KATHMANDU, Oct 3 (Reuters) - Two earthquakes rocked western Nepal on Tuesday, injuring 17 people, damaging homes and triggering a landslide that blocked a major highway, authorities said.

The landslide after the quakes of magnitude 6.3 and 5.3 in the district of Bajhang, bordering India, blocked the road to the southern plains, interior ministry official Rama Acharya told Reuters.

The temblors, centred in Talkot and Chainpur, struck at an interval of about 30 minutes.

YEREVAN, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Armenian parliament approved on Tuesday the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) with 60 votes in favor and 22 against.

Following the ratification, the document is to be signed by the country's president and go into effect in 60 days after the completion of internal state procedures, Armenia's state-run news agency Armenpress reported.

Armenia is taking all steps to ensure its security in various ways, the country's MP Sargis Khandanyan, chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs, said after the ratification.

MALACCA (Malaysia), Oct 3 (NNN-Bernama) — Education has become one of the bridges that tie relations between New Zealand and Malaysia, said New Zealand Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro.

Kiro said the relations started in the early 1940s when the New Zealand Defence Force supported Malaysia’s defence during the emergency and then the Konfrontasi, before Malaysian students started going to New Zealand under the Colombo Plan in the early 1950s.

NEW YORK (AP) — Jury selection began Tuesday in the fraud trial of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried after a prosecutor revealed that no discussions about a potential plea agreement took place in the 10 months since the cryptocurrency executive was arrested and brought to the United States.

Once a billionaire, the 31-year-old crypto mogul faces the possibility of a long prison term if convicted at a trial that is expected to last up to six weeks.

GAZA, Oct 3 (NNN-WAFA) – The Israeli army arrested 13 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in Sept, a non-government Palestinian organisation said, yesterday.

In a press statement, the Palestinian Prisoner Club (PPC), said, “11 Palestinians were arrested by Israeli armed forces, while they were trying to pass the eastern fence separating Gaza from Israeli cities.”

The other two Palestinians were fishermen arrested while fishing in the Gaza Sea, the PPC added, without giving the reasons for their arrest.

ISLAMABAD, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- The World Bank said in its report on Tuesday that Pakistan's real GDP growth is likely to recover to 1.7 percent in the ongoing fiscal year from July 2023 to June 2024.

The World Bank projected in its report "Pakistan Development Update: Restoring Fiscal Sustainability" that Pakistan's real GDP will recover to 2.4 percent in the next fiscal year (July 2024 to June 2025).

The bank said that Pakistan's economic growth is expected to remain below potential over the medium term with some improvements in investment and exports.

MINSK, October 3. /TASS/: President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said he had tasked the government to prepare papers on the project of a railway branch line to St. Petersburg before his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in October.

"I requested Deputy Prime Minister [Anatoly] Sivak and Prime Minister [Roman Golovchenko] to have prepared, so to say, presentation materials on all the bottlenecks in the direction of St. Petersburg - the railway, by my meeting with the President of Russia in the near time," Lukashenko said, cited by the BelTA news agency.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania have agreed on a plan they hope will help expedite Ukrainian grain exports, officials said Tuesday, with needy countries beyond Europe potentially benefitting from speedier procedures.

The deal means that grain inspections will shift from the Ukraine-Poland border to a Lithuanian port on the Baltic Sea, according to a statement from the Ukrainian farm ministry.

The move seeks to facilitate the transit of Ukrainian exports through Polish territory, the statement said, without providing further details.

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 3 (NNN-Bernama) — Malaysia is maintaining its 2023 gross domestic product (GDP)  growth forecast of 4.0-5.0 per cent, said Deputy Finance Minister I, Ahmad Maslan. 

“The Finance Ministry has not made any changes with regard to the economic growth projection for this year.

“However, we do appreciate the World Bank’s statement as the statement was based on its own analysis, and we respect their findings,” he said to reporters after launching the Malaysia-China Entrepreneur Macro Health Forum 2023 here Tuesday.

MONROVIA, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Liberian government has declared that stringent security measures will be in place to ensure the safety and integrity of the democratic process during the forthcoming presidential election.

Speaking to the media in the national capital of Monrovia Monday, Minister of Justice Frank Musa Dean warned citizens of the West African country against fomenting troubles during the election process.

YEREVAN, October 3. /TASS/: The ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) by Armenia’s parliament is not an unfriendly act against Russia or the Russian president, Hakob Arshakyan, the Vice-Speaker of the Armenian Parliament and Co-Chairman of the Armenian-Russian Inter-Parliamentary Commission, has said.

LONDON, Oct 3 (NNN-XINHUA) – Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak’s announcement of a delay to the phasing out of petrol-driven vehicles has been criticised by a committee of lawmakers in the House of Commons in the United Kingdom (UK), who called the move “disappointing.”

Philip Dunne, chair of the Parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee, fired a lengthy letter at Sunak yesterday.