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The World Bank will press for more grants and new capital from member countries, even as it leverages its balance sheet to scale up lending for responses to climate change and other global crises, its managing director of operations said on Tuesday.

The lender will rally donor support for a newly established crisis facility for the world's poorest countries that face overlapping global crises, including severe climate events, Anna Bjerde said in an interview.

"We hope to be able to really conclude and have a very strong interest in funding this by the end of the year," Bjerde said, adding that multiple billions of dollars were needed for the crisis facility.

That facility sits within the International Development Association (IDA) fund, the World Bank's fund for the poorest countries. The last replenishment was fast depleted by the pandemic.

COVID-19 pushed many poor countries into debt distress as they were expected to continue servicing their obligations in spite of the massive shock to their finances.

Bjerde is hoping for major progress in courting interest in the facility at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank in Morocco in October.

"We need to really get grants from developed and higher income countries, rich countries, to provide resource transfers to the lower income countries," she said.

The World Bank, whose 25-member executive board on May 3 elected a new president, wants to increase lending to ensure it can better tackle issues such as climate change, pandemics and conflict.

"We need to continuously work on what we call under the evolution roadmap - a better bank but also a bigger bank," Bjerde said.

The World Bank's "evolution road map" calls on its management to develop specific proposals to change its mission, operating model and financial capacity.

It also prescribes exploring options such as a potential new capital increase to unlock more lending and new financing tools.

The capital increase was an ongoing conversation that needed engagement with shareholders, Bjerde said.

"There's a lot of good efforts by World Bank management to look at all opportunities to maximise capital and freeing up resources internally first, through balance sheet optimisation and so forth."

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in April said the next steps the World Bank must take include potential changes to allow the bank's private sector and poor country lending arms to lend to sub-sovereign entities such as cities and regional authorities.

Sub-national lending, Bjerde said, was something the World Bank "would very much like to explore further".

"It needs to be part of the toolkit and the solutions, because we need to work with both national governments and sub national governments to be able to tackle and address some of these pressing needs and urgent priorities," Bjerde said. (Reuters)

A Nepali sherpa reached the summit of Mount Everest for a record 28th time on Tuesday, an official said, completing his second ascent in just a week, as the toll in this year's climbing season rose to 11.

Kami Rita Sherpa, 53, reached the 8,849-metre (29,032-feet) summit by the traditional southeast ridge route, said Nepali tourism official Bigyan Koirala, following his 27th climb last week.

Pioneered by the first summiteers, New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953, the route remains the most popular path to the world’s tallest peak.

"Kami Rita is on his way down from the summit," said Thaneswar Guragai, the general manager of his employer, the Seven Summit Treks company, which says climbing is a passion for the sherpa.

"He climbed with other clients but we are waiting for details."

Kami Rita first climbed Everest in 1994, and has done so almost every year since, except for three years when authorities closed the mountain for various reasons.

"He developed a deep passion for climbing from a young age and has been scaling the mountains for over two decades," the company said last week.

Separately, Guragai said American deaf couple Scott Lehmann and Shayna Unger climbed Lhotse, the world's fourth highest mountain, at 8,516 m (29,939 ft), on Tuesday, a day after scaling Everest, becoming the "first such couple to climb both peaks".

Another sherpa climber scaled Everest for the 27th time this week, the most summits after Kami Rita, while British climber Kenton Cool scaled it last week for the 17th time, the most by a foreigner.

However, the dangers the mountain presents for many climbers were reflected in two more deaths over the weekend, taking the toll to 11 since April.

One was a Nepali sherpa, working to clean the mountain, who died on Monday, the Nepali Army said in a statement. Equipment and other items left by climbing expeditions can litter the mountain for decades.

An Australian engineer died during the descent from the summit on Friday in the death zone above 26,000 feet (7,925 m), which is infamous for the thin air that can cause sudden attacks of high-altitude sickness.

Jason Kennison, 40, probably died due to weakness at the Balcony area between the summit and the final camp, Ang Tshering Sherpa, of the Asian Trekking Co, said on Tuesday.

"He was being carried down by sherpa climbers but collapsed after reaching the Balcony area," he said.

Strong winds frustrated efforts to carry more oxygen canisters for Kennison from the final camp, hiking officials said.

"He was just on top of the world, literally, on top of the world and that's what he wanted to achieve and he achieved that," Kennison's mother, Gill, told a press conference in his hometown of Mallala, about 60 km (37 miles) north of Adelaide.

"On the descent is when he suddenly fell ill and that's when he passed away," his brother, Adrian, added on Monday.

The tally of 11 includes three sherpas who died in April in a serac fall on the lower parts of the mountain, while others died of illness, weakness and various causes, they added.

Two climbers, one each from Singapore and Malaysia, have been missing for the last three days, officials said. (Reuters)

East Timor independence hero Xanana Gusmão's party was leading with two-thirds of votes counted in a parliamentary election, state media showed on Monday, heralding a possible return to power for the former rebel after nearly a decade in opposition.

Sunday's election, which will pave the way for the winning party or a coalition of parties to appoint the head of government, is a battle for the premiership between Gusmão and Mari Alkatiri, another resistance-era figure from the ruling party.

With nearly 70% of ballots counted, Gusmão's opposition party, the National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction (CNRT), had about 40% of votes, according to election commission data as broadcast by state media Radio-Televisão Timor Leste.

The ruling Revolutionary Front for an Independent Timor-Leste (FRETILIN), which leads a four-party coalition backing the incumbent prime minister José Maria Vasconcelos, or Taur Matan Ruak, had about 27% of votes.

Fifteen other parties were contesting the poll, though none had more than 10% of votes as of Monday.

Reuters could not independently verify the results.

The election is East Timor's fifth parliamentary poll since it gained full independence in 2002 following decades-long occupation by Indonesia.

Heavily dependant on its fast-depleting oil reserves for revenue, the half-island nation of 1.3 million people has grappled with diversifying its economy and reducing high rates of poverty. (Reuters)

South Korea and the European Union agreed on Monday to step up cooperation on security amid tension over Russia's invasion of Ukraine and North Korean nuclear threats.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol held a summit in Seoul with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel, during which the leaders also pledged to work together on climate change, health and supply chains.

"South Korea and the EU are important partners that share universal values of freedom, human rights and rule of law," Yoon told a joint press conference.

Yoon has been pushing for greater security ties with Europe and other U.S. allies to address global challenges, including the conflict in Ukraine and tension over China's stance towards self-ruled Taiwan. He also wants cooperation to curb North Korea's nuclear ambitions. In June, he attended a NATO summit for the first time as a South Korean leader.

At Monday's talks, which mark the 60th anniversary of bilateral relations, Yoon and the EU leaders in a joint statement condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a grave violation of international law. They also criticised North Korea's ongoing efforts to develop its nuclear arsenal and Pyongyang's threats of the possible use of nuclear weapons against South Korea.

"Russia must stop its aggression and immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the entire territory of Ukraine," the statement said.

A major producer of artillery shells, Seoul has not provided lethal weapons to Ukraine, citing its ties with Russia, but Yoon signalled a possible shift in his stance against arming Ukraine in an interview with Reuters last month.

At the press conference, von der Leyen thanked Yoon for South Korea's financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.

Yoon and the EU leaders also called for freedom of overflight and navigation in the South China Sea, as well as peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, saying they oppose any unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the Indo-Pacific.

South Korea and the EU will also reinforce cooperation on economic security, including early warning systems to detect and address potential supply chain disruptions in key industries, such as semiconductor chips.

South Korea is a staunch U.S. ally and hosts some 28,000 U.S. troops. It has also developed a crucial economic relationship with China, South Korea's largest trading partner.

Yoon faces a tricky task of balancing those two relationships, while at the same time fending off a belligerent North Korea, which is ramping up its arsenal of nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them.

On other global issues, a "green partnership" will be created with the EU to spur an environmentally friendly transition, the statement said, warning that a triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution poses an "existential threat."

Both sides also reached an agreement to boost health cooperation, under which they will work together to identify and counter health threats, and assist other countries to prevent and respond to them. (Reuters)