Nepalinews

QUETTA:  A Pakistani Taliban suicide bomber rammed a car into a police truck in the southwestern city of Quetta on Wednesday, killing at least seven people, police said. The attack killed five police officials and two passers-by on the outskirts of the volatile frontier city, Quetta police chief Abdur Razzaq Cheema said. He said another 22 people were wounded, eight of them critically. Sarfraz Bugti, the home minister of Baluchistan province, told Reuters: “It was a suicide blast.” Quetta is the capital of Baluchistan province and lies about 100 km (60 miles) east of the border with Afghanistan. Bugti said the truck carrying the police officials was on its way to the city to drop them at their posts when the suicide bomber rammed into the vehicle, ripping it apart. Television pictures showed the burnt wreckage of the vehicles. The Pakistani Taliban, an umbrella of various militant groups within Pakistan and loosely allied to the Afghan Taliban, issued a statement claimi

MADRID:  Spain’s prime minister on Wednesday urged Catalonia’s leaders to back down from their bid to gain independence for the region, a day before a central government deadline that could significantly deepen the country’s political crisis. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has given Catalan president Carles Puigdemont until Thursday morning to clarify whether he is making the wealthy region independent.     AD      The Madrid-based national government is threatening to take the unprecedented step of seizing some or total control of the semi-autonomous region if Puigdemont proceeds with his ambitions of secession. That would likely trigger an explosive reaction in Catalonia. With the clock ticking, Rajoy called on Puigdemont to “act sensibly” and heed the interests of all Spaniards and Catalans. Addressing Puigdemont’s party lawmakers in the Spanish parliament, Rajoy said they should try to convince the Catalan leader “not to make any more problems.” The tension remained high,

ABIDJAN:  At least four people were killed on Saturday when a propeller-engine cargo plane crashed into the sea near the international airport in Ivory Coast’s main city Abidjan, a Reuters witness said. Firefighters and rescue divers removed two bodies from the plane, which had broken into several pieces and come to rest near the beach. Two other bodies were visible in the wreckage.Another witness saw two injured survivors. The crash occurred during a storm with heavy rain and lightning and rescuers were hampered by rough seas. Though Abidjan’s airport is located in a heavily populated area, it did not appear there were any victims on the ground. The name of the company operating the aircraft was not immediately known. The airport in Abidjan, a city of around 5 million people, is a busy regional transportation hub. It is also used by the French military which operates a logistics base there in support of an anti-Islamist militant operation in West Africa’s Sahel region.

BEIJING:  China’s ruling Communist Party has agreed to amend the party constitution, expected to embed President Xi Jinping’s political thought, ahead of next week’s five-yearly party congress in which Xi will further tighten his grip on power. The party’s Central Committee, the largest of its elite ruling bodies, on Saturday passed a previously announced proposal to amend the constitution which will now be put to the Congress for formal approval.                                                                           A lengthy communique released by the party via state media offered praise for the past five years under Xi’s leadership, especially success in the fight against corruption, but did not say what wording would be inserted into the party constitution. A key measure of Xi’s power will be whether he manages to have his name “crowned” in the party constitution, elevating him to the level of previous leaders exemplified by Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory.

SONOMA:  Firefighters gained ground on Thursday against wildfires that have killed at least 31 people in Northern California and left hundreds missing in the chaos of mass evacuations in the heart of the state’s wine country. The death toll, revised upward by eight on Thursday, marked the greatest loss of life from a single California wildfire event in recorded state history, two more than the 29 people killed by the Griffith Park fire of 1933 in Los Angeles.With 3,500 homes and businesses incinerated, the so-called North Bay fires also rank among the most destructive. The flames have scorched more than 190,000 acres (77,000 hectares), an area nearly the size of New York City, reducing whole neighborhoods in the city of Santa Rosa to ash and smoldering ruins dotted with charred trees and burned-out cars. The official cause of the disaster was under investigation, but officials said power lines toppled by gale-force winds on Sunday night may have sparked the conflagration. A

SEOUL:  A series of tremors and landslides near North Korea’s nuclear test base likely mean the country’s sixth and largest blast has destabilised the region, and the Punggye-ri nuclear site may not be used for much longer to test nuclear weapons, experts say. A small quake was detected early on Friday near the North’s nuclear test site, South Korea’s weather agency said, but unlike quakes associated with nuclear tests, it did not appear to be manmade. The tremor was the latest in a string of at least three shocks to be observed since Pyongyang’s September 3 nuclear test, which caused a 6.3 magnitude earthquake.                                                                 Friday’s quake was a magnitude 2.7 with a depth of 3 km in North Hamgyong Province in North Korea, the Korea Meteorological Administration said. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) measured the quake at 2.9 magnitude at a depth of 5 km. The series of quakes has prompted experts and observers to suspe

MADRID:  Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy demanded Wednesday that the leader of Catalonia clarify whether he has declared the region’s independence, issuing a veiled threat that the central government could limit or rescind Catalan autonomy if he has. Rajoy said Catalan president Carles Puigdemont’s response would be crucial in deciding “events over the coming days.”The prime minister’s remarks marked the first time that Rajoy has openly said that invoking a section of the Spanish Constitution that allows the government to assert control over regions would be the next step, if Catalan authorities don’t backtrack. The central government “wants to offer certainty to citizens” and it was “necessary to return tranquility and calm,” he said following a special Cabinet meeting. Rajoy’s demand was in response to Puigdemont’s announcement that he was proceeding with a declaration of independence following the disputed secession referendum Catalonia held on Oct. 1 referendum, but

TOKYO:  A Japanese court on Tuesday ordered the government and the operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant to pay 500 million yen ($4.5 million) to thousands of former area residents who were demanding compensation for their livelihoods lost in the 2011 nuclear crisis. The Fukushima District Court said the government had failed to order Tokyo Electric Power Co. to improve safety measures despite knowing as early as 2002 of a risk of a massive tsunami in the region. The 3,800 plaintiffs, who sued in 2015, form the largest group among about 30 similar lawsuits involving 12,000 people pending across Japan. It was the second verdict that held the government accountable in the Fukushima meltdowns. The court upheld the plaintiffs’ argument that the disaster could have been prevented if the economy and industry ministry had ordered TEPCO to move emergency diesel generators from the basement to higher ground and make the reactor buildings water-tight based on 2002 data that sug

TOKYO:  Kim Jong Un has promoted his younger sister to a new post within North Korea’s ruling party. The promotion of Kim Yo Jong came at a meeting of senior party members as North Korea marked the 20th anniversary of Kim Jong Il’s acceptance of the title of general secretary of the ruling Worker’s Party of Korea. Kim Yo Jong was made an alternate member of the decision-making political bureau of the party’s central committee. The late Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s “eternal general secretary,” is the father of Kim Jong Un and Kim Yo Jong. Thousands of people, mostly students, packed Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang to dance and watch fireworks to mark the anniversary on Sunday night. Earlier in the day, North Korean state media announced that the country’s top leadership had gathered the day before, headed by current leader Kim Jong Un. Kim repeated Pyongyang’s defiance of the US and its determination to push forward its nuclear program, while bringing a “fresh upswing” in

STOCKHOLM:  The Nobel economics prize has been awarded to Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago for research showing how people’s choices on economic matters — whether on savings or game shows like “Deal or No Deal” — are not always rational. The 9-million-kronor ($1.1-million) prize was awarded to the academic for his “understanding the psychology of economics,” Swedish Academy of Sciences secretary Goran Hansson said Monday. The Nobel committee said that as a pioneer in behavioral economics, Thaler has built a bridge between economics and psychology to show a “more realistic analysis of how people think and behave when making economic decisions.” It said his research has expanded economic analysis by considering three psychological traits: limited rationality, perceptions about fairness and lack of self-control. Speaking by phone to a news conference immediately after he was announced as the prize winner, Thaler said the most important impact of his work is “the

BARCELONA:  Hundreds of thousands of people rallied Sunday in downtown Barcelona to protest against the plans of Catalonia’s regional government to secede from the rest of Spain. The march was the largest pro-union showing since the rise of separatist sentiment in the prosperous northeastern region that has pushed Spain to the brink of a national crisis.Barcelona police said 350,000 people participated, while march organizers Societat Civil Catalana said that 930,000 people turned out. Those numbers resemble the pro-independence rallies that Barcelona has seen in recent years. Many in the crowd who marched through the city center under the slogan of “Let’s recover our common sense!” carried Spanish, Catalan and European Union flags. Some chanted “Don’t be fooled, Catalonia is Spain” and called for Catalan president Carles Puigdemont to go to prison. Sunday’s rally comes a week after the Catalan government went ahead and held a referendum on secession that Spain’s top court

BEIRUT:  Iranian President Hassan Rouhani defended the nuclear deal with Western powers Saturday and said that US President Donald Trump could not undermine it. Under the 2015 deal, Iran agreed to limit its disputed nuclear programme in return for the easing of economic sanctions. However, Trump is expected to announce soon that he will decertify the deal, a senior administration official has said, in a step that potentially could cause the accord to unravel. “In the nuclear negotiations and agreement we reached issues and benefits that are not reversible. No one can turn that back, not Mr Trump or anyone else,” Rouhani said at a ceremony at Tehran University marking the start of the university academic year, according to state media. “Even if 10 other Trumps are created in the world, these are not reversible.” Trump, who has called the pact an “embarrassment” and “the worst deal ever negotiated”, has been weighing whether the deal serves US security interests as he faces t

STOCKHOLM:   Japanese-born Kazuo Ishiguro has won the Nobel Prize for Literature for uncovering “the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world,” the Swedish Academy said on Thursday on awarding the 9 million crown ($1.1 million) prize. The award marks a return to a more mainstream interpretation of literature after the 2016 prize went to American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan.The prize is named after dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel and has been awarded since 1901 for achievements in science, literature and peace in accordance with his will.

LAS VEGAS:  The Las Vegas gunman’s girlfriend, back in the United States after a weekslong trip abroad, will be at the center of the investigation into the shooting deaths of 59 people as authorities try to determine why a man with no known record of violence or crime would open fire on a concert crowd from a high-rise hotel. Stephen Paddock’s girlfriend Marilou Danley, 62, who was in the Philippines at the time of the shooting, was met by FBI agents at the airport in Los Angeles late Tuesday night, according to a law enforcement official.The official wasn’t authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Sheriff Joseph Lombardo, who has called Danley a “person of interest” in the attack, said that “we anticipate some information from her shortly,” and said he is “absolutely” confident authorities will find out what set off Paddock, a 64-year-old high-stakes gambler and retired accountant who killed himself before police st