Nepal received 4 million doses of Sinovac-CoronaVac Covid-19 vaccine from China.

According to the Department of Health Service, China provided 3.5 million doses of vaccine on Saturday and 500,000 on Monday under the grant assistance.

Badebabu Thapa, a senior official at the Logistic Management Section under the Department of Health Services, confirmed that Nepal received 4 million doses of Sinovac-CoronaVac Covid-19 vaccine.

It has been learnt that the vaccine can be administered to people above 18 years of age.

Earlier in May, the World Health Organization (WHO) had granted emergency use approval to the Sinovac-CoronaVac Covid-19 vaccine.

Gujarat Titans defeated Lucknow Super Giants by five wickets to start their IPL journey on a winning note, Hindustan Times reported.

Chasing 159 for the win, Rahul Tewatia (40 not out) and Abhinav Manohar (15*) held nerves and took Gujarat past the finish line with two balls to spare.

Earlier, pacer Dushmantha Chameera removed Shubman Gill and Vijay Shankar early in the powerplay to leave Gujarat Titans reeling at 44 for two after first six overs at the Wankhede Stadium. Skipper Hardik Pandya joined Matthew Wade after his team lost two early wickets in the chase, according to Hindustan Times.

Hardik and Wade added a 50 partnership but perished in quick succession. For Lucknow, Deepak Hooda and Ayush Badoni put up a rescue act to add a 50-run stand.

The pair bailed Lucknow Super Giants from a precarious situation as Lucknow reached 158 for six in 20 overs. Shami (3/25) produced one of the most breath-taking spells in the IPL before Hooda and Badoni resurrected the Lucknow innings, Hindustan Times reported.

Sri Lanka has sought an additional credit line of $1bn from India to import essentials amid its worst economic crisis in decades, Reuters has reported, citing two sources, as the Indian foreign minister began talks with the government of its neighbour, Aljazeera reported.

The island nation is struggling to pay for essential imports of food and fuel after a 70 percent drop in foreign exchange reserves since January 2020 led to a currency devaluation and efforts to seek help from global lenders.

New Delhi has indicated it would meet the request for the new line, to be used for importing essential items such as rice, wheat flour, pulses, sugar and medicine, said one of the sources briefed on the matter.

Sri Lanka has requested an additional $1 billion credit line from India for imports of essentials,” the second source said. “This will be on top of the $1-billion credit line already pledged by India.”

Both sources declined to be identified as the discussions were confidential.

The finance and foreign ministries of Sri Lanka, as well as India’s foreign ministry, did not immediately respond to requests for comment, according to Aljazeera.

Sri Lankan finance minister Basil Rajapaksa signed the earlier credit line of $1bn this month in the Indian capital of New Delhi to help pay for critical imports.

Indian foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar met Rajapaksa on Monday after arriving in the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo late the previous day.

“Discussed the economic situation and India’s supportive response,” Jaishankar said on Twitter, with a photograph of the two officials together.

In addition to the credit lines, India extended a $400m currency swap and a $500m credit line for fuel purchases to Sri Lanka earlier this year.

Sri Lanka’s imports stalled, causing shortages of many essential items, after foreign currency reserves fell to $2.31bn by February.

The nation, just off India’s southern tip, has to repay debt of about $4bn in the rest of this year, including a $1bn international sovereign bond that matures in July, according to Aljazeera.

Rajapaksa is set to fly to Washington, DC next month to start talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a rescue plan.

“India is also very supportive of Sri Lanka’s decision to seek an IMF programme and has given their fullest support,” one of the sources added, according to Aljazeera.

Will Smith has apologised to Chris Rock after he slapped him at the Oscars, saying his behaviour was "unacceptable and inexcusable", BBC reported.

"I would like to publicly apologise to you, Chris," he said in a statement. "I was out of line and I was wrong."

It comes after the Oscars film academy condemned Smith over the incident and announced a formal review.

The star slapped Rock in the face on stage after the comic made a joke about the actor's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.

Rock had taken aim at Pinkett Smith's shaved head, a result of the hair-loss condition alopecia, according to BBC.

Moments later Smith picked up the first Oscar of his career for playing the father of tennis legends Venus and Serena Williams in King Richard.

"Violence in all of its forms is poisonous and destructive," Smith said in the statement, which was posted to Instagram.

"My behaviour at last night's Academy Awards was unacceptable and inexcusable. Jokes at my expense are a part of the job, but a joke about Jada's medical condition was too much for me to bear and I reacted emotionally."

Smith apologised directly to Rock, stating he was "out of line". He also apologised to the Academy and the Williams family.

"I deeply regret that my behaviour has stained what has been an otherwise gorgeous journey for all of us," he wrote, BBC reported.

Prior to Smith's apology, the organisation behind the Oscars said in a statement that it "condemns the actions" of Smith.

"We have officially started a formal review around the incident and will explore further action and consequences in accordance with our Bylaws, Standards of Conduct and California law," it said, according to BBC.

About Us

The Annapurna Express is your one-stop guide to all the important developments in politics, business, society, entertainment, technology, automobiles, travel and much-much more. Our goal is to keep our readers informed and entertained with our eclectic selection of news, views and reviews. ApEx, Annapurna Media Network’s first and only English language product, is targeted at thoughtful readers with high purchasing power. We are not just another news weekly, but a newspaper that is going to be read all through the week for our exclusive and targeted contents.

Chairman
Capt. Rameshwar Thapa

Publishing Director
Sachan Thapa

Editor
Kamal Dev Bhattarai

Senior Correspondent
Cilla Khatry

Copy Editor
Kumod Dewan Basnet

Online Coordinator
Sanjaya Lama

Correspondents
Anushka Nepal
Pratik Ghimire

Contributors
Aprajita Jha
Keyur Basnet
Nihar R Nayak
Ravi M Singh
Sunny Mahat

Designers
Binod Kumar Shrestha
Kiran Shrestha

Photo/Video
Pratik Rayamajhi

Contact Address
Corporate Tower, Tinkune, Kathmandu, Nepal
Post Box no. 24999
Phone: +977-1-4482305, 4482199
Email: [email protected]
[email protected]

Ukrainian forces claimed to have retaken a Kyiv suburb and an eastern town from the Russians in what is becoming a back-and-forth stalemate on the ground, while negotiators began assembling for another round of talks Tuesday aimed at stopping the fighting, Associated Press reported.

Ahead of the talks, to be held in Istanbul, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country is prepared to declare its neutrality, as Moscow has demanded, and is open to compromise on the fate of the Donbas, the contested region in the country’s east.

The mayor of Irpin, a northwestern Kyiv suburb that has been the scene of some of the heaviest fighting near the capital, said Monday that the city has been “liberated” from Russian troops.

Zelenskyy warned that Russian forces are trying to regroup after losing the area.

“We still have to fight, we have to endure,” the president said late Monday in his nighttime video address to the nation. “We can’t express our emotions now. We can’t raise expectations, simply so that we don’t burn out.”

Irpin gained wide attention after photos circulated of a mother and her two children who were killed by shelling as they tried to flee, their bodies lying on the pavement with luggage and a pet carrier nearby, according to the Associated Press.

A senior US defense official said the US believes the Ukrainians have also retaken the town of Trostyanets, south of Sumy, in the east.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss US intelligence assessments, said Russian forces largely remained in defensive positions near the capital, Kyiv, and were making little forward progress elsewhere in the country.

The official said Russia appeared to be de-emphasizing ground operations near Kyiv and concentrating more on the Donbas, the predominantly Russian-speaking region where Moscow-backed rebels have been waging a separatist war for the past eight years, Associated Press reported.

Late last week, with its forces bogged down in parts of the country, Russia seemed to scale back its war aims, saying its main goal was gaining control of the Donbas.

While that suggested a possible face-saving exit strategy for Russian President Vladimir Putin, it also raised Ukrainian fears that the Kremlin intends to split the country in two and force it to surrender a swath of its territory.

Meanwhile, a cyberattack knocked Ukraine’s national telecommunications provider Ukrtelecom almost completely offline. The chief of Ukraine’s state service for special communication, Yurii Shchyhol, blamed “the enemy” without specifically naming Russia and said most customers were cut off from telephone, internet and mobile service so that coverage could continue for Ukraine’s military.

Also Monday, an oil depot in western Ukraine’s Rivne region was hit by a missile attack, the governor said. It was the second attack on oil facilities in the region near the Polish border, according to the Associated Press.

In recent days, Ukrainian troops have pushed the Russians back in other sectors.

In the city of Makariv, near a strategic highway west of the capital, Associated Press reporters saw the carcass of a Russian rocket launcher, a burned Russian truck, the body of a Russian soldier and a destroyed Ukrainian tank after fighting there a few days ago. In the nearby village of Yasnohorodka, the AP witnessed positions abandoned by Ukrainian soldiers who had moved farther west, but no sign of Russian troops.

And on Friday, the US defense official said the Russians were no longer in full control of Kherson, the first major city to fall to Moscow’s forces. The Kremlin denied it had lost full control of the southern city, Associated Press reported.

President Joe Biden said Monday that he would make “no apologies” and wasn’t “walking anything back” after his weekend comment that Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power,” attempting to turn the page on a controversy that clouded his recent trip to Europe, Associated Press reported.

The president also insisted he’s not calling for regime change in Moscow, which would have represented a dramatic shift toward direct confrontation with another nuclear-armed country.

“I was expressing the moral outrage that I felt toward this man,” Biden said. “I wasn’t articulating a policy change.”

The president’s jarring remark about Putin, which came at the end of a Saturday speech in Warsaw that was intended to rally democracies for a long global struggle against autocracy, drew criticism in the United States and rattled some allies in Western Europe.

Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said he believed Biden’s comments Monday were “an effective way for the president to move beyond what was an unforced error.” Haass had originally been concerned that aggressive American rhetoric could “make Putin feel like he had little to lose by hanging tough or even escalating.”

Biden rejected the idea that his comment could escalate tensions over the war in Ukraine or that it would fuel Russian propaganda about Western aggression, according to the Associated Press.

“Nobody believes ... I was talking about taking down Putin,” Biden said, adding that “the last thing I want to do is engage in a land war or a nuclear war with Russia.”

He said he was expressing an “aspiration” rather than a goal of American foreign policy. 

“People like this shouldn’t be ruling countries. But they do,” he said. “The fact they do doesn’t mean I can’t express my outrage about it.”

Biden’s remark in Warsaw ricocheted around the globe despite the White House’s swift attempts to clarify that the president only meant that Putin “cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region.”

On Monday, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres responded to Biden’s speech by saying that “we need de-escalation. We need military de-escalation and rhetoric de-escalation.”

Although Biden has frequently touted American unity with European allies since the invasion of Ukraine began, he appears to have caused some discomfort by targeting Putin in Warsaw, Associated Press reported.

French President Emanuel Macron said Sunday he “wouldn’t use those terms, because I continue to speak to President Putin, because what do we want to do collectively? We want to stop the war that Russia launched in Ukraine, without waging war and without escalation.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken was forced to continue clarifying Biden’s speech during a trip through the Middle East, where he had intended to focus on solidifying American partnerships as the administration seeks a renewed nuclear agreement with Iran. 

Speaking at a news conference in Jerusalem, Blinken said Biden meant that “Putin cannot be empowered to wage war or engage in aggression against Ukraine or anyone else.”

Biden has previously gone further than expected when speaking about Putin, describing him as a “war criminal” at a time when administration officials were saying they were still conducting a review of the matter, according to the Associated Press.

{"version": 2, "isGlobalStylesUserThemeJSON": true }