At a glance

Ruling party leads in Nepal general electionsKATHMANDU: Nepal Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala once again romped home from both his t...

Ruling party leads in Nepal general elections

KATHMANDU: Nepal Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala once again romped home from both his traditional parliamentary constituencies as his Nepali Congress NC marched relentlessly capturing 72 of the 124 seats filled so far in the third general election in the Himalayan kingdom in nine years. Having already grabbed more than one-third of the seats in the 205-member Pratinidhi Sabha, the lower house of the Nepali bi-cameral parliament, and appearing set to defy pre-poll predictions of a splintered house emerging from these elections, the NC also maintained leads on 25 of the 40 constituencies, counting trends from which were available on Wednesday afternoon. The results so far of the direct clash between the Centrist NC and the Leftist Nepal Communist Party-United Marxist Leninist have rendered all other political parties here as non-entities.

Sanskrit stone inscription found in central China

BEIJING: Chinese archaeologists have found a1,500-year-old stone inscription carved in Sanskrit and Chinese near the city of Yueyang in China8217;s Hunan province. The 1.7 metre by one metre inscription is located on a cliff at Junshan mountain near the city, Chinese news agency Xinhua quoted Wo Baihui, head of the International Indian Philosophy Institute, as saying. There are two Sanskrit words and two Chinese characters carved in the stone, Wo said. The Sanskrit words indicate good luck and the Chinese characters refer to deity and the universe.

Tobacco kills ten million a year, says WB report

WASHINGTON: Tobacco will as the biggest killer in the world over the next three decades. According to a new World Bank report, by 2030, tobacco is expected to be the single biggest cause of death worldwide, accounting for about ten million deaths per year. Half of these deaths will be in the middle-age group 35-69, losing 20 to 50 years of life. About 1.1 billion people smoke worldwide. By 2025, the number is expected to rise to more than 1.6 billion.With current smoking patterns, about 500 million people alive today will eventually be killed by tobacco use. More than half of these future deaths will occur among today8217;s children and teenagers. Everyday, about 80,000 to 100,000 young people become regular long-term smokers, most of them in developing countries. The study says developing countries can prevent millions of premature deaths if they adopt measures to reduce the demand for tobacco.