Six Nepalis, including two children, of Tribhuvan chowk in Nepalgunj, Banke, were killed in an accident in India after the SUV they were riding hit a tree and fell into a ditch in the Econa area of Shravasti district in Uttar Pradesh last night, police said today.
JUNE 1: At midnight local time (16:00 GMT Tuesday), restrictions were relaxed to allow most people to move freely around the city of some 25 million people.
But at least 650,000 residents will remain confined to their homes.
China's overall policy of "zero Covid" remains in place and people catching Covid face quarantine or hospital.
Their close contacts also face the prospect of removal to quarantine and the area immediately around where they live being locked down again.
"This is a day that we dreamed of for a very long time," Shanghai government spokeswoman Yin Xin told reporters.
"Everyone has sacrificed a lot. This day has been hard-won and we need to cherish and protect it, and welcome back the Shanghai we are familiar with and missed."
E-commerce professional Chen Ying was planning to work from home after the lockdown was eased, but she told AFP news agency she might treat her two-year-old son to a long-awaited walk outside.
"We should have been free to begin with, so don't expect me to be deeply grateful now they've given it back to us," she added.
Lockdown has seen many residents lose income, struggle to find enough food and cope mentally with prolonged isolation.
Manufacturers including Western car makers Volkswagen and Tesla have been particularly impacted by the restrictions as staff were kept away from factories or had to work in "closed loop" conditions, where they lived at the plants.
A basic service resumed on public transport on Wednesday, and shops opened with larger ones operating at 75% capacity, but cinemas, museums and gyms remain closed.
Most children will not return to face-to-face schooling.
There are new rules too:
-All residents will be required to show a green health code on their smartphone to leave their home compounds or buildings and access most places
-All residents wishing to move around the city on public transport and access banks, malls etc will be required to have a negative PCR test certificate valid in the last 72 hours
-Restrictions on leaving Shanghai remain, with any resident travelling to another city facing quarantine of 7-14 days on arrival
The city has a 50-point plan aimed at revitalising its economy, which before the lockdown was worth more than $600bn (£475bn).
New measures include reducing some taxes for car buyers, speeding up the issuance of local government bonds and fast-tracking approvals of building projects.
Big bang for Shanghai
It was supposed to last just nine days -a staggered lockdown to lessen the impact on Shanghai's economy, state media said.
It lasted 65 days. It crippled the city and scarred its people.
Restrictions are now being eased as quickly as they were imposed. There's no gradual process over several weeks. Instead there's a big bang - one day when most of the emergency rules and regulations are simply being lifted.
The relief is immense - for generations of some families who've lived together behind a locked front door for more than two months; for workers who've lived in tents inside factories where they've carried on working; for the shop and restaurant owners whose livelihood ground to a halt; for the thousands of people forced to leave their homes and sent to quarantine centres.
And for the almost 25 million people who live here.
The rigidity of the lockdown caused much frustration in the city.
Marketing professional Anita Xu, 32, felt "a little caught unawares". "Even if you can go out, I don't know what you can do," she told AFP.
But Todd Pearson, managing director of Camel Hospitality Group, which operates restaurants, bars and gyms in and around Shanghai, sounded a cautious note when he spoke to Reuters news agency.
"I'm hopeful that they will rush things along to restart the economy," he said. "I just hope it's not at the cost of more outbreaks. I'm not sure many businesses or the people could handle much more."
China has registered at least 14,604 deaths and 2,426,568 cases of Covid during the pandemic, with nearly 90% of its population fully vaccinated.
Worldwide, Covid has killed at least 6,289,241 people, according to John Hopkins University research.
FEB 27: Mr Zelensky says Ukrainians had been fighting Russian troops in Kyiv, as well as Odesa in the south and Kharkiv in the north-east.
"The occupiers wanted to block the centre of our state," the president said. "We broke their plan."
As Russians close in, though, Kyiv residents have been asked to stay indoors until Monday morning.
The invasion has killed at least 198 Ukrainians so far and the UN says more than 120,000 have fled the country in the past 48 hours.
Ukraine said 137 people - civilians and soldiers - have been killed, while Russia has not admitted any deaths on its side.
West to block some Russian banks from Swift
New financial sanctions have been levelled against Russia - the most severe so far - after the EU, US and their allies agreed to cut off a number of Russian banks from the main international payment system, Swift.
Russia is heavily reliant on the Swift system for its oil and gas exports, and analysts say its economy will be hit hard.
The assets of Russia's central bank will also be frozen, limiting the Kremlin's ability to access its overseas reserves.
This will stop it using its currency to limit the impact of sanctions.
The measures will "further isolate Russia from the international financial system", a joint statement said.
Abramovich hands over Chelsea
Chelsea's Russian owner Roman Abramovich says he is "giving trustees of Chelsea's charitable foundation the stewardship and care" of the club.
Mr Abramovich is one of Russia's richest people and believed to be close to President Vladimir Putin - who is facing personal sanctions by a number of Western countries over the invasion.
It is not known yet if Abramovich might be sanctioned as part of the UK government's measures against Russia.
France intercepted and impounded a Russian-flagged cargo ship suspected of breaching sanctions imposed because of the invasion of Ukraine.
The ship, the Baltic Leader, was heading from the north-western French city of Rouen to St Petersburg in Russia with a cargo of new cars.
The US Treasury Department has issued blocking sanctions against the vessel, saying it is owned by a subsidiary of Promsvyazbank, one of the Russian financial institutions hit by sanctions.
Sandbags and petrol bombs: Kyiv gears up to face Russians
We saw men, in jeans and trainers, taking up position: the luxury of camouflage protection not possible in this moment of crisis. Makeshift roadblocks had been assembled.
A tractor and a delivery truck had parked at strategic angles to block the path of any incoming attacker.
In other cities, steelworkers are reported to have welded new obstructions into place: forging their own defences. And workers in a sewing factory who normally stitch uniforms have been making sandbags.
Across the country, patriotic Ukrainians are weaving their own narrative and hoping their collective effort will count for something in the face of Moscow's military might.
The urgency of all this tells you many fear it is a question of when - not if - they'll be face-to-face with the advancing Russian forces.
Queue of 24 hours
On the Moldovan border - and the borders of four other nations neighbouring Ukraine - mothers and grandmothers, wheeling suitcases to safety, have been leading their children into the unknown. Men are not allowed to join them - they have to stay behind to fight.
Ana arrived at the Palanca crossing point after more than 24 hours waiting in a queue on the Ukrainian side of the border - her little yellow car stuffed with bags, her six-year-old granddaughter singing to herself in the backseat.
Ana's calm smiling manner crumbled as soon as she began to speak to the BBC. Breaking down in tears, she described how she'd had to leave her husband behind to defend their country.
Leader under siege
It may be a David-versus-Goliath struggle, but it is one that has thrown the figure of President Volodymyr Zelensky into the limelight.
Zelensky's arrival on the political scene was a case of life imitating art. But it is life that is at stake here now his country is under attack and the capital under siege.
Tested like never before, the Ukrainian commander-in-chief has appeared to strike all the right notes.
KABUL, August 31 : The Taliban joyously fired guns into the air and offered words of reconciliation on Tuesday, as they celebrated defeating the United States and returning to power after two decades of war that devastated Afghanistan.
The last of 6,000 US troops who oversaw a desperate evacuation effort flew out of Kabul airport on Monday night, ending the war that has diminished the United States' status as a superpower.
Taliban fighters quickly swept into the airport and fired weapons into the sky in jubilation, an astonishing return after US forces invaded in 2001 and toppled the hardline Islamists for supporting Al-Qaeda.
"Congratulations to Afghanistan... this victory belongs to us all," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told reporters hours later from the runway of the airport. Mujahid said the Taliban's victory was a "lesson for other invaders".
However the Taliban have repeatedly promised a more tolerant and open brand of rule compared with their first stint in power, and Mujahid continued that theme.
"We want to have good relations with the US and the world. We welcome good diplomatic relations with them all," he said.
Many Afghans are terrified of a repeat of the Taliban's initial rule from 1996-2001, which was infamous for their treatment of girls and women, as well as a brutal justice system.
- Terror threat -
The withdrawal came just before the end of an August 31 deadline set by President Joe Biden to call time on America's longest war -- one that ultimately claimed the lives of more than 2,400 US service members.
The early finish followed a threat from the regional offshoot of the Islamic State group, rivals of the Taliban, which was seeking to attack the US forces at the airport.
Thirteen US troops were among more than 100 people killed when an IS suicide bomber late last week attacked the perimeter of the airport, where desperate Afghans had massed in the hope of getting on board an evacuation flight.
More than 123,000 people were evacuated from Kabul aboard the US-led airlift operation, which began just after the Taliban swept into the capital on August 14.
Biden said he would address the nation on Tuesday in Washington, as his critics continued to savage him for his handling of the withdrawal.
"We can't fight endless wars, but the scope & consequence of Biden's failure here is staggering," Republican Senator Rick Scott said.
"President Biden has brought great shame on the American people," added congressman Richard Hudson.
Biden's top diplomat, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, was able to offer little more than stern words for the Taliban.
"Any legitimacy and any support will have to be earned," Blinken said, as he announced the United States had suspended its diplomatic presence in Kabul and shifted its operations to Qatar.
- Airport uncertainty -
All eyes will now turn to how the Taliban handles its first few days with sole authority over the country, with a sharp focus on whether it will allow other foreigners and Afghans to leave the country.
Blinken said a small number of US citizens remained in the country -- "under 200" but likely closer to just 100 -- and wanted to leave.
Many thousands of other Afghans who had worked with the US-backed government and fear retribution also want to get out.
Western allies have voiced heartbreak in recent days that not all Afghans who wanted to flee could get on the evacuation flights.
The UN Security Council adopted a resolution Monday, requiring the Taliban to honour a commitment to let people freely leave Afghanistan in the days ahead, and to grant access to the UN and other aid agencies.
But they did not agree to call for the creation of a "safe zone" in Kabul, as envisaged by French President Emmanuel Macron.
Talks are ongoing as to who will now run Kabul airport. The Taliban have asked Turkey to handle logistics while they maintain control of security, but President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has not yet accepted that offer. It was not immediately clear which airlines would agree to fly in and out of Kabul.
- Civilian deaths -
The regional Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) group had posed the biggest threat to the withdrawal after it carried out the devastating suicide bombing outside the airport last week.
On Monday, they also claimed to have fired six rockets at the airport. A Taliban official said the attack was intercepted by the airport's missile defence systems.
And in an echo of the tragedies of civilian deaths that plagued the war and cost the United States local support, a US air strike in Kabul targeting a purported IS car bomb on the weekend appeared to have killed children.
The United States said Sunday it had carried out a drone strike against a vehicle threatening the Kabul airport.
Members of one family told AFP they believed a fatal error had been made, and that 10 civilians were killed.
"My brother and his four children were killed. I lost my small daughter... nephews and nieces," Aimal Ahmadi told AFP.
