAT News Desk

Seul —  As ‘flurona,’ which means having both COVID-19 and influenza at the same time, is recently popping up in many countries, including Israel, Brazil, the U.S., Hungary, and Croatia, concerns on ‘twindemic’ have emerged.

Currently, the infection rate of the flurona is low, but the mortality rate is six times higher than uninfected people and 2.3 times higher than patients with only COVID-19. Korean medical experts have also warned the risk of twindemic, and are recommending taking influenza vaccination.

Accordingly, many global pharmaceutical companies are developing a combo vaccine that prevents s COVID-19 and the flu at the same time. In Korea, SK Bioscience has started developing the combo vaccine. SK Bioscience is aiming to conduct clinical trials of the combo vaccine within the end of this year.

It is planning to develop the combo vaccine based on technology of its flu vaccine ‘Sky Cell Flu’ and COVID-19 vaccine, which is under development with the aim of obtaining approval in the first half of the year. SK is currently developing the combo vaccine as a synthetic antigen vaccine that combines flu and COVID-19 antigens.

In the global market, the U.S. Moderna is planning to release a combo vaccine that prevents COVID-19, flu, and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) as early as the fall of 2023. (ANI/Global Economic)

Pakistan confirms 1,232 new COVID-19 cases

Posted on by SAT News Desk

Islamabad — Pakistan confirmed 1,232 new COVID-19 cases over the last 24 hours, the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) said on Wednesday.

The NCOC, a department leading the nation’s campaign against the pandemic, said the country’s number of confirmed cases has increased to 1,503,873 while 1,409,515 out of them have recovered.

The country’s daily COVID-19 death toll witnessed a hike again after several days of decline as 43 people succumbed to the virus on Tuesday, taking the total number of coronavirus deaths to 30,096, said the NCOC statistics.

The active cases dropped to 64,262 after 3,154 patients recovered on Tuesday. There are 1,230 patients in critical condition and being treated at intensive care units in different hospitals of the country.

Pakistan’s southern Sindh province is the most-affected region of the country in terms of the number of cases with 565,319 infections, followed by the eastern Punjab province, which has reported 499,768 cases so far. ( Xinhua)

Chinese-owned capital management firm launched in Bangladesh

Posted on by SAT News Desk

Dhaka — A Chinese-owned capital management firm, CBC Capital & Equity Management Ltd., was launched in Dhaka on Tuesday, offering a new platform for Chinese enterprises to enter the Bangladeshi capital market.

Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Li Jiming said the launching of this new firm creates a capital management platform dedicated to providing merchant banking services to Chinese and other foreign investors in Bangladesh.

“It will play a vital role in boosting the confidence of foreign investment to Bangladesh and contributing to the development of the country’s capital market,” he said.

Noting that the rapidly developing Bangladeshi economy is an attractive investment destination for Chinese investors, the ambassador said he hoped the two countries will build a win-win partnership through capital and equity management cooperation.

Bangladeshi Ambassador to China Mahbub Uz Zaman congratulated on the establishment of the company and said Bangladesh posted an impressive GDP growth of 6.94 percent in the 2020-21 fiscal year despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

The China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative has been one of the components for meeting Bangladesh’s investment needs, including filling up the infrastructure gaps, he said.

The new capital management firm will focus on corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions advisory, sales and trading of stocks, asset management and investment research.

  • Xinhua

Hillingdon Hospital to celebrate “Nepal Day”

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London — Hillingdon Hospital, London has announced to celebrate “Nepal Day” on the 25th of February. The head of diversity and inclusion in Hillandon Hospital, Danny Karysninoz has informed regarding the event.

People from 78 countries are currently working in various positions in the hospital. The ‘Hillingdon Hospital Nepali Group’ working at Hillingdon Hospital is working to support the program.

The group includes Rasmita Singh Darlami, who is the manager of the hospital’s jersey ward, Mani Tamang, who works in the emergency room, Anjana Gurung and other Nepalis.

According to Darlami, audio-visuals covering various tourist destinations reflecting the geography and history of Nepal will be displayed during the event. Apart from this, pictures of Nepali art, music and other beautiful places and Nepali art will be exhibited at the hospital’s venue to celebrate “Nepal Day”. There are about 150 Nepalis working in the hospital.