Tiger kills rhino calf

Kathmandu, 6 Dec: A tiger killed a four-year-old rhino calf in Chitwan National Park where both the endangered species are protected.
Park Official Ananath Baral said the remains of the calf with horn and hoofs were recovered four days ago.
Such an attack in the park is rare,
Rhinos are prey to poachers.
Horn and hoofs are prized by poachers.
Nnnn

Congress concluding fifth and last district anti-Maoist meeting; other details

By Bhola B Rana

Kathmandu, 6 Dec: Main opposition Nepali Congress is concluding its fifth and last district national awareness campaign in Mahendranagar, Kailali, Saturday.
Although officially dubbed a ‘national awareness campaign’ launched to psychologically unify the party and raise awareness on democracy—the meetings have turned into a jihad against Maoists charged for authoritarian rule.
President Girija Prasad Koirala has used the
meetings to support Nepal Army and oppose integration of Maoist PLA with Nepal Army.
The campaign was launched in Biratnagar more than two months ago in Biratnagar, Koirala’s hometown; Birgunj, Pokhara and Nepalgunj were other venues.
Octogenarian Koirala, who has aggressively addressed all meetings with a raised finger, is in Mahendranagar to address the last rally.
Koirala, restricted manly to a room in Baluwatar equipped with medical equipment including oxygen cylinders, feigned illness during his entire rule an before ouster by Maoists after the April assembly election, one central committee member and relative who preferred anonymity said.
Koirala, who had to travel with an escort of emergency doctors and oxygen cylinders to aid his breathing, now travels long distances without them amazing observers.
The relative charged Koirala was feigning illness during his rule to avoid meeting critics who charged the prime minister to keeping a proximity with communists.
Koirala has again taken up his traditional anti-communist stance after losing elections and the presidency.
Koirala and party colleagues have been charged
for abandoning ‘consensus politics’ that, Congress leaders say, could delay the drafting of a constitution within the remaining 16-month deadline that could throw the country into another crisis.
But PM Prachand has turned the table and repeated the same charge against the Congress, which he said, set pre-conditions for Maoist entry into government after CPN (Maoist) emerged as the largest single party in the constituent assembly (CA) after the 10 April assembly vote—Nepal’s first.
Mahendranagar, where the Congress meet was held Saturday has been renamed Bhimnagar by the Maoist-led government which is attempting to remove all vestiges of monarchy and Shah kings of Nepal.
PP MEETING INDEFINITELY POSTPONED
Meanwhile, the Congress parliamentary party (PP) meeting scheduled to be held Monday has been postponed indefinitely, the party said.
Differences surfaced whether deputy of the parliamentary party leer should be elected or nominated.
Koirala ordered to draw up a party statute to endorse a nominee of the leader of the parliamentary—a diktat oppose by young Turks who are loyal to rival Sher Bahadur Deuba.
President Koirala claimed he is also leader of the parliamentary without a formal election questioning the democratic credentials of the country’s oldest political party that claims to have fought for democracy.
An election is not on the cards although other parties in the CA have chosen their leaders.
But the Congress non-election has impacted appointments to constitutional bodies because the constitutional council hasn’t met to confirm government appointments.
Leader of the main opposition in the CA is ex-officio member of the CA.
Nnnn

Maoists off UN list of child recruiters

Kathmandu, 6 Dec: Maoists will be de-listed
from a UN list of parties recruiting and using child soldiers, Radhika Coomaraswamy, visiting Special Representative of the secretary-general said Friday.
She said 2,973 verified child soldiers will be discharged from UNMIN-administered camps by February 2009 after agreement with Prime Minister Prachanda.
UN and related agencies have developed reintegration and discharge plans.
Nnnn





MEDIA GOOGLE

“Time hasn’t come to look for an alternative to the Prachand coalition government. One hundred days isn’t enough to assess the performance of a government.”

(RPP Chairman Pashsupati SJB Rana, Annapurna Post, 6 Dec.)

‘We aren’t fascist or authoritarian.”

(PM Prachanda, Kantipur, 6 Dec.)