Kathmandu, Dec 22; PTI:  A bus carrying college students and their teachers back from an educational trip veered off a mountainous road and plunged into a ravine in Nepal, killing 23 people and injuring 14 others.

The fatal crash occurred on Friday when the bus was returning from Kapurkot in Salyan district.

According to the District Police Office, Dang, there were 37 persons —34 students, two teachers and a diver, on the ill-fated bus, which drove off the road and fell some 700 metres down near Ramri village, about 400 kilometres west of the capital Kathmandu.

OSLO, Dec. 22 (Xinhua) -- New figures from Norway's statistics bureau showed strong increase of Norwegian population's wealth due to a long-term stock market upturn and housing price growth, online newspaper E24 reported Saturday.

Total gross wealth in 2017 was 9,975 billion kroner (1,145 billion U.S. dollars), which is an increase of 9.1 percent from the year before, according to the Statistics Norway (SSB).

Mumbai, Dec 23; GANASHAKTI: Close to 1 million employees of various banks, including private lenders, have called for a one-day strike on December 26 to protest against the proposed amalgamation of Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank with Bank of Baroda.

The strike call comes on the heels of an officers union of state-run banks observing a day-long strike last Friday on similar grounds along with demand for immediate settlement of their wage negotiations.

New Delhi, Dec 22; PTI: In a relief to the common man, the GST Council Saturday cut rates on 23 commonly used goods and services, including TV screens, movie tickets and power banks.

The annual revenue implication of the rate cuts would be Rs 5,500 crore, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said.

The council rationalised the 28 per cent slab by bringing down the tax rate on seven items in the highest tax bracket, thereby leaving only 28 items in the slab.

New Delhi, Dec 22; PTI:  The Enforcement Directorate (ED) Saturday arrested Christian Michel, the alleged middleman in the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal case.

Michel was produced before Special Judge Arvind Kumar where the ED sought his 15-day custody.

The court allowed the ED to interrogate the British national inside the courtroom for 15 minutes after the agency sought his custodial interrogation. Michel was arrested thereafter.

KANPUR: As many as five candidates appearing at examinations of village development officer run away with their answer sheets from the centres here on Saturday. The centre in-charge lodged first information report against them at the police station. Besides, two candidates were also caught for copying.  

JERUSALEM, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday played down Israeli concerns over the U.S. pullout from Syria, saying his country will continue to act against Iranian forces in Syria.

"I would like to reassure those who are concerned," he said at the weekly cabinet meeting. "Our cooperation with the United States will continue in full and finds expression in many areas."

This cooperation includes joint operations, intelligence information, and "many other security spheres," he added.

KANPUR:  A dead body of married woman was found on a sleeper coach of Lokmanya Tilak Express. Taking corpse into possession the railway police sent the dead body for the post-mortem. Injury marks were found on her body. On complaints of the relatives, the police arrested the husband.

ROME (AP) — After a raucous session, the Italian Senate has approved a national budget law that was tweaked in a bid to satisfy European Union concerns.

Much of the Italian government’s planned spending in 2019, which won passage in Parliament’s upper chamber about 3 a.m. Sunday, satisfies the expensive campaign promises by Italy’s populist coalition. Those including rolling back pension changes and guaranteeing income for the jobless or underemployed.

ROSTOV-ON-DON, December 22. /TASS/. Servicemen from the 49th general army have participated in large-scale military drills to practice deactivation of contaminated objects after a massive nuclear attack, the press service of Russia's Southern Military District said on Saturday.

"On the territory of the Stavropol and Kuban regions, over 3,000 servicemen took part in drills on conducting radiation, chemical and bacteriological reconnaisance; as well as on deactivating contamination from nuclear weapons of terrain, weapons and military equipment," the press service said.

ANKARA, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- Turkey on Friday welcomed a decision of United States for pullout of all its troops from Syria and declared that it postponed an already announced operation into the east of Euphrates River in the war-torn country.

Moreover, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced a recent deal with his U.S. counterpart for eliminating residues of the Islamic State (IS) in Syria by the Turkish army.

22 Dec 2018; DW: Hours after a Security Council vote, a UN team has landed in Yemen to observe the departure of fighters from Hodeida. The port city serves as the entry point for the majority of imports to the war-ravaged country.

A United Nations monitoring team posted to Yemen's port city of Hodeida has arrived in the country, a UN source said on Saturday.