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Greetings from the picturesque and remote landscapes of Karnali! Here, where the sun is known to rise in the east and set in the west, I found myself witnessing a rare phenomenon—the sun rising from the west, or rather, from the heart of Karnali. And what led me to this unique experience? A travel grant to the UN Climate Summit COP28 in Dubai, courtesy of UNDP. As I pen down my thoughts, let me take you on a journey through the lens of a journalist from the often-overlooked Karnali province, who found himself amidst the global discourse on climate change.

They say the first time is always special, and indeed, I stand as possibly the first journalist from Karnali to attend the COP28. It was not just an opportunity but a responsibility to bring the unheard voices of my region to the forefront, and I was ready for the challenge. My preconceived notions about climate change were shattered like glass. It was not merely about taps running dry in Surkhet or the ravaging floods and droughts. COP28 unfolded before me a complex tapestry of issues—loss and damage, climate financing, and a plethora of intricacies I had not fathomed before. My understanding of climate change took a leap from the shallow waters into the depth of its complexities.

One of the most surprising revelations was the structure of COP itself. Before attending COP, I thought COP meant a grand conference hall with high-profile individuals delivering eloquent speeches while we applauded. To my amazement, there were numerous meetings and pavilions, each dedicated to different topics and countries passionately raising their concerns. Amidst this diverse gathering, Nepal stood out, but not for the reasons I anticipated. 

Our officials seemed fixated on a singular demand—money. While other nations showcased innovative solutions and offered assistance, Nepal appeared to be on a different wavelength, asking for financial support without contributing substantial ideas or learning from others. We should perhaps focus more on what we can offer, what policies we have in place, and learn from the successes of others.

The international community, in response to Nepal’s grant requests, expressed doubts about our capacity to utilize the funds effectively. Instead of wholeheartedly supporting our plea, they questioned why Nepal struggled to maximize the benefits from existing grants. It was a stark reality check, urging us to introspect on our implementation strategies. On a lighter note, for my fellow journalists, having a press pass is the golden key to expedited access. My lack of one led me to endure a three-hour queue before gaining entry to the conference venue. Note to self: Always secure that press pass!

As I reflect on this unparalleled opportunity bestowed upon me by UNDP, I can’t help but advocate for similar chances for journalists outside the Kathmandu bubble. There’s a treasure trove of stories waiting to be uncovered in Madhes Province, Sudurpaschim Province, and even in remote districts of Karnali. UNDP, you’ve opened a door; let’s ensure more windows are unlatched for those in the overlooked corners of our nation. In closing, from the heart of Karnali to the global stage in Dubai, my journey at COP28 has been nothing short of extraordinary. The sun may rise in the east, but the stories from the west are equally compelling and deserve a place in the grand narrative of climate change.

Amid rising geopolitical tensions and escalating international conflicts, North Korea has successfully launched its first ever ‘Spy Satellite” into space to monitor the military activities of its adversaries—the US and its allies—in the Korean peninsula in real-time. More importantly, it would help in making its nuclear plan more precise. Earlier, Pyongyang closed dozens of its embassies, including in Nepal. North Korea has recently pledged to support Hamas in its war against Israel, while the US has blamed it for supporting Russia in the Ukraine war. North Korea is perhaps preparing for a nuke war with the US by claiming that the US could enter the Korean Peninsula with a ‘war-mongering’ attitude following the inducement of chaos in Eastern Europe and the Mideast. The US has deployed a ‘guided-missile submarine’ (nuclear submarine that can contain Ballistic Missile and Cruise Missile) in the Mideast with a message to Iran to not get involved in the Israel-Palestine war. If the flames of the Mideast war, unfortunately, spread to the Arab World, the Korean Peninsula, and to Taiwan, finally, the turmoil will exponentially outstrip beyond imagination or control of any of the superpowers.

While President Xi Xinping and President Joe Biden met face-to-face in San Francisco this week, as two largest economies and great powers of the world, China and the US should not only focus on their bilateral relations, but also think about global issues, including international peace, stability and the world order.

Previously, when the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Vostochny Cosmodrome near Vladivostok, the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro met Chinese President Xi Xing Ping in Beijing, while both Xi and Putin avoided the recent G20 meeting hosted by India. North Korea has been close to China and Russia and is constantly threatening the west, particularly the US, by repeatedly testing modern ballistic missiles. The G20 nations were contentious to logically end the Ukraine crisis, while the summit officially remained reluctant to condemn Russia that could have boosted Putin’s morale to further strategize the war. Putin is perhaps optimistic regarding the outcome of US election-2024 hoping that the incoming administration in the White House would revise the US strategy on Ukraine—that could favor him winning the war in Ukraine. China, on the other hand, is widely garnering support for its global political march, while the US is desperately making alliances to counter China. The nuke and superpower’s irrational competition on illicit supremacy is inducing global disorder.

Equally, various terrorist organizations are contributing to making the international system more anarchic and fueling social disorder. Samuel P Huntington remarked in The Clash of Civilizations 

that “Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault-lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future”, which remains relevant even today.

The diplomatic sneering between Saudi Arabia and the US in the past following the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi perhaps played a key role in altering the diplomatic courses in the Gulf. Subsequently, the Arab World got united after China brokered a diplomatic deal, thereby solidifying its presence in the Mideast. The flaring tension in bilateral relations between India and Canada following the killing of Canadian Sikh Hardeep Singh Nijjar could now change the “politico-diplomatic strategies” in the Indo-Pacific, while the said intelligence sharing by the US ambassador to Canada regarding the killing of Sikh separatist leader Nijjar could not only deteriorate India-US relations, but could also dilute the US presence in the region by jeopardizing the future of the Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS). This could subsequently help reinforce China’s clout in the region and beyond.

Bilateral matters are internal affairs of nations, but the “hate crimes”—embedded in religious beliefs—can have spillover effects and cause ethnic war, instigating huge losses to human civilization, if not handled with utmost sense of rationality.  The religious radicalism—that is emotionally rooted to socio-cultural belief—could not only divide communities, but also largely rift humanity. It could also create space for the emergence of additional terrorists and criminal groups. The historical records or incidents of various civilizational clashes show that religious conflicts have always resulted in lose-lose outcomes. 

Conversely, both the states and their regimes want to cash in on ethnic nationalism for immediate political gains. However, both the state and their democratic strength suffer in the long run. 

South Asia is highly sensitive to religious or ethnic violence because the region is believed to be a Hindu-dominated civilization along with mixed minority religious groups, including Muslims and others that have been often witnessing domination from the former since ancient times, blame the critics. The minority groups sometimes outburst with grievances, ego or prejudice and encounters with the majority ones, which subsequently could escalate to civilizational clash leading to ethnic cleansing.

India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have been constantly witnessing ethnic violence or terrorist attacks that are deep-rooted to religious radicalism. Nepal has also been witnessing instances of social and ethnic differences, particularly hatred sentiments or pursuits against Hindu beliefs or Hinduism, in recent times. Some internal and external actors are trying to sow the seeds of social disharmony in the Nepali society in the name of globalization of culture, perhaps, with shrewd hidden interests. On the other hand, social order is being constantly challenged due to social irresponsibility of some so called communally recognized individuals including people’s representatives, social frontrunners and Opinion makers. Various studies show that the major source of knowledge or information to the new generation has become ‘short clips’ or ‘posts’ from social media— that rarely have depth of information, facts or evidence, data or statistics, and data analysis regarding the content. Likewise, some Opinion makers in mainstream media dig deeper only into the problems just by criticizing, blaming and inducing negative emotions to the general public for the sake of immediate popularity, instead of identifying possible solutions, ideas, innovations and sense of socio-emotional cohesiveness by incorporating facts, data, discussions, critical analysis and integrity. Accordingly, the inheritance of superficial knowledge or disinformation could induce misperception leading to adverse incitements in the mind of young readers, which could result in substantial ‘knowledge deficit’ when knowledge is transferred from one generation to another. Consequently, this could weaken ‘national knowledge power’ causing huge loss to the nation in the long run.

Nevertheless, the innovative technology, advanced society or antique democracy alone cannot bring significant transformation in human life, civilization or political affairs, a “conscious and responsible behavior” is essential in every human being including tech users, technocrats, policy makers, social and political actors. The tech, diplomatic and political policies and strategies should reflect democratic values that advance liberty and humanity, and respect human rights as well as people’s personal sovereign dignity. The AI, big tech and social media first need to be democratized so that they can contribute to a democratic order. Most importantly, a trustful multilateral (diplomatic) channel should be established so as to enable countries to develop responsible and ethical technology, while honest and ethical use (or practice) of AI technology, social media, or cultural beliefs will indeed advance people’s life, society, democracy and state-to-state relations. Technology however has brought about great transformations in human life, economy and the state of affairs; social media undeniably is one of the momentous entities of liberal world order when it complies with ‘ethical norms’, ‘comity’ and ‘civism’.

Primarily, domestic issues are entirely sovereign internal affairs of nations, while no foreign nationals or government can perhaps raise objections against their domestic laws and constitutional provisions. Yet, the concerns—tech, social and democratic—are highly sensitive due to the impact they may have on the region and beyond. Thus, it’s high time to restore trust and harmony among nation-states and nationals of distinct communities by initiating “rational civic dialogue”. The stronger and cohesive the social accord in a country, the higher the prospect of political stability, economic prosperity and democratic enlivening. 

Essentially, nation-states require truthful, collaborative and cooperative action among governments, civic community, multilateral organizations, universities, NGOs, think tanks and creative individuals to inject a specific ‘gene’ consisting of ‘harmony, humanity and civility’ into political leaders in the generations to come. 

The leadership endowed with this gem of a gene, let’s hope, will be able to course through a complex techno-socio-democratic order.  

This is the last piece of a three-part series

The author is a geopolitical analyst

Dieticians maintain that eating fiber-rich food offers a load of health benefits. You may have a clue that fiber found in foods is known for its faculty to prevent or relieve constipation.

That’s, however, only the tip of the iceberg. A fiber-dense diet furnishes several other dominant versatility to maintain overall good health, cutting the risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes, coronary ailments, and even some cancers. Before launching into the health benefits of fiber, some knowledge about dietary fiber might be helpful.

So, what’s dietary fiber? Also dubbed roughage, it includes foods from plant sources our body cannot absorb or digest. Surprisingly, it also falls under a type of good carbohydrate (polysaccharides).

Contrary to food ingredients like fats, proteins, or carbohydrates comfortably expended by our metabolism, fiber, when consumed, remains undigested. Strangely, it travels relatively unbroken through the stomach, small intestine, and colon and exits out of the body.

For us, this may sound contradictory. Still, medical dieticians and nutritionists argue that our body needs it, and we can’t do without it for its outstanding role in helping maintain reasonable health and wellness, keeping us at bay from chronic diseases.

In recent decades, our diet took a sharp switchover from our conventional fiber-based nutrient-rich to ultra-processed and junk food lacking dietary fiber, more so in Westernized societies, triggering high risks of chronic diseases.

Our bowels work as digestive or gastrointestinal apparatus, which take on the responsibility of helping the body absorb essential nutrients and fluids from the foods we eat and drink. After obtaining everything the body needs, the bowel expels the leftover waste. To that end, maintaining a smooth bowel function is pivotal in sustaining good health in general. Dietary fiber combined with ample fluid intake is consequently indispensable.

Fiber has two classifications: soluble and insoluble. Soluble fiber dissolves in water to turn into a gel-like substance. It can be eaten from oats, beans, legumes, apples, citrus fruits, carrots, barley, and green peas, to name a few.

Insoluble fiber promotes the mobility of ingested food through our digestive process and boosts stool bulk, helping those with constipation. Foods like whole wheat flour, nuts, beans, and vegetables, including green beans, kidney beans, potatoes, and cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, Bok choy, and cabbage, are excellent sources of insoluble fiber. You may not know that roasted soybeans pack a very high fiber content.

Benefits of a high-fiber diet

Besides normalizing bowel movements and fine-tuning our metabolism, a fiber-dense diet provides various other health benefits. Let’s take a look at some helpful healthcare benefits of fiber.

• Beneficial to diabetes: A high-fiber diet improves glycemia and insulin sensitivity in non-diabetic and diabetic persons. Since our body cannot absorb and break down fiber, it does not set off blood-sugar spikes like other carbohydrates.

As stated by Harvard Medical School, “People whose diets are high in fiber are less   likely to have problems such as metabolic syndrome, which can be a precursor to diabetes.” Thus, fiber-rich meals help maintain, organize, and stabilize blood sugar to a healthy level.

• Helps promote cardiovascular disease: The soluble fiber we derive from food helps reduce LDL, maintaining an overall cholesterol level by binding with cholesterol particles in our digestive system and pushing them out of the body before they’re absorbed.

High fiber intake lowers blood pressure and serum lipid concentration to aid cholesterol levels. Besides enhancing blood lipid profile, scientific observational studies showed that fiber helps whittle coronary heart disease (CHD) risk by stabilizing blood pressure levels and improving insulin sensitivity and fibrinolytic activity.  

• Stave off hemorrhagic stroke: Science-backed research and cohort studies highlight that regular consumption of fiber-loaded meals is instrumental in reducing the risk of strokes. Replacing refined grains with fiber-rich whole grains in the diet can lessen the stroke threat by a whopping 36 percent.  

• Colorectal cancer and fiber: Colorectal surgeons contend that a fiber-rich diet can help lower the risk of contracting colorectal cancer. Colorectal cancer relates to cancers of the colon and the rectum. While colon cancer initiates in the colon, rectal cancer matures in the rectum. 

They justify that eating a regular high-fiber diet helps prevent colorectal cancer from evolving. According to the American Cancer Society, colorectal cancer stands as the third most common cancer doctors diagnose in adults in the United States. 

What’s more, a copious intake of fiber diet can support and alleviate:  

• Gastrointestinal disorders, including gastroesophageal reflux disease, duodenal ulcer, diverticulitis, and hemorrhoids.
• Clinical studies suggest fiber-packed meals provide a wide range of benefits in areas such as bowel function, gut health, and the immune system defending the body against chronic inflammation and infections.
• Normalizes bowel movements and health.
• Provides for a healthy weight.     

Caveat: High-fiber foods are vital, but people should tweak more fiber into their regular diet regimen in moderation to avoid possible backlashes like intestinal gas, abdominal bloating, and cramping. That allows the natural bacteria in our digestive system to adjust to the change. Also, drinking plenty of water and fluids is essential so the fiber absorbs adequate moisture to keep the gut health in good order.  

In a nutshell, our diet must incorporate adequate fiber for our body to run efficiently and allow a wide berth to chronic diseases. In essence, fiber in our daily meals is crucial in sustaining our overall health and nourishment and curbing the risk of chronic diseases.  

Although, as an option, people can go for fiber supplements, readily available over the counter, the experts still advise sticking with foods that meet dietary fiber requirements. The American Heart Association Eating Plan, too, suggests eating a variety of food with fiber sources and not supplements.  

Only eating nutritious foods with high fiber content cannot, albeit, serve the purpose. Striking a balance would help cultivate the habit of adhering to a routine workout regimen (jogging, walking, cardio, cycling, etc.). 

References: hsph.harvard.edu; clevelandclinic.org; ncbi.nlm.nih.gov; mayoclinic.org; betterhealth.vic.gov.au; cdc.gov; ucsfhealth.org; npr.org, medilineplus.gov; hopkinsmedicine.org and others.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the above text are solely research-based, not medical advice; the author solicits readers’ discretion and cross-references or consulting a healthcare provider for further verification.

Medically reviewed by Prof Dr Sunil Shrestha MBBS, MS (Gen Surgery), and fellowship upper; HPB Surgery (Royal Prince Alfred Hospital), Sydney, Australia.

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Even though history records and explains past events, it is a continuous process. History is not confined to one period or nation. It deals with all the aspects of human life—social, economic, political, physical, religious and aesthetic—giving a clear sense of global events. We are the product of our history. Therefore, ignoring history wouldn’t be a wise idea and taking account of history would always guide us to a better future.

Ignoring history is being blindfolded which takes us nowhere. If we aren’t well aware of historical events it will be like taking steps without knowing the right path which might be dangerous. For example, if the world hadn’t known about what the World War led to, the nations around the world would not even think twice to start a war today. Since we are well aware of the past, different countries would not dare to take steps without thinking twice because the world has understood what results in aggression, fight and wars.

If we choose to ignore our past and fail to learn from history, we will be doomed to repeat the mistakes that our ancestors made. The sentiment that history repeats aspires to common sense and is hard to disagree with. 

People who don’t learn from their mistakes don't mature. The same goes with the politics and scenario of the world. Imagine if Japan starts a war again against the USA or any other country without knowing how their important cities were destroyed, they would probably create a mess out of their present affecting their future without knowing what mistakes they had made in the past by provoking the USA resulting in severe consequences.

History helps us understand and develop a better understanding of the world. It teaches a working understanding of change. We can realize how changes took place and how the world has evolved from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic era. If we didn’t have history, we wouldn’t have an idea about how the world reached this stage, how our ancestors survived, how human settlement began. History is what makes us understand everything—history of the Earth, history of human existence, history of biology, history of chemistry, etc.

History also helps us predict what shape the future will take. It gives us knowledge to understand and accept the change. Living in the present is not at all possible without an understanding of the past. The past allows the people of the present and the future to learn without having to endure. We can see how others coped; we can see that others survived hard times. The past gives us courage and it protects us. For example, realization that our country, Nepal, had hard times where people were killed brutally during the wars and weren’t safe at their own houses has given us the knowledge to understand the past and understand that we are part of the change.

Knowledge of historical events helps us evaluate what was significant about a particular period, event, and development. History records facts and lays the foundation for the future. Everybody and every society needs history to bring improvement and development. In shaping an individual, shaping a nation having knowledge about history is important. Appreciating and understanding history benefits everyone in the long run.

Antidepressant users per 1,000 people:

Source: World of Statistics