Nepal Rastriya Dainik
April 17, 2026 ,
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MCC Deputy VP Visits Nepal as US Aid Resumes

Posted on by नेपाल राष्ट्रिय दैनिक

KATHMANDU – John Wingle, Deputy Vice President of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) overseeing operations in Europe, Asia, the Pacific, and Latin America, arrived in Kathmandu on Monday, marking the first high-level MCC visit since the US resumed aid halted under the Trump administration.

During his stay, Wingle will meet senior Nepali officials, including Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Bishnu Poudel, and attend the signing of contracts for two transmission line projects jointly funded by Nepal and MCC. These include the $77.48 million Ratmate–New Damauli line and the $77.03 million New Damauli–New Butwal line, part of the 297 km MCC Nepal Compact electricity project.

The Trump administration had paused MCC operations in early 2025 during a foreign aid review. In July, the US decided to continue the MCC Nepal Compact, giving Nepal three years to complete the projects or return unspent funds.

The MCC board will meet on August 21 to clarify the agency’s future. In Nepal, the $697 million MCC Compact—ratified in 2022—also includes road upgrades and construction of three new substations. Land acquisition and tree clearance remain key challenges to meeting the tight deadline.

Court’s Restraining order blocks Trump’s plan to put USAID staff on leave

Posted on by नेपाल राष्ट्रिय दैनिक

A judge has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump from placing 2,200 workers at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) on paid leave, hours before it was due to happen.

Judge Carl Nichols issued a “limited” temporary restraining order, in response to a last-minute lawsuit filed by two unions trying to save the agency.The order will remain in place for a week, until 14 February at midnight.

Trump has argued that USAID, the overseas aid agency, is not a valuable use of taxpayer money and wants to dismantle it – he plans to put nearly all of the agency’s 10,000 employees on leave, except 611 workers.Some 500 staff had already been put on administrative leave and another 2,200 were due to join them from midnight on Friday (05:00 GMT).

But the last-minute lawsuit on Friday argued the government was violating the US Constitution, and also that the workers were suffering harm.The judge will also consider a request for a longer-term pause at a hearing on Wednesday.

It is unclear from the court order what will happen to the remaining staff’s jobs.As the ruling came, officials had been removing and covering USAID signs at the organisation’s headquarters in Washington DC.

Government to take concessional loan of Rs. 18 billion and grant of Rs. 80 billion

Posted on by नेपाल राष्ट्रिय दैनिक

The government has decided to take a soft loan of Rs 18 billion from the World Bank Group’s International Development Organization. Minister for Communications and Information Technology and Spokesperson to the Government Gyanendra Bahadur Karki said this while announcing the decisions taken by the Council of Ministers.

The government has also decided to accept USD 659 million, or about Rs 80 billion, from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).