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With the world focused on the war in Ukraine, China has been busy engaging in diplomacy with neighboring countries, especially in South Asia. During the last 10 days of March, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Nepal; attended the Council of Foreign Ministers meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation; and hosted a series of international conferences on Afghanistan. Wang’s trip to India is particularly noteworthy. Memories of bloodshed in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley, where Chinese and Indian soldiers clashed in mid-2020, killing dozens, are still fresh. Given this, the high-profile visit by Wang inevitably leads many...

A video posted on Chinese microblogging website Weibo by the Russian embassy of a party held today to celebrate the 160th anniversary of Vladivostok sparked online outrage with Chinese diplomats, journalists and users referring to the city by its old name ‘Haishenwai’. Vladivostok which once used to be part of China’s Qing dynasty and was known as Haishenwai was annexed by the Russian empire in 1860 after China’s defeat by the British and the French in the Second Opium war. Reacting to Russian embassy’s tweet, Shen Shiwei, a journalist working with the state-owned broadcaster CGTN, tweeted: “This “tweet” of #Russian...

Gere's What You Need to Remember: Ideological and financial concerns mean there are a lot of things India won’t buy from the United States or Europe, leaving Russia as their sole source of weapons. Like a lot of countries, India wants the best weapons it can afford. But ideological and financial concerns mean there are a lot of things it won’t buy from the United States or Europe. That pretty much leaves, well, Russia. India has been a big buyer of Russian weapons for 50 years. Those haven’t been easy years for New Delhi. India’s defense contracts with Russia have...

Beijing [China], December 17 (ANI): The US administration is concerned over China's increasing military capability near its border with India as it tries to expand its strategic alliance in the region, according to a report. The US Defense Department is newly concerned about China's further military build-up near the demarcation line across its Himalayan border with India after Beijing deployed long-range strategic bombers to the area last month in another apparent warning to New Delhi, according to Foreign Policy magazine. Further, the build-up along the Indian border fits the pattern of Chinese regional aggression witnessed in other parts of the...

Dong Jingwei, who has been rumored to be a high-ranking defector to the United States, attended a meeting in Beijing on June 23, according to the Chinese Ministry of Public Security (MPS). The MPS announced on its website that Dong participated in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) security meeting in Beijing on Wednesday, as a member of the China team which was led by Zhao Kezhi, China’s public security minister. In the announcement, the ministry released a photo, in which Dong was sitting at the right end of the table. This is the first time that the Chinese regime has...

MAY/JUNE 2013 Historical Fiction: China’s South China Sea Claims Mohan Malik The Spratly Islands—not so long ago known primarily as a rich fishing ground—have turned into an international flashpoint as Chinese leaders insist with increasing truculence that the islands, rocks, and reefs have been, in the words of Premier Wen Jiabao, “China’s historical territory since ancient times.” Normally, the overlapping territorial claims to sovereignty and maritime boundaries ought to be resolved through a combination of customary international law, adjudication before the International Court of Justice or the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, or arbitration under Annex VII...

United Nations human rights monitors have strongly condemned the state of Texas for its new anti-abortion law, which they say violates international law by denying women control over their own bodies and endangering their lives. In damning remarks to the Guardian, Melissa Upreti, the chair of the UN’s working group on discrimination against women and girls, criticized the new Texas law, SB 8, as “structural sex and gender-based discrimination at its worst”. She warned that the legislation, which bans abortions at about six weeks, could force abortion providers underground and drive women to seek unsafe procedures that could prove fatal....

Tamang was declared dead in 2015 in Saudi Arabia.Subhash Tamang of Belbari, Morang, who for the past three years had been trying to prove that he is alive and not dead as declared by the registration of death certificate he holds, has been reissued a copy of his citizenship. The Morang District Administration Office on Thursday issued a copy of Subhash's citizenship. Chief District Officer Kosh Hari Niraula handed the citizenship’s copy after Subhash's registration of death was annulled on August 10 as per Article 24 of the National Identity Card and Civil Registration Act, 2020. “There was no need...

The world will witness a Chinese-anointed Afghan Government led by the 'New Taliban' -- a manufactured and packaged product of China Kabul has fallen to Taliban all over again. The 20 years of effort in importing democracy from the United States of America has failed, as expected. None can be blamed for Afghanistan to be in this situation today, except its own incumbent government, political leaders and trained armed forces, who were not sincere in delivering their assigned roles for the nation. The Afghan military and political leadership have given up without a fight. It highlights the nature of the...

Kathmandu (AFP) - Nepal has reported its first death from mucormycosis or "black fungus", the highly deadly infection affecting thousands of coronavirus patients in neighbouring India. Health ministry spokesman Krishna Prasad Poudel told AFP that there are now at least ten cases in Nepal, which like India has been hit by a huge Covid-19 surge. The 65-year-old man who died was being treated at the intensive care unit at a hospital in western Nepal after being diagnosed with temporal lobe encephalitis. "He died on 3 June 2021... after a nasal swab test showed fungal hyphae and a biopsy test of...

Foreigners climbed Mount Everest for the first time since Nepal's government reopened the mountain after it was shut last year owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, despite recent coronavirus cases at its base camp. Thirty-eight climbers including ten Bahraini and two British mountaineers climbed the world's highest mountain on Tuesday (May 11), according to hiking companies. This comes as a few climbers were evacuated from the Everest base camp in April after they fell sick with Covid-19 symptoms as Nepal battles a devastating second wave of coronavirus infections.

China will set up a "separation line" on the peak of Mount Everest to avoid possible COVID-19 infections by climbers from virus-hit Nepal, state media reported, after dozens were taken ill from the summit's base camp. While the virus first emerged in China in late 2019, it has largely been brought under control in the country through a series of strict lockdowns and border closures. More than 30 sick climbers were evacuated from base camp on the Nepalese side of the world's highest peak in recent weeks as Nepal faces a deadly second wave of COVID-19, raising fears that the...

Base camp officials have seen rising numbers of climbers with symptoms and positive coronavirus testsReports of a Covid-19 outbreak at the Mount Everest base camp in Nepal have surfaced just as climbers return to the peak after a year of closure because of the pandemic. Base camp officials say they received reports of 17 confirmed cases from nearby hospitals treating climbers who exhibited symptoms of the virus, reports Navin Singh Khadka for the BBC. Nepal re-opened Mount Everest and its other seven peaks in hopes of regaining tourists after the mountaineering economy took a devastating hit in 2020. Nepal is...

Tourism Department has issued Everest permits to 377 individuals so far, and the number is expected to rise close to 400.Nepal has introduced a quota system setting the maximum number of climbers that will be permitted to make an attempt on Everest in a desperate measure to prevent overcrowding on the world’s tallest peak as the country braces for a record number of mountaineers this season beginning May. Issuing a directive on Wednesday, the Department of Tourism said a specified number of mountaineers, selected on the basis of their climbing permit numbers, would be allowed to make attempts at...

To wade of Chinese demon, RSS wants you to chant this 'mantra' Written By: Vicky Nanjappa Updated: Monday, July 24, 2017, 7:16 [IST] The RSS has asked all Indians to chant a 'mantra' before their prayers. " Let Kailash, Himlaya and Tibet be delivered from the demonic clutches of China.' RSS pracharak and national executive Indresh Kumar told Mail Today: "Kailash, Himalaya aur Tibet Cheen ki asuri shakti se mukt ho" (Kailash, Himalaya and Tibet be delivered from the demonic clutches of China). This is the mantra or 'sankalp', translated into 'resolve', that the RSS wants every Indian to...

In 1999, doctors diagnosed Nepali Christian Gita Shakya with a painful, paralyzing spinal growth. Doctors told Gita and her Christian son, Suroj, that her best option for healing was a risky, potentially lethal surgery, Suroj said in a written testimony shared with The Christian Post.Surgery was also expensive, and Gita’s husband, Babukaji, a Buddhist priest, refused to pay his Christian wife’s expenses. Doctors in Singapore gave 19-year-old Suroj two days to decide whether to let his mother live in terrible pain or risk her death.He prayed, then decided it was best to do the surgery. But he didn’t know what...

In Asia, a huge, hairy ape-man stomps through the snowy Himalayan mountain range, hunting for prey and terrorizing local people. Or so the legend goes. For generations, stories of the yeti, aka the abominable snowman, have been told. Does he live in an icy cave? Is he related to Bigfoot, the ape-man said to roam the forests of the northwestern United States? Is the monster real? According to the BBC, the mythical monster is rooted in the folklore of the Sherpa, the communities that live in the mountains of eastern Nepal. The yeti or a group of yetis always are...

The highest point on Earth got a bit higher Tuesday (Dec 8) as China and Nepal finally agreed on a precise elevation for Mount Everest after decades of debate. The agreed height unveiled at a joint news conference in Kathmandu of 8,848.86m was 86cm higher than the measurement previously recognised by Nepal, and more than four metres above China's official figure. The discrepancy was due to China measuring the rock base on the summit and not - as with the new reading - the covering of snow and ice on the peak.

Cuba, China and Russia on Tuesday were elected to the U.N. Human Rights Council -- a move that the U.S. branded a “mockery” of the body's intended purpose and as proof that Washington was right to leave the council in 2018. The three countries, all with a history of authoritarianism and human rights abuses, were elected by the U.N. General Assembly, along with countries including Bolivia, France, Mexico, Nepal, Pakistan, Senegal, Uzbekistan and the United Kingdom. Saudi Arabia was on the ballot but failed to drum up enough support to win a seat.