Nepal sets record for world’s highest altitude hotel

Nepal has set a record for the world’s highest altitude hotel.  

Everest Inn Private Limited located in a village near Gorak Shep Everest Base Camp in Solukhumbu district has become the world’s highest altitude hotel.

Located at an altitude of 5,180 meters, the hotel received an official certificate from ‘World Books Records’ London on Monday.

Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Jeevan Ram Shrestha and Chairman of Nepal Chapter Sagar Katuwal handed over the official certificate of ‘World Books Records’ to Managing Director of the hotel Pasang Tsering Sherpa amidst a program in the Capital.

On the occasion, Minister Shrestha said that it is a matter of happiness and pride for all Nepalis to have such a record by the hotel of Nepal.

He expressed his confidence that this kind of hotel would further contribute to promoting tourism in Nepal.

Saying that Covid-19 pandemic had affected tourism the most in Nepal, Shrestha said that the Ministry is holding consultations with the concerned authorities to revive this sector.

During the program, he said the Ministry would announce the agendas to revive the business of the tourism sector within a few days.

Nepal representative of ‘World Books Records’ Katuwal, said that this record has made Nepal’s name known to the world in a new way and congratulated the managing director of the hotel.

Managing Director Sherpa said that he brought the hotel into operation from 2004.

Sherpa said that he built the hotel with great efforts as it was a very challenging job to construct an eatery in that place.

Record holder director and mediaperson Phurba Sherpa, singer Nirnaya Shrestha, Milan Gurung and Ajay Adhikari Sushil among others were present in the program.

Bhanu Jayanti, Guru Purnima being observed today

Adikavi Bhanubhakta Acharya is being commemorated by organising various programmes among Nepali community at home and abroad to mark his 209th birth anniversary today.

Born at Chundiramgha in Tanahun district on Asar 29, 1871 BS, the first Nepali poet contributed immensely to unite the country through language, literature and culture by offering various creations.

He translated great epic Ramayan from Sanskrit to Nepali. The Nepali version of the spiritual literature, Ramayan is still popular and read with enthusiasm in the Nepali society. He was inspired by a ghansi (grass cutter) to do something that would leave a mark in the society. As a result, he translated Ramayan to Nepali that established him as a poet among the Nepali community, according to sayings. Other popular literary works of him include Prashnottar, Bhaktamala, Ramgita and Badhushiksha.

On the occasion, various organisations working in language, literature and culture have organised various programmes. Similarly, a programme will be organised before Rani Pokhari in Kathmandu today morning. On the occasion, a statue of Bhanubhakta will be garlanded and a morning procession be taken out.

Similarly, Guru Purnima (Teacher's Day) is also being observed across the country today.

The Day that falls on the full moon day on Ashadha month in the lunar calendar is marked by paying respect and expressing gratitude to Gurus or teachers.

Cities in China break heat records, weather extremes to persist

Several Chinese cities broke new records for high temperatures on Tuesday (Jul 12) as scorching heat and contrasting relentless rains wreaked havoc, with local forecasters expecting the weather extremes to linger for days, Reuters reported.

Red alerts, the highest in a three-tier warning system, were dispersed throughout the country on Tuesday and cities took measures to protect citizens from the scorching heat, which broke records for the month of July in parts of eastern Jiangsu province and the neighbouring city of Shanghai.

Temperatures in the city of Yixing in Jiangsu rose as high as 41.3 degrees Celsius on Tuesday, a new historic peak, the China Meteorological Administration said on Wednesday.

The hashtag #Heatstroke was trending on social media with 2.45 million views on the Weibo social platform of discussions ranging from people being admitted to hospital and the detrimental effects of long-term heat exposure.

"This year's weather is really hot and abnormal, it has been more than 30 degrees Celsius for two months!", wrote a Weibo user.

Experts blame global climate change for the unusual weather.

On Tuesday, maximum temperatures soared to 37-39 degrees Celsius in parts of Sichuan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hubei and Anhui provinces, and the cities of Chongqing and Shanghai.

In particular, the cities of Luzhou and Yibin in Sichuan and Zhaotong in Yunnan, as well as Shaoxing, Ningbo, Jiaxing and Huzhou in Zhejiang, and Changzhou and Wuxi in Jiangsu, hit temperatures around 40 to 42 degrees Celsius, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, heavy rain battered parts of Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Shandong, Hebei, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang provinces and the Inner Mongolia region.

Forecasters expect the intense heat and rain to continue over the next several days.

Twitter sues to force Musk to complete his $44B acquisition

Twitter sued Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Tuesday, trying to force him to complete his $44 billion takeover of the social media company by accusing him of “outlandish” and “bad faith” actions that have caused the platform irreparable harm and “wreaked havoc” on its stock price, Associated Press reported.

Back in April, Musk pledged to pay $54.20 a share for Twitter, which agreed to those terms after reversing its initial opposition to the deal. But the two sides have been bracing for a legal fight since the billionaire said Friday that he was backing away from his agreement to buy the company.

Twitter’s lawsuit opens with a sharply-worded accusation: “Musk refuses to honor his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests.”

“Having mounted a public spectacle to put Twitter in play, and having proposed and then signed a seller-friendly merger agreement, Musk apparently believes that he — unlike every other party subject to Delaware contract law — is free to change his mind, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away,” the suit stated.

Twitter filed its lawsuit in the Delaware Court of Chancery, which frequently handles business disputes among the many corporations, including Twitter, that are incorporated there.

As part of the April deal, Musk and Twitter had agreed to pay each other a $1 billion breakup fee if either was responsible for the deal falling through. The company could have pushed Musk to pay the hefty fee but is going farther than that, trying to force him to complete the full $44 billion purchase approved by the company’s board.

“Oh the irony lol,” Musk tweeted after Twitter filed the lawsuit, without explanation.

The arguments and evidence laid out by Twitter are compelling and likely to get a receptive ear in the Delaware court, which doesn’t look kindly on sophisticated buyers with highly-paid legal advisers backing off of deals, said Brian Quinn, a law professor at Boston College.

“They make a very strong argument that this is just buyer’s remorse,” Quinn said. “You have to eat your mistakes in the Delaware Chancery Court. That’s going to work very favorably for Twitter.”

Musk alleged Friday that Twitter has failed to provide enough information about the number of fake accounts on its service. Twitter said last month that it was making available to Musk a ″fire hose” of raw data on hundreds of millions of daily tweets, according to Associated Press.

The company has said for years in regulatory filings that it believes about 5% of the accounts on the platform are fake. Musk is also alleging that Twitter broke the acquisition agreement when it fired two top managers and laid off a third of its talent-acquisition team.

Twitter’s suit repeatedly emphasizes Musk’s contemplation of starting a Twitter competitor -- an alternative option he sometimes aired publicly and sometimes privately to Twitter’s executives and board members. While the company has said it cooperated in providing the data he requested on fake “spam bot” accounts, the lawsuit suggests Twitter was concerned that disclosing too much “highly sensitive information” could expose the company to competitive harm if shared.

The biggest surprise for Quinn was how much evidence Twitter has -- for instance, communications with Musk about whether to retain or lay off employees, as well as the billionaire’s own public tweets -- to reject his arguments for backing out.

“They are marshaling many of Musk’s own tweets to hoist him on his own petard,” he said.

In a joint press release announcing the acquisition deal, Musk pledged to “unlock” the social media company’s potential by loosening restrictions on speech and rooting out fake accounts. Among his most attention-grabbing promises was to let former President Donald Trump back onto the platform. Musk argued that Twitter’s ban of Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol was “morally bad” and “foolish in the extreme.”

But his confidence didn’t last long. Tesla’s stock — Musk’s primary source of wealth — plummeted amid a broader stock market selloff in May, and Musk soon seemed less enthusiastic about owning Twitter.

“For Musk, the best case is he pays the $1 billion breakup fee but that appears very unlikely,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives. “The irony is that Twitter as a fiduciary is clearly looking to enforce a deal that Musk doesn’t want to get done. It’s like buying a house you don’t want.”