US Commerce Secretary Lutnick to testify before Congress about Epstein ties
Lutnick’s relationship with the late financier and sex offender has come under scrutiny after files revealed closer ties than previously known. Listen to this article Listen to this article | 2 mins info Published On 4 Mar 20264 Mar 2026 Click here to share on social media share2 Share plus2googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick has agreed to give testimony to lawmakers about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the head of a committee investigating the late sex offender has said. Lutnick, who lived next door to Epstein in New York for more than a decade, “proactively agreed” to provide a transcribed interview to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, panel chair James Comer said on Tuesday. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list “I commend his demonstrated commitment to transparency and appreciate his willingness to engage with the Committee. I look forward to his testimony,” Comer, a Kentucky Republican, said on X. Axios, which first reported the commerce secretary’s intention to testify, quoted Lutnick as saying he had done nothing wrong and he wished to “set the record straight”. Lutnick’s relationship with Epstein, who died in 2019 while awaiting sex trafficking charges, has come under mounting scrutiny after he appeared to misrepresent the extent of his associations with the notorious financier. In a podcast interview last year, Lutnick said he decided to “never be in the room” with Epstein again following an uncomfortable encounter at the sex offender’s Manhattan penthouse in 2005. But files released by the Justice Department earlier this year showed that Lutnick met and communicated with Epstein for years after the reported 2005 encounter, and the commerce secretary later acknowledged that he visited the financier’s private island of Little Saint James in 2012. Comer said on Tuesday that he had also sent letters to seven individuals seeking written testimony about their knowledge of Epstein’s crimes, including Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, private equity investor Leon Black, and top Goldman Sachs lawyer Kathryn Ruemmler. Advertisement Gates, Black and Ruemmler have repeatedly denied wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, or having knowledge of his abuse of women and girls. The committee’s requests for testimony come after former US President Bill Clinton and his wife, ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, appeared before lawmakers last week to answer questions about their ties to Epstein. Bill Clinton told the committee he did nothing wrong and “saw nothing that ever gave me pause” while interacting with Epstein. Hillary Clinton told lawmakers she had no recollection of encountering Epstein and that she never “flew on his plane or visited his island home or offices”. Adblock test (Why?)
Russia, China raise diplomatic voices against US-Israeli attacks on Iran
China’s foreign minister tells Israel to end attacks; Russian FM Lavrov says no sign Tehran seeking nuclear bomb. Listen to this article Listen to this article | 4 mins info Russia and China have criticised the US and Israeli attacks on Iran, with Moscow saying it had seen no evidence that Tehran was developing nuclear weapons, and Beijing demanding an immediate halt to the joint attacks. Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi told his Israeli counterpart, Gideon Saar, on Tuesday that the attack on Iran came as negotiations between Washington and Tehran had “made significant progress, including addressing Israel’s security concerns”, China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list “Regrettably, this process has been interrupted by military action. China opposes any military strikes launched by Israel and the US against Iran,” Wang told the Israeli foreign minister during a phone call, according to the ministry. “China calls for an immediate cessation of military operations to prevent the further escalation and loss of control of the conflict,” Wang said. “Force cannot truly solve problems; instead, it will bring new problems and serious long-term consequences,” he added. According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Saar agreed to a request from Wang to take “concrete measures to ensure the safety of Chinese personnel and institutions” in Iran. The call on Tuesday with Israel and Beijing’s apparent efforts to stabilise the spiralling regional situation followed calls Wang made on Monday to discuss the conflict with the foreign ministers of Iran, Oman and France. ‘US doesn’t attack those who have nuclear bombs’ Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also criticised the US and Israel on Tuesday, saying their war on Iran could lead to the very outcome they claimed they wanted to prevent: nuclear proliferation. Advertisement Lavrov told a news conference that the logical consequence of the US and Israel’s actions could be that “forces will emerge in Iran… in favour of doing exactly what the Americans want to avoid – acquiring a nuclear bomb”. “Because the US doesn’t attack those who have nuclear bombs,” Lavrov said. Lavrov also said that Arab countries could now join the race to acquire nuclear weapons, given the experience of recent days and “the nuclear proliferation problem will begin to spiral out of control”. Israel is widely seen as the Middle East region’s only nuclear-armed state, which it neither confirms nor denies. “The seemingly paradoxical declared noble goal of starting a war to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons could stimulate completely opposite trends,” he said. Lavrov, who said that Moscow had still seen no evidence that Iran was developing nuclear weapons, spoke with his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, on Tuesday, and said that Russia stood ready to help find a diplomatic solution to the conflict, while rejecting the US and Israel’s use of “unprovoked military aggression” in the region. As the US and Israel launched their first strikes on Iran on Saturday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry accused the close allies of carrying out a “premeditated and unprovoked act of armed aggression against a sovereign and independent UN member state”. The two countries had hidden their true intention of regime change in Tehran “under the cover” of negotiations to normalise relations with Iran, the ministry said. The US and Israel were “swiftly pushing the region toward a humanitarian, economic, and potentially even radiological disaster”, the ministry warned. “Responsibility for the negative consequences of this manmade crisis, including an unpredictable chain reaction and spiralling violence, lies entirely with them,” the statement added. Russia has faced its own accusations of aggression against a sovereign state after it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a war now in its fifth year. Adblock test (Why?)
Israel launches strikes on Beirut as troops advance into southern Lebanon
NewsFeed Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr reports from the site of an Israeli attack in Beirut’s southern suburbs, which Israel says targeted a ‘Hezbollah area’. Israeli forces have taken more land inside Lebanon, expanding a de facto buffer zone that has already displaced tens of thousands of people. Published On 3 Mar 20263 Mar 2026 Click here to share on social media share2 Share plus2googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Adblock test (Why?)
‘US president has the authority to act for imminent threats against the US’
Former US defense official Michael Mulroy breaks down the US justification for striking Iran, while some US officials say there were no immediate threats. Published On 3 Mar 20263 Mar 2026 Click here to share on social media share2 Share plus2googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Adblock test (Why?)
‘Russian oil will be sought’: What are Moscow’s gains from the war in Iran?
Moscow for decades has been Iran’s main international backer, shielding it from United Nations resolutions while trying to soften Western sanctions and selling weaponry worth billions of dollars to Tehran. Russian President Vladimir Putin lambasted the killing on Saturday of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as a “cynical violation of all norms of human morals and the international law”. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list Putin’s former prime minister and one-time successor Dmitry Medvedev sardonically called United States President Donald Trump a “peacekeeper who showed his real face”. Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s Federal Assembly, compared the war to what he alleged were the collective West’s attempts to destabilise Russia in the 1990s, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said US-Iranian talks about Tehran’s nuclear programme “degraded to direct aggression”. But as US and Israeli air strikes on Iran raged on for a fourth day on Tuesday, Russia appeared poised to benefit far more from the war than it looked to lose. Moscow’s most immediate gain is a boost in its oil revenues. The price of Russia’s Urals crude plunged to a new low in late February at $40 per barrel because of deep discounts caused by Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine. But as the price of the international benchmark Brent crude jumped by 13 percent by Monday, reaching $82 per barrel, Urals was traded at $57. ‘Russian oil will be sought after’ Russia, Iran and Venezuela are the world’s top producers of heavy crude that is exported to dozens of nations to be processed by their refineries. Advertisement Venezuela’s exports stalled after US special forces captured President Nicolas Maduro on January 3 and the White House gained control of Caracas’s oil trade. The suspension of Iran’s exports means that oil refineries designed to process heavy crude will have to rely on the Urals oil from Russia. “It means that Russian oil will be sought after because the rebuilding of technological processes of oil refineries takes long and costs a lot,” Igar Tyshkevych, a political analyst based in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, told Al Jazeera. “It means that the discounts for Russian oil will change.” If oil prices rise further, the Kremlin may propose to increase supply in exchange for Washington’s decision to partially lift the sanctions. Russia’s higher oil production would decrease petrol prices in the US before the midterm elections in November, he said. A second, longer-term gain could be Moscow’s attempt to act as a mediator in peace talks between Tehran and Washington. “It has been tried several times during conflicts between the US and Iran,” Tyshkevych said. “It didn’t always work, but Russia can try.” In March 2025, Putin offered to mediate US-Iranian negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear programme and three months later repeated the proposal while US and Israeli strikes were hitting Iran during a 12-day war. Washington ignored its offer both times. The conflicts with Iran have distracted Trump from trying to reach a US-brokered settlement of the Russia-Ukraine war, which entered its fifth year on February 24. The talks have stalled as Moscow has kept urging Ukraine to leave the Kyiv-controlled part of the Donetsk region in southeastern Ukraine. Washington will continue pressing both sides to settle, turning the talks into a “who blinks first” game, Tyshkevych said. “No one wants to say ‘no’ first but tries to create conditions for the opponent to loudly say ‘no’ and slam the door loudly,” he said. And as the attention of Washington and other Western powers is turned towards the war in Iran, Russia gets several weeks to come up with a new agenda for Trump, he said. Meanwhile, Ukraine could face a shortage of US-supplied missiles for Patriot air defence systems, which can shoot down Russian ballistic missiles, analysts warned. Patriot missiles are being redirected to Washington’s allies in the Middle East. “We felt a serious deficit before the war, and there is a high probability that the situation will only get worse,” Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, former deputy chief of the Ukrainian military’s General Staff, told Al Jazeera. Advertisement Patriot missiles “are manufactured in very low numbers. Americans have tried to change it, but with such demand, it can’t be done fast,” he said. However, Putin faces a tough choice between Washington and Tehran, according to a Russian expert on Iran. “Moscow has to choose, and for Putin, it’s a very tough choice because on the one hand, he doesn’t want to have a falling-out with Trump, but on the other hand, the regime in Tehran is one of the few serious foreign partners for the Kremlin for now,” Ruslan Suleymanov, an associate fellow at the New Eurasian Strategies Center, a US-British think tank, told Al Jazeera. “Besides, there is the heaviest choice between Iran and Israel,” he said. The Kremlin has tried to maintain a pragmatic partnership with Israel. “If we’re talking about immediate gains, then, yes, Russian propaganda can spin this episode with the killing of Khamenei as [an example of] Western treachery as in ‘Why can they do it and we can’t,’” Suleymanov said, referring to Khamenei’s killing and Moscow’s failed attempts to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “In any case, this situation is a blow to Putin’s image that yet again shows that he is incapable of really helping his partners, his allies,” Suleymanov added. Putin has already lost two key allies. In November 2024, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow, and Maduro’s abduction to the United States put an end to Moscow’s alliance with Venezuela. The Iran war has further ruined the authority of international law, according to a London-based expert on Central Asia. “The main argument against the Russian aggression in Ukraine so far has been the rude violation of international law and Ukraine’s sovereignty,” Alisher Ilkhamov, head of the Central Asia Due Diligence think tank, told Al Jazeera. The Kremlin may also use Khamenei’s killing as a way to persuade men of fighting age in the
Lebanese civilians flee amid deadly Israeli strikes on Beirut suburbs
Published On 2 Mar 20262 Mar 2026 Click here to share on social media share2 Share plus2googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Lebanese civilians have fled southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs as a deadly escalation erupts between Israel and Hezbollah. Many are seeking sanctuary in makeshift shelters across Lebanon’s capital. At least 31 people were killed and 149 wounded in overnight Israeli strikes on Beirut’s suburbs and southern Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. Highways became gridlocked as people evacuated following Israel’s deadliest assault on Lebanon in over a year. The strikes came shortly after Hezbollah fired missiles into Israel for the first time in more than 12 months. “I don’t know how long it will take us to reach Beirut,” said Ali Hamdan, who had been travelling for seven hours on what should have been a 30-minute journey from his village to Sidon. “I’m headed towards Beirut, but I don’t know where yet. We don’t have a place to stay.” In Beirut, public schools transformed into emergency shelters. Families arrived with mattresses and belongings, while volunteers registered names as classrooms and courtyards filled with displaced people. Hussein Abu Ali, who fled with his family from a southern Beirut suburb, recounted the strikes: “My son began shaking and crying. Where are you supposed to go? I stepped outside, then back in because I was afraid of shooting in the air. I gathered my children and went down to the street.” Nadia al-Salman, displaced from Majdal Zoun in the south, declared: “They do not intimidate or frighten us, and they will not make us retreat even an inch from the path of resistance.” Advertisement During the 2024 Israel-Hezbollah war, over one million Lebanese were displaced. Many remain unable to return to their destroyed border villages. Hezbollah stated Monday’s attacks were retaliation for the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and “repeated Israeli aggressions”, calling them “a legitimate defensive response”. The Israeli military warned residents in approximately 50 communities across southern and eastern Lebanon to evacuate. Military spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin stated Israel is considering “all options,” including a potential ground invasion, warning that “Hezbollah will pay a very heavy price”. He added that Israel has mobilised over 100,000 reservists since the war with Iran began on Saturday. Adblock test (Why?)
‘Speed, surprise, and violence of action’: how US launched attack on Iran
NewsFeed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, US General Dan Caine detailed how American forces launched a “massive, overwhelming attack across all domains of warfare” targeting Iran. Published On 2 Mar 20262 Mar 2026 Click here to share on social media share2 Share plus2googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Adblock test (Why?)
Starmer lets US use bases for Iran clash: UK’s military, legal quagmire
Early on Monday, a suspected Iranian drone crashed into the runway at the United Kingdom’s RAF Akrotiri base in southern Cyprus. British and Cypriot officials said the damage was limited. There were no casualties. Hours later, two drones headed for the base were “dealt with in a timely manner”, according to the Cypriot government. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list The incidents came after Prime Minister Keir Starmer signalled on Sunday that the UK was prepared to support the United States in its confrontation with Iran – raising the prospect that the UK could be drawn deeper into a war it did not choose by its closest ally. In a joint statement with the leaders of France and Germany, Starmer said the European group was ready to take “proportionate defensive action” to destroy threats “at their source”. Later, in a televised address, he confirmed that Westminster approved a US request to use British bases for the “defensive purpose” of destroying Iranian missiles “at source in their storage depots, or the launches which are used to fire the missiles”. But his agreement did little to placate US President Donald Trump, who said the decision came too late. UK-based military analyst Sean Bell cautioned against reading too much into the Akrotiri incident. “I understand the projectile that hit Cyprus was not armed, it hit a hangar [with] no casualties, and appears to have been fired from Lebanon,” he said, citing sources. Al Jazeera was not able to independently verify the claim. The broader context, he argued, is more consequential. Advertisement The US has taken the action “and everybody else is having to deal with the fallout”, he said. Iran’s military strength lies in its extensive ballistic missile programme, he said, adding that while some have the range to threaten the UK, they do not extend far enough to strike the US. “I don’t think [US] President Trump has yet made the legal case for attacking Iran, and … international law makes no discrimination between a nation carrying out the act of war and a nation supporting that act of war, so you’re both equally complicit,” he said. Bell said that Washington likely reframed the issue, communicating to London that, whatever triggered the escalation, US forces were now effectively defending British personnel in the region. That shift, he suggested, provided a legal basis to “not to attack Iran, but to protect our people”, allowing the UK to approve US operations from its bases under a “very, very clear set of instructions” tied strictly to national interest and defence. UK officials ‘tying themselves in knots’ However, concerns of complicity had reportedly shaped earlier decisions, according to Tim Ripley, editor of the Defence Eye news service, who said the British government initially concluded that US and Israeli strikes on Iran did not meet the legal definition of self-defence under the United Nations Charter. When Washington requested the use of bases such as RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, UK, and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, Starmer is understood to have consulted government lawyers, who advised against participation. Up until Starmer’s televised address, in which he approved the US request, the UK had not considered the campaign a war of self-defence, said Ripley. While Washington’s legal reasoning has not changed, the war’s trajectory has. Iranian retaliatory strikes – which have seen drones and missiles targeting Gulf states – have placed British expatriates and treaty partners under direct threat. “The basis of our decision is the collective self-defence of longstanding friends and allies, and protecting British lives. This is in line with international law,” Starmer said. According to Ripley, several Gulf governments, which maintain defence relationships with the UK, sought protection, allowing London to focus on protecting British personnel and partners rather than endorsing a broader campaign. However, with memories of the Iraq War hanging over Westminster, British ministers have stopped short of explicitly backing the US bombing campaign. Advertisement British officials are “tying themselves in knots” trying to describe a position that is neither fully participatory nor detached, he said. US-UK: A strained relationship Starmer on Monday told Parliament that the UK does not believe in “regime change from the skies” but supports the idea of defensive action. But Ripley warned that any arrangement allowing US warplanes to operate from British air bases carries significant risks. Iran’s missile systems are mobile and launchers mounted on trucks, he said. From RAF Fairford or Diego Garcia, US aircraft face flight times of seven to nine hours to reach Iranian airspace, necessitating patrol-based missions. Once airborne, pilots may have only minutes to act. The idea that a US crew would pause mid-mission to seek fresh British legal approval is unrealistic, he said. London must rely on Washington’s assurance that only agreed categories of “defensive” targets will be struck. If an opportunity arose to eliminate a senior Iranian commander in the same operational zone, the temptation could be strong. Yet such a strike might fall outside Britain’s stated defensive mandate. The aircraft would have departed from British soil, and any escalation could implicate the UK, Ripley said. Bell highlighted another weakness: Britain has no domestic ballistic missile defence system. If a ballistic missile were fired at London, he said, “We would not be able to shoot it down.” Intercepting such weapons after launch is notoriously difficult, reinforcing the argument that the only reliable defence is to strike before launch. The UK, therefore, occupies a grey zone: legally cautious, operationally exposed and strategically dependent on US decisions, it does not fully control. Beyond the legal and military dilemmas, Starmer must also contend with a sceptical public. A YouGov poll conducted on February 20 found that 58 percent of Britons oppose allowing the US to launch air strikes on Iran from UK bases, including 38 percent who strongly oppose. Just 21 percent support such a move, underscoring limited domestic backing for deeper involvement. Adblock test (Why?)
Israel bombs Beirut after Hezbollah fires rockets in Iran war retaliation
NewsFeed Israel has carried out heavy strikes in the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital Beirut after Hezbollah launched an attack on northern Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Published On 2 Mar 20262 Mar 2026 Click here to share on social media share2 Share plus2googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Adblock test (Why?)
Balen Shah: Rapper, mayor, Nepal’s next prime minister?
Kathmandu, Nepal – Facing thousands of raucous supporters, 35-year-old Balendra Shah lifted his signature black rectangular sunglasses, asked his audience to look him in the eye, and said: “I love you.” It is a sentiment that millions of young Nepalis appear to reciprocate. Balen – as he is popularly known – was a nobody until 2013, when he almost overnight became a rap sensation. Nearly a decade later, in May 2022, he stunned Nepal’s deeply entrenched mainstream political parties by winning the post of mayor of Kathmandu, the country’s capital, while contesting as an independent. When the Himalayan nation of 30 million people erupted in popular protests against the government of then-Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli in September 2025, Balen emerged as a high-profile backer of the protesters. He was the first choice of many Gen Z activists to take over as interim leader after Oli was forced to resign. But he instead supported former Supreme Court Chief Justice Sushila Karki for the post. It is now that this was a tactical move. As Nepal heads to its first election since the protests last year, and Karki’s brief term ends, Balen is positioning himself as the future prime minister the country needs. And true to style, he is doing it with a bang: He is contesting the parliamentary elections from Jhapa-5, a seat about 300km (186 miles) southeast of Kathmandu, against Oli, the man protesters deposed just five months ago. On the surface, the odds appear stacked against him. The region is a stronghold of Oli and the Communist Party of Nepal – Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML), which the former prime minister heads. Balen is contesting as a candidate of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), a centrist party formed less than four years ago, which won 10 percent of the national vote in the last elections in 2022. Advertisement Balen’s volatile public communication – he has abused mainstream parties, India, China and the United States, and threatened to burn down symbols of power in Nepal – has sparked criticism and questions over whether he is ready for high office. But Balen defied the pundits when he won the Kathmandu mayoralty. And observers and analysts say that for many Nepalis, he represents a breath of fresh air in a country where more than 40 percent of the population is under the age of 35, but where the leadership of all major parties is in its 70s. “Young Nepalis see him as a decisive actor, who is not beholden to traditional political or business interests,” Pranaya Rana, a journalist who writes for the Kalam Weekly newsletter, told Al Jazeera. “Many admire his macho public persona and his willingness to take on entrenched political patronage networks.” Supporters of Balendra Shah, a former Kathmandu mayor popularly known as ‘Balen’, gather for a campaign rally in Janakpur, Nepal, January 19, 2026 [Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters] The craze If young Nepal burned with anger in September, when protesters clashed with security forces and attacked senior politicians after a crackdown by authorities under Oli, Balen was still seething with rage two months later. In a midnight post on Facebook in November, he lashed out: “F*** America, F*** India, F*** China, F*** UML, F*** Congress, F*** RSP, F*** RPP, F*** Maobaadi. You Guys all Combined can do nothing”, venting against the popular political parties and even nations that have close ties to Nepal. Being the Kathmandu mayor at the time, he deleted the post less than half an hour later. Then in January, he quit as mayor and joined the RSP, one of the parties he cursed in the Facebook post. More recently, after Oli called on Facebook for a public debate among prime ministerial candidates of major parties, Balen rejected the suggestion and asked the ex-prime minister to take responsibility for the dozens of civilians killed during the Gen Z protests in September. He asked Oli to acknowledge that he was a “terrorist”. Over the top? Not to many Nepalis. The rapper-turned-politician’s confrontational style and rhetoric appear to have only endeared him to large sections of the youth. His beard and dandy, all-black clothing style – he occasionally wears the traditional Newari dress of the ethnic inhabitants of the Kathmandu valley – coupled with his trademark dark glasses, have become fashion symbols. Kathmandu shops once ran out of the kind of black rectangular glasses he wears. Many online stores, including Daraz, the most popular seller in Nepal, still carry multiple choices of these shades, calling them “Balen Shah glasses”. Advertisement Unlike traditional politicians, Balen mainly stays away from mainstream media. Instead, he communicates with the wider public through podcasts, television shows where he is a judge, or through his favourite platform: social media. His 3.5 million followers on Facebook, 1 million on Instagram, 400,000 on X and nearly 1 million on YouTube give him an online audience unmatched in Nepal. This is valuable capital with a generation constantly on their phones. Yet Balen first made waves not as a politician, but as an upstart musician who shook Nepal. Balendra Shah, a rapper-turned-politician and the prime ministerial candidate for the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), along with Rabi Lamichhane, RSP president, takes part in an election campaign in Kirtipur, Kathmandu, Nepal, February 28, 2026 [Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters] Big cars, bigger songs The youngest of four siblings, Balen was born in 1990 in Kathmandu. Balen’s father, Ram Narayan Shah – who passed away in December – was a government practitioner of ayurveda, the ancient Hindu healing system. In an interview with Al Jazeera in September – three months before his death – Shah recalled Balen as a “bright and simple” child. The father’s work took him away from home frequently, but one clear memory from Balen’s childhood stuck out for Shah: “He wrote poems. I remember that, because I also wrote poems.” Balen graduated with a civil engineering degree from Himalayan Whitehouse International College in Kathmandu and received a postgraduate degree in structural engineering from Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) in Karnataka, India. Then, in 2013, he