Submit your Article

Export of tea has increased by 40.50 percent in the 11 months of the current fiscal year 2024/25. 

According to the Mechi Customs Office, tea worth Rs 3. 86 billion has been exported until the month of Ashad (Mid-June). 

During the 11 months of the current fiscal year, 14,463.33 metric tonnes of tea has been exported, as informed by Ishwar Kumar Humagain, the information officer at the Mechi Customs Office.

In the fiscal year 2024/25, tea worth Rs 2. 75 billion was exported. 

According to the office's statistics, cardamom exports have decreased by 3.80 percent until the end of the month of Jestha (Mid-June) in the current fiscal year. In the 11 months of the current fiscal year, cardamom exports are worth Rs 7. 18  billion have been recorded.

In the last fiscal year, cardamom worth Rs. 7 billion 452 million was exported during the same period. 

The main exported items include veneer sheets at 67 percent, iron sheets at 9.6 percent, plywood at 11.60 percent, and molasses which saw a 400.50 percent increase in exports, the Office said.

Similarly, export of cement clinker decreased by 12.60 percent, ginger by 59.70 percent, Amriso (broom grass) by 15.2 percent, and Chhurpi (traditional hardened yak cheese) by 7.7 percent.

In the current fiscal year's 11 months, goods worth Rs 23. 28  billion have been exported through the Mechi customs.

The Pokhara Metropolitan City has unveiled its annual budget of Rs 8.35 billion for the fiscal year 2025/26.

Deputy Mayor Manju Devi Gurung presented the budget in the 17th municipal assembly of the metropolitan city on Sunday. 

The budget has estimated the revenue of Rs 3.13 billion from federal conditional grants, Rs Rs 330.08 million from federal revenue sharing, Rs 528.7 million from federal equalization grant, Rs 0.815 million from province equalization grant. 

Deputy Mayor Gurung informed that the internal revenue is estimated to be Rs 5.22 billion. The metropolis is expected to receive Rs 1.1 billion from local revenue sharing and Rs 32.8 million from province revenue sharing. 

Among the key priorities of the budget include green, resilient and sustainable infrastructure development, and tourism promotion, the budget proposal stated. 

It has also laid emphasis on environment protection, preservation, solid waste management, inclusive, balanced and equitable development, institutional development, good governance promotion and quality service delivery. 

Iran and Israel traded air and missile strikes as the world braced on Monday for Tehran's response to the U.S. attack on its nuclear sites and U.S. President Donald Trump raised the idea of regime change in the Islamic republic, Reuters reported.

Iran vowed to defend itself on Sunday, a day after the U.S. joined Israel in the biggest Western military action against the country since its 1979 Islamic Revolution, despite calls for restraint and a return to diplomacy from around the world.

Commercial satellite imagery indicated the U.S. attack on Saturday on Iran’s subterranean Fordow nuclear plant severely damaged or destroyed the deeply buried site and the uranium-enriching centrifuges it housed, but the status of the site remained unconfirmed, experts said, according to Reuters.

In his latest social media comments on the U.S. strikes, Trump said "Monumental Damage was done to all Nuclear sites in Iran."

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called on China to prevent Iran from closing the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most important shipping routes, BBC reported.

His comments came after Iran's state-run Press TV reported that parliament had approved a plan to close the Strait but added that the final decision lies with the Supreme National Security Council. 

Any disruption to the supply of oil would have profound consequences for the economy. China in particular is the world's largest buyer of Iranian oil and has a close relationship with Tehran, according to BBC.

Oil prices surged following the US attack on Iranian nuclear sites, with the price of the benchmark Brent crude reaching its highest level in five months.

Colombia's military says 57 soldiers have been kidnapped by civilians in the country's south-western Micay Canyon area, BBC reported.

It says 31 soldiers were seized on Saturday while the rest were abducted on Sunday by a group of more than 200 people. 

The military says the civilians are acting under pressure from dissidents of the Farc rebel group which agreed a peace deal with the government in 2016.

The mountainous region is a key zone for cocaine production and remains one of the most tense in the country's ongoing conflict with rebel groups, according to BBC.

The world grappled Sunday with the United States inserting itself into Israel’s war by attacking Iranian nuclear sites, an operation that raised urgent questions about what remained of Tehran’s nuclear program and how its weakened military might respond, Associated Press reported.

Experts warned that worldwide efforts to contain the spread of nuclear weapons by peaceful means would be at stake in the days ahead, while fears of a wider regional conflict loomed large. The price of oil rose as financial markets reacted.

Iran lashed out at the U.S. for crossing “a very big red line” with its risky gambit to strike the three sites with missiles and 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs, according to Associated Press.

Iran’s U.N. ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council that the U.S. “decided to destroy diplomacy,” and that the Iranian military will decide the “timing, nature and scale” of a “proportionate response.” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi flew to Moscow to coordinate with close ally Russia.

The State Department has doubled the number of emergency evacuation flights it is providing for American citizens wishing to leave Israel, ordered the departure of nonessential staff from the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon and is stepping up travel warnings around the Middle East because of concerns Iran will retaliate against U.S. interests in the region for the weekend strikes on its nuclear facilities, Associated Press reported.

In an alert sent to all Americans worldwide and posted to its website on Sunday, the State Department warned all U.S. citizens abroad to exercise caution.

“The conflict between Israel and Iran has resulted in disruptions to travel and periodic closure of airspace across the Middle East,” it said. “There is the potential for demonstrations against U.S. citizens and interests abroad. The Department of State advises U.S. citizens worldwide to exercise increased caution,” according to Associated Press.

A Russian drone and missile attack on Ukraine’s capital overnight killed at least four people and injured others, according to Ukraine’s emergency services, as rescue workers and firefighters sought to remove people they believed trapped under debris in a partially collapsed apartment building, Associated Press reported.

The strikes came nearly a week after a combined Russian attack on Ukraine last Tuesday killed 28 people in Kyiv, 23 of them in a residential building that collapsed after sustaining a direct hit by a missile. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called that attack one of the biggest bombardments of the war, now in its fourth year.

In the early hours of Monday, drones and missiles hit residential areas, hospitals and sports infrastructure in numerous districts across Kyiv, emergency services said, with the most severe damage occurring in the Shevchenkivskyi district, where one section of a five-story apartment building collapsed, according to Associated Press.