FIRE COMPLETELY DESTROYS BHUTANESE RFUGEE CAMP

DOZENS BHUTANESE.REFUGEES INJURED; CAMP COMPLETELY DESTROYED; OTHER FIRE DETAILS

By Bhola B Rana

Kathmandu, 22 March: Dozens of Bhutanese refugees and locals around Jhapa Goldhap camp were injured Tuesday in a fire that broke out at 7.30 in the morning.
The refugees are being cared at a school nearly.
All 775 houses with 4,000 refugees were destroyed, district officials said.
The fire had threatened the office of the UNHCR, police base camp and a hospital.
An investigation into the cause of the fire has started although initial reports said a gas leak started it.
Althgether35,000 of 105,000 refugees of Nepali ethnicity forcibly evicted from neighbouring Bhutan in an ethnic cleansing drive by the Buddhist rulers of the Buddhist South Asian nation have been resettled in theWest—mostly in USA.
The eviction has been largely overlooked by the West.
The dry season is the time for fires and storms in Nepal.
Firefighters Tuesday brought a fire that raged for three days at Aurunjga community forest in Jhapa under control after destroying 565hectarrs of forest cover with losses amounting to five million rupees.
A fire at Phattargaha VDC is Saptari destroyed five houses.
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NO CONSTITUTION UNTIL PEACE PROCESS CONCLUDED

Kathmandu, 22 March: NC President Sushil Koirala reiterated
a constitution won’t be concluded until the delayed peace process
in completed.
Only 67 days to enforce the basic law by the second 28 May deadline ri institutionalize a declared republic.
A sub-committee headed by Maoist Chairman Prachanda consisting
mainly of representatives three major parties is discussing 36
differences to be incorporated in the document.
No discussion is being held at the 598-member constituent assembly.
Koirala also called for the integration and resettlement of 19,000 former combatants.
He again rejected a secret 7-point agreement between the chairmen
Maoists and UML to run government; the agreement envisages
running government with representatives of the two parties heading government,
This and other points in the controversial agreement have come under fire.
Koirala rejected the UML and Maoist offer to join government; it’s expansion has been delayed with the election of Jhalanath Khanal
as prime minister with Maoist support.
The two parties combined have a majority in parliament.
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JAPANESE TOIRISTS CANCEL NEPAL VISIT AFTER THREE DISASTERS

Kathmandu, 22 March: Nepal’s tourism has suffered a direct hit as a result of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Travel trade entrepreneurs say that they are receiving increasing numbers of cancellations from Japanese tourists following the twin disasters. The tourism industry has received more than 1,000 cancellations from Japan so far, Sangam Prasain reports in The Kathmandu Post.

March, April and May are the most popular months for Japanese visitors in Nepal, and the cancellations during the peak season mean business will be hurt bad. Travel traders say Japanese tourists are among the highest spenders in Nepal and they stay over a week.

According to official tourism statistics, Japan is the sixth largest source of air tourists for Nepal after India, China, the US, the UK and France. Nepal hosted 23,272 Japanese tourists in 2010, among whom 20,458 came by air.

“The unexpected cancellation of tours has hit our business,” said Shibesh Shrestha, managing director of C&K Nepal Travels and Tours, whose main clients are Japanese tour groups.

According to him, his agency has received 250 cancellations for March alone. “Although there were few tourists coming from Osaka, there are more cancellations from Tokyo and Hokkaido. All the bookings from Sendai have been cancelled,” said Shrestha.

The cancellations from Japan are expected to affect Nepal’s target of welcoming one million tourists in 2011. The Nepal Tourism Year implementation committee has planned to increase Japanese arrivals by 20 percent. Nepal received 3,755 Japanese tourists in the first two months of 2011 compared to 3,528 in the same period last year.

Along with tour operators, hotels are also seeing cancellation of reservations by Japanese tourists. “We received cancellations of 300 room nights within a week,” said Bharat Joshi, director, sales and marketing at the Hotel Yak & Yeti. He said that all the hotels were receiving cancellations, and that 600 room nights were expected to be cancelled this season.

“Japanese tourists are major customers for hotels spending over US$ 90 per day on accommodation,” Joshi said. He added that cancellations from Japan were expected to result in a drop in the Yak & Yeti’s business by 5 percent.

The Everest Hotel has reported that about 10 percent of its bookings from Japan have been cancelled. The hotel said it could not say if cancellations might increase.

The Radisson Hotel said that cancellations of hotel bookings were likely to be high due to the national grief in Japan. “We have not had such massive cancellations, but there have been some cancellations,” said Abinav Rana, general manager of the hotel.

The Shangri-La Hotel in Kathmandu and the Shangri-La in Pokhara do not have bookings from Japanese guests for March, said general manager Raju Bikram Shah.

Japanese tourists were among the major visitors to Nepal till 2001. However, after the Maoist conflict escalated, arrivals from Japan decreased significantly. Following the peace accord in 2006, the number of Japanese visitors rebounded. In 2007, there were 21,989 Japanese arrivals.

The Nepal Association of Tour Operators (NATO) has projected a 40 percent drop in Japanese tourists this year. The association said that the season for Japanese tourists had started, and that a crisis at the beginning of the season would hurt Nepal’s travel trade industry, particularly trekking and tours. “A Japanese tour group normally consists of 20 to 25 people, which now has fallen to nine to 10 people,” said NATO president Ashok Pokhrel.
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