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NATO Vows Defence Following Russian Violation Of Estonian Airspace
NATO on Tuesday condemned Russia for last week’s violation of Estonian airspace, warning it would employ “all necessary military and non-military measures” to defend itself amid Moscow’s “increasingly irresponsible” behaviour.
Estonia said on Friday that three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets violated its airspace for 12 minutes before being escorted out by NATO Italian fighter jets – an incident Western officials say was likely designed to test NATO’s readiness and resolve.
The incident occurred the week after some 20 Russian drones entered Polish airspace, prompting NATO jets to shoot down some of them.
“Russia bears full responsibility for these actions, which are escalatory, risk miscalculation, and endanger lives. They must stop,” the alliance’s North Atlantic Council said in a statement.
“Russia should be in no doubt: NATO and Allies will employ, in accordance with international law, all necessary military and non-military tools to defend ourselves and deter all threats from all directions,” the statement said.
“We will continue to respond in the manner, timing, and domain of our choosing.”
Tuesday’s meeting of the North Atlantic Council, made up of ambassadors from the alliance’s 32 member countries, was called by Estonia under Article 4 of NATO’s founding treaty.
The article states allies will “consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security” of a member is threatened.
It is only the ninth time in NATO’s 76-year history that the article has been invoked – and two of those occasions have come this month in response to the incidents over Poland and Estonia.
“Allies will not be deterred by these and other irresponsible acts by Russia from their enduring commitments to support Ukraine, whose security contributes to ours, in the exercise of its inherent right to self-defence against Russia’s brutal and unprovoked war of aggression,” the NATO statement said.
Norway Reports Russian Airspace Breaches
Norway’s government said on Tuesday that Russia has violated Norwegian airspace three times in 2025, adding that it was unclear if this was deliberate or the result of navigation errors.
The incidents, which lasted between one and four minutes, were the first such violations by Russia in more than a decade, the Norwegian government said in a statement.
Two of the incidents, on April 25 and August 18, took place over the Arctic Barents Sea, while the third, on July 24, was over an uninhabited part of Finnmark, Norway’s northernmost county, which shares a border with Russia.
“We can’t determine whether this was done deliberately or whether it was due to navigation errors,” Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said. “Regardless of the reason, this is not acceptable and we have made that clear to Russian authorities.”
(With inputs from Reuters)
TikTok To Tighten Child Safety Measures After Canadian Privacy Probe
TikTok has agreed to strengthen its measures to keep children off its platform, following a Canadian investigation that found the social media giant’s efforts to block underage users and safeguard their personal data were not up to the mark, Canadian privacy officials said on Tuesday.
The joint investigation into TikTok by Canada’s privacy commissioner Philippe Dufresne and privacy protection authorities in the provinces of Quebec, British Columbia, and Alberta found that hundreds of thousands of Canadian children accessed TikTok each year despite the company stating its platform is not intended for people under the age of 13.
Collecting Personal Information
The investigation also found that TikTok had been collecting and using their personal information.
“TikTok collects vast amounts of personal information about its users, including children. This data is being used to target the content and ads that users see, which can have harmful impacts, particularly on youth,” Dufresne said at a press conference announcing the investigation’s results.
TikTok has agreed to strengthen its age-verification systems to better prevent underage users from accessing the platform and to enhance its communication practices, ensuring that users — especially younger audiences — have a clearer understanding of how their personal data may be collected, used, and shared, Dufresne said.
TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Global Fears
Canada has joined a growing number of governments and regulatory bodies around the world that are closely scrutinising TikTok over concerns that the popular social media platform could be used by China to access sensitive user data or further its strategic interests. The app is owned by ByteDance Ltd., a Beijing-based technology company, raising fears among officials about potential foreign interference and data privacy risks, particularly given the platform’s vast user base and influence among younger audiences globally.
The European Union’s two biggest policy-making institutions have banned TikTok from staff phones, while the US Senate in December passed a bill to bar federal employees from using the app on government-owned devices.
(With inputs from Reuters)
Artemis 2 Moon Mission May Launch In February, Says NASA
NASA’s first crewed mission under its Artemis programme — a journey around the Moon and back — is on track for an April launch, with officials saying on Tuesday that the timeline could potentially be advanced to February.
The space agency’s Artemis programme is the flagship US effort to return humans to the Moon, a multibillion-dollar series of missions that rivals a similar effort by China, which is aiming for a 2030 astronaut Moon landing.
Artemis 2, a 10-day flight in which a crew of four astronauts will fly around the Moon and back, is a precursor test to the agency’s first astronaut Moon landing since 1972.
That mission, Artemis 3, is a far more ambitious and complex endeavor currently planned for 2027 and involving a Moon lander variant of SpaceX’s Starship rocket.
‘Intend To Keep Commitment’
Artemis 2 involves NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, built by Boeing and Northrop Grumman, and its Orion capsule, built by Lockheed Martin. Last year, NASA delayed the mission by several months to April 2026.
“We intend to keep that commitment,” Lakiesha Hawkins, an acting senior official in NASA’s exploration unit, said during a news conference on Tuesday of the 2026 date.
She added that the readiness of NASA’s SLS and Orion spacecraft could potentially warrant an earlier launch date, but that safety considerations will ultimately guide when the mission launches.
The Orion capsule will ride atop the giant, 322-foot-tall (98 meters) SLS rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the first time the spacecraft duo will fly with humans.
Who Are The Crew?
Artemis 2 will fly astronauts Reid Wiseman, the mission’s commander who last flew on a Russian Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station in 2014; Victor Glover, the pilot who flew to space in 2020 on a SpaceX ISS mission; Christina Koch, a mission specialist who flew on a Soyuz ISS mission in 2019; and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, another mission specialist who will fly to space for the first time.
Hansen’s inclusion will mark the first Canadian to fly in the vicinity of the Moon.
(With inputs from Reuters)
Dozens Killed In Haiti Drone Strike Targeting Alleged Gang Leader
At least eight children and several adults were reportedly killed in a kamikaze drone strike during the birthday celebration of an alleged gang leader in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, where he was said to be distributing gifts, local media reported on Tuesday.
Local media Haiti Libre reported the attack targeted Albert Steevenson, known as Djouma, in the capital’s Simon Pele neighborhood over the weekend, killing more than a dozen people including at least eight children.
Investigation Ongoing
Haiti’s government began deploying explosive-packed kamikaze drones in March this year with support from Vectus Global, a private security firm run by Blackwater founder Erik Prince, aiming to fight violent armed groups that have taken control of most of the capital and expanded to surrounding regions.
Neither Haiti’s police, presidential office nor Vectus Global immediately responded to requests for comment. Haiti’s prime minister’s office said an investigation was taking place.
An analysis by Insight Crime late June found that while the government drone attacks had temporarily shaken up the security landscape, legal concerns remained while reports of civilian casualties mounted amid opacity on the attacks from those in charge.
Details of the attack in the capital, where gang leaders exert tight control on communities and authorities rarely publicly comment on attacks, did not begin to emerge until early this week.
Scores Killed In Drone Attacks
The UN Integrated Office in Haiti estimates at least 236 people were killed and 223 injured in drone operations between April and June of this year, of which six were not gang members.
News of the attack came the same day as diplomats met at the United Nations to discuss expanding a UN-backed security force mandated to help national police restore security.
The Kenyan-led force, supplied by volunteer contributions, deployed in June last year but has so far gathered just a fraction of the troops and funding it hoped for, and struggled to make headway in preventing the expansion of the armed groups.
“The transitional government was supposed to restore trust in the state,” said Haiti researcher Jake Johnston on social media. “It’s doing the exact opposite.”
(With inputs from Reuters)
Trump Slams Russia, Champions Israel During UN Speech
U.S. President Donald Trump, in a combative address to the UN General Assembly, warned Russia of tough economic action over the war in Ukraine and dismissed international efforts to recognise a Palestinian state.
In his first U.N. address since regaining power in January, Trump spoke to dozens of world leaders, many of whom have been alarmed to see the United States turn away from traditional alliances in favour of an isolationist “America First” policy.
Trump’s warning to Russia came with a twist. He said he wants U.S. allies to impose the same measures on Russia he is proposing to try to force Russian President Vladimir Putin to pull back from the biggest war in Europe since World War II.
The U.S. president has warned about the possibility of sanctions on Russia several times, but has yet to follow through. Lately, he has demanded that Europe stop all Russian oil purchases before he will take action.
“In the event that Russia is not ready to make a deal to end the war, then the United States is fully prepared to impose a very strong round of powerful tariffs, which would stop the bloodshed, I believe, very quickly,” he said.
But for the measures to be effective, he said, “European nations, all of you gathered here, would have to join us in adopting the exact same measures.”
He planned a meeting later in the day with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Dozens of world leaders gathered at the United Nations on Monday to embrace a Palestinian state, a landmark diplomatic shift that faces fierce resistance from Israel and its close ally, the United States.
Trump rejected statehood for Palestinians, adopting the stance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“The rewards would be too great for Hamas terrorists, for their atrocities,” he said, repeating his call for the return of hostages taken by the Palestinian militant group.
Trump said the United States wants a ceasefire-for-hostages deal that would see the return of all remaining hostages, alive and dead.
“We have to stop the war in Gaza immediately. We have to immediately negotiate peace,” he said.
Criticism Of Migration Policies
Trump argued that other world leaders should adopt his tough-on-migrants policy, touting his own efforts to arrest and deport migrants in the United States illegally, a stance that many countries around the world have viewed skeptically.
“It’s destroying your country, and you have to do something about it on the world stage,” he said.
Trump, who has cast himself as a peacemaker in a bid to win the Nobel Peace Prize, complained that the United Nations did not support his efforts to end conflicts around the world.
He twinned his complaint with a personal grievance about the U.N.’s infrastructure, saying he and first lady Melania Trump were briefly marooned on a U.N. escalator and that his teleprompter was not initially working.
“These are the two things I got from the United Nations – a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter,” Trump said, noting that Melania Trump nearly fell when the escalator stopped abruptly.
Since taking office again, Trump has upended U.S. foreign policy, slashing foreign aid, imposing tariffs on friend and foe alike and cultivating warmer – if volatile – relations with Russia.
At the same time, he has sought, so far with only limited success, to solve some of the world’s most intractable conflicts.
Trump is among some 150 heads of state or government who are expected to address the chamber this week. He spoke eight months into a second term marked by severe aid cuts that have sparked humanitarian worries and have raised doubts about the U.N.’s future.
According to planning documents reviewed by Reuters, the Trump administration plans to call this week for sharply narrowing the right to asylum, seeking to undo the post-World War II framework around humanitarian protection.
Trump’s more restrictive stance would include requiring asylum-seekers to claim protection in the first country they enter, not a nation of their choosing, a State Department spokesperson said.
Guterres and Trump are expected to meet formally for the first time since Trump returned to office in January.
(With inputs from Reuters)
New H-1B Proposal From Trump Administration Prioritizes Skilled, Well-Paid Workers
The Trump administration on Tuesday put forward a proposal to change the H-1B visa process, saying it would give priority to applicants with stronger skills and higher wages, according to a notice published in the Federal Register.
The announcement followed a White House order on Friday that set a $100,000 fee for the visas.
The new process, if finalized, would give heavier weight to applications by employers who pay high wages if annual requests for the visas exceed the statutory limit of 85,000, the notice said.
The move aims to better protect Americans from unfair wage competition from foreign workers, it said.
President Donald Trump launched a wide-ranging immigration crackdown after taking office in January, including a push for mass deportations and trying to block citizenship for children of immigrants in the U.S. illegally.
In recent days, his administration intensified its focus on the H-1B programme, popular with tech and outsourcing companies for hiring skilled foreign workers.
New Regulations
The Trump administration said on Friday it would ask companies to pay $100,000 per year for H-1B visas. Some big tech companies warned visa holders to stay in the U.S. or quickly return, sparking a chaotic scramble to get back to the U.S. The White House later clarified that the fee would apply only to new visas.
The planned regulation posted on Tuesday would change an existing lottery process to obtain the visas if demand surpasses supply in a given year, creating wage tiers where higher-paying jobs would have a better chance of being selected.
The process to finalize a regulation can take months or even years. The notice suggested that the new rules could be in place for the 2026 lottery, meaning before a March registration period.
The total wages paid to H-1B workers would increase to $502 million in fiscal year 2026, which begins on October 1, the notice said, citing U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimates.
Wages would increase by $1 billion in fiscal 2027, $1.5 billion in fiscal 2028, and $2 billion in fiscal 2029-2035, it said.
An estimated 5,200 small businesses that currently receive H-1B visas would suffer a significant economic impact due to loss of labor, DHS said.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which issued the proposal, will give the public 30 days to comment beginning on Wednesday, the notice said.
(With inputs from Reuters)
UN Reports Systematic Torture Of Ukrainian Civilians In Russian Detention Sites
The United Nations human rights office said on Tuesday that Russia has carried out systematic torture of Ukrainian civilians in more than 100 detention facilities located both in Russia and in occupied areas of Ukraine since the war began.
Its report detailed cases of mock executions, electric shocks and the use of prolonged stress positions on Ukrainian civilians for non-criminal acts, such as criticising Russia’s invasion, which it said had proved fatal in some cases.
“It’s widespread and systematic torture. It was documented in every region of occupied territory, as well as dozens of regions inside the Russian Federation,” Danielle Bell, head of the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, told a Geneva press briefing, presenting the 22-page report.
Russia’s diplomatic mission in Geneva referred questions on the report to the Foreign Affairs Ministry which did not immediately provide a comment. It has previously denied using torture or other forms of maltreatment against detainees.
The U.N. report is based on interviews with 215 former detainees who gave detailed accounts of their captivity since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The office says it has not been granted access to the 114 detention facilities which it showed on a map in occupied parts of Ukraine and 28 Russian regions. Some hold Ukrainian prisoners of war whom the U.N. says have also been tortured.
Around 15,000 Civilians Detained
Ukraine says some 15,000 civilians have been detained by Russia since 2022 of whom at least 1,800 remain in detention. Bell said her office had confirmed at least 400 ongoing detentions, with the real scale probably much greater.
Torture often occurred during initial interrogations but also in daily life where regular beatings occurred and detainees were forced to walk at a bent angle, Bell said.
“These weren’t random incidents, and it would have been unlikely or impossible for those in charge, not to have known that this was taking place,” she told reporters from Kyiv.
In some cases, medics in Russian facilities participated in the torture, Bell said, or ignored detainees’ calls for help with their torture-inflicted symptoms. Her office has so far confirmed 36 deaths from torture, poor conditions or lack of access to medical care, she added.
U.N. bodies have previously documented a few cases of ill-treatment by Ukrainian forces of Russian detainees and Kyiv has said it would investigate any violations.
(With inputs from Reuters)
Trump’s New Visa Policy Draws Backlash From Tech Sector
U.S. President Donald Trump’s new visa fees for foreign workers sparked backlash from tech executives, entrepreneurs, and investors online, with only a few dissenters, as many viewed the move as a significant setback to a sector that had contributed millions to his re-election campaign.
Technology executives and investors said the new fees could add millions of dollars in costs for companies and disproportionately hurt startups, which may not be able to afford visas as part of their strategy.
In a confusing set of announcements beginning late on Friday, Trump and other White House officials said they would charge firms $100,000 apiece for H1-B worker temporary employment visas, used by many tech majors, including Amazon.com, Microsoft and Meta Platforms.
Many criticised the move and the chaotic roll-out that required the White House to clarify the hefty fees would be charged just once, not annually, and they would not apply to existing holders, including those who happened to be overseas at the time of the announcement.
Meta, Microsoft and Amazon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Most executives at the tech giants, many of whom have forged close relationships with the Trump White House since his return to office, have not commented publicly on the proposal, which could drastically change their system of attracting talent from countries such as India and China. But others weighed in.
“America’s edge has always been that we attract smart, ambitious people from everywhere,” said Esther Crawford, a former Twitter executive and investor who now works as director of product management at Meta, according to her LinkedIn profile.
“High-skilled immigrants don’t take from us, they build with us. Some of the best colleagues in my career have been H-1B holders chasing their own American dream.”
The Trump administration has cracked down on immigration on a number of levels, including stepped-up border security and raids that have largely targeted lower-skilled workers, many of whom are undocumented migrants.
Most recently, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raided a Georgia battery plant owned by South Korea’s Hyundai Motor that angered officials in Seoul, who have raised questions about the relationship with the United States.
Economists at Berenberg warned that the proposed visa fee hike could further burden a U.S. labour market already weakened by the lingering effects of Trump-era trade policies. While artificial intelligence may help alleviate some staffing shortages, analysts cautioned that rising costs could pressure companies and eventually affect their clients.
“By making it very expensive for companies to attract foreign talent, and by forcing some international students to leave the country after graduation, the brain drain will weigh heavily on productivity,” they wrote.
Chaos At Airports
The late Friday announcement caused chaos for travellers, some of whom got off planes rather than go overseas, while others raced home on the advice of their companies before the White House clarified the order.
“My heart goes out to all the families and individuals anxious over their futures following the abrupt and chaotic announcement of H-1B visa changes,” said Andrew Ng, founder of DeepLearningAI, in a post on LinkedIn. “America should be working to attract more skilled talent, not create uncertainty that turns them away.”
The change met with some support from top executives, including IBM Vice Chairman Gary Cohn, who served as head of the White House National Economic Council in the first Trump administration. He told CBS News the new fees were a “good idea” that would help bring in employees with high-value skillsets.
Netflix Chairman Reed Hastings shared a similar view in a post on X, saying the higher cost would mean visas would be used only for “very high value jobs” and provide more certainty for those who have them.
But David Seidman, the head of platform security at fintech firm Plaid, predicted on LinkedIn that “at least one” of the Big Tech names would stop hiring for those jobs in the United States and build out their footprint in India or Canada.
(With inputs from Reuters)
Ukraine Anticipates No Major Breakthrough As Zelenskyy Visits US To Meet Trump
Ukraine‘s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will seek increased support from allies during his UN address and meeting with Donald Trump this week, while Kyiv quietly prepares for a war phase relying more on its own resources.
Kyiv’s hopes of winning tough new U.S. sanctions on Russia are fading, and a new pragmatism in Ukraine makes Zelenskyy’s trip less fraught than some earlier visits to the United States, with lessons learnt from February’s White House bust-up.
Frenetic European diplomacy and a Ukrainian expression of regret after February’s disastrous meeting paved the way for a resumption of crucial U.S. intelligence sharing and weapons supplies authorised by the U.S. president’s predecessor.
Yet intense lobbying has failed to persuade Trump to impose sanctions that would hurt Russia’s war economy sufficiently to bring President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table, and Ukrainians are sceptical that the war will soon end.
Ukrainians Are Uncertain About Future
Only 18% of Ukrainians think hostilities can end this year, and a feeling of uncertainty for the future is pervasive in Ukraine, said Anton Grushetskyi, head of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.
Putin has secured some recent diplomatic wins, including getting a red-carpet welcome at a summit with Trump in Alaska, and there are signs that Ukraine has been switching gears for a new stage of the war in which foreign support is diminished.
A Ukrainian think-tank that used to study Russia to find targets for government sanctions now does analytics to help the military select targets for drone strikes, said a senior staff member.
The source said Ukraine not only faced setbacks on sanctions and reduced U.S. assistance, but could also lose some other allied support in Europe.
In a sign of how Kyiv is trying to turn the screw on Russia itself, Ukrainian long-range drones have hit ports and refineries, prompting a Russian warning of looming output cuts for its oil producers.
‘Super Important Place To Be’
Zelenskyy is likely to ask Trump for new U.S. sanctions on Russia on Tuesday, a day before addressing the UN General Assembly.
Kyiv has also been promoting plans for a summit dedicated to Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Crimea peninsula, an event that appears designed to push back against discussion of any peace deal involving Crimea being recognised as Russian territory.
Putin says more than 700,000 Russian soldiers are now deployed on the front line in Ukraine, and Russia occupies roughly 20% of Ukrainian territory.
Moscow is demanding all of that territory, and more, before it considers talks to end its war in Ukraine. This is anathema to most Ukrainians.
Ukrainian officials portrayed their work before Zelenskyy’s arrival on Monday as pragmatic diplomacy rather than preparations for a make-or-break trip.
“New York is the platform every September. It’s a super important place to be,” First Deputy Foreign Minister Sergiy Kyslytsya told Reuters.
“I wish it were more expedient, but you will never have easy solutions to the conflicts of this magnitude. So I think that we will not come back from New York, all of us, with easy solutions. And we will continue to work hard after New York.”
Battlefield Setbacls And Heavy Losses
Russian forces, which invaded in February 2022, have been grinding forward in eastern Ukraine over the last two years, but without seizing the bastion city of Pokrovsk, a target for months.
Though diminished, U.S. support remains essential for Ukraine, and Kyiv’s allies have concerns about the depth of its reserves of military personnel.
A senior European diplomat said U.S. intelligence sharing and a new mechanism for Ukraine to purchase U.S. weapons were essential for its forces to be able to hold out.
Zelenskyy has said the first weapons supplied under that mechanism included missiles for Patriot air defence systems and HIMARS rocket launchers, and that Ukraine had so far secured over $2 billion in financing for U.S.-produced arms.
Ukraine’s surer footing on weapons, the senior diplomat said, was apparent from the less urgent tone of Zelenskyy’s recent public statements.
Andriy Zagorodnyuk, Ukraine’s defence minister from 2019-20, said European strategy had often focused on the idea of providing deterrence to prevent future conflict, but that Putin had no interest in stopping Russia’s war in Ukraine, and Kyiv’s strategy was therefore to deny Russian forces success.
“The strategy is to neutralise Russia,” he said. “That would lead to the ability to stabilise the situation and hopefully start a recovery, at least (to some extent), without Russia agreeing to stop the war.”
Like A Ritual Dance
A former senior Ukrainian official who requested anonymity doubted Trump would sanction Russia at all and said Ukraine would be better off focusing on strengthening its armed forces.
He was dismissive of weeks of talks between Europe, the U.S. and Ukraine on security guarantees to protect Ukraine for a post-war settlement.
Comparing the process to a ritual dance, he said: “It would be very beautiful if people weren’t being killed.”
(With inputs from Reuters)
Nepal’s Interim Leader Balances Peace Efforts And Party Dissent
Elevated for her integrity after deadly anti-graft protests, Nepal’s Prime Minister Sushila Karki now confronts her biggest test: addressing protesters’ demands and ensuring elections within six months.
The ‘Gen Z’ demonstrators want the 73-year-old premier to arrest senior party leaders accused of graft, remove politically-connected bureaucrats from key posts, and investigate the deaths of 74 people during this month’s protests.
While they support Karki, who showed zero tolerance for corruption as Nepal’s first female chief justice, they are also impatient for results.
In a social media post earlier this week, Sudan Gurung, who has emerged as the ‘Gen Z’ group’s representative, supported calls for the “immediate arrest” of ministers in the recently overthrown government of K.P. Sharma Oli.
“We mainly expect her (Karki) to fight corruption. She is our mother and we believe she will protect us,” 36-year-old Gurung, founder of non-profit organisation Hami Nepal, told Reuters.
Nepal ranked 107 of 180 countries in Transparency International’s 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index.
Reuters could not reach Karki on her mobile, and messages to her phone remained unanswered.
The protests began after Oli’s government announced a ban on social media. While initially peaceful, the rallies spiralled out of control on September 8, and in just over 28 hours, the government had collapsed.
As well as dozens of deaths, more than 2,000 people were injured as protesters targeted government buildings and businesses believed to be connected to the previous government.
“There is no room to fail … and six months is a good amount of time,” Gurung said. Gurung threatened to bring down Karki’s government too if the group’s demands were not met.
Karki has already begun to act.
She has promised an anti-corruption committee and formed a panel to investigate the attacks on the protesters.
But experts warned she would need to tread carefully against powerful leaders such as Oli, who remains president of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist), which maintains a strong support base in the country.
“There is a possibility of another uprising from the traditional political parties that are blamed for mismanagement,” said Binoj Basnet, a former army general who is now an independent analyst.
Other political experts said Nepal was at a turning point similar to when the Maoist movement overthrew the monarchy in 2008, following more than a decade of unrest that left the government unstable and the economy weak.
Nepal has had 14 governments since, with repeated uprisings fuelled by stark income inequality and youth unemployment at more than 20%. A third of its young population – mostly in their 20s – have left the country for work.
There is also little inspiration for Karki from a similar uprising in Bangladesh, where Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus faces sporadic protests even as he attempts to guide the country through a fragile transition before holding a general election.
“If the Karki experiment does not work and is unable to successfully lay a path for the next credible government, then the risk is that the country could be thrown into another decade of unrest,” said Puranjan Acharya, an independent analyst and a former government adviser in the 90s.
Karki’s Challenges
In the midst of a political crisis, Karki also has to fix Nepal’s $43 billion economy, which has been hit by a drop in tourism and investment sentiment since the protests.
Fitch Ratings said “a period of extended political stress” would raise risks for the sovereign credit profile of the Himalayan nation, as it dampens economic activity and near-term growth prospects.
Karki’s government has said it plans to hold an election on March 5, although analysts say that could be extended by another six months.
They say Karki will have to give the unorganised youth time to figure out their leadership, while the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party-UML, which have dominated the country’s politics for decades, need time to identify candidates untainted by graft allegations.
“This movement is all about corruption. So leaders like Oli, and Sher Bahadur Deuba (Nepali Congress President) and their close aides will not fight elections,” Acharya said, adding that the parties will have to find new faces.
Youth leader Gurung is mulling the formation of a new youth-based party.
He stressed elections needed to be fair for all sides to accept the results and avoid more protests.
“The next elections will be a generational clash of old versus the new,” Acharya said.
(With inputs from Reuters)