38 PASSENGERS KILLED IN MAOIST BUS ATTACK SIX YEARS AGO

UML STANDING COMMITTEE, NC CENTRAL COMMITTEE MEET

Kathmandu, 6 June: Standing committee of the UML leading the government meets Monday to discuss work division for leaders.
Report of discussions at the politburo and central committee will also be presented
The central committee backed Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal’s position he’ll resign only after an environment is created for formation of a national government.
Khanal got support of the committee where he was previously in minority.
Meanwhile, the central committee of the main opposition NC also meets Monday.
Leaders will brief committee members on last Sunday’s five-point agreement the party signed with Maoists and UML to extend the constituent assembly tenure by three months.
The agreement has come fire with top leaders charging the leadership for signing it by sidelining its 10-pont conditional demands that weren’t met.
A report prepared by Arjun Narsingh KC for institutional changes will also be discussed.
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LIGHTS BEING LIT TO COMMEMORATE 38 BUS PASSENGERS KILLED SIX YEARS AGO IN MADI

Kathmandu, 6 June: Lamps will be lit in memory of 38 passengers and 72 injured in a gruesome Maoist bomb attack on a bus exactly six years ago Monday at Madi in Chitwan during the insurgency.
Maoists haven’t compensated the victims as promised.
Three soldiers were among passengers killed in an attack on a civilian bus.
The bus attack was universally condemned.
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SPECIAL COMMITTEE MEETS AGAIN MONDAY

Kathmandu, 6 June: A special committee for integration, resettlement and supervision of 19,000 former Maoist combatants headed by the prime minister meets again Monday
Sunday’s meting to prepare a schedule for integration and resettlement was inconclusive.
A secretariat is presenting Monday a time-bound schedule for integration and resettlement to the committee.
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NRB EMPLOYEES RESUME STRIKE

Kathmandu, 6 June: Nepal Rashtra Bank (NRB) employees demanding adjustment of pay to match inflation and modernization of the central bank infrastructure resumed their strike Sunday.
Strikers will picket the office of the governor for one week and will escalate protests of demands aren’t met.
Two employee unions gave up their first round of 13-day strike on assurances demands would be met.
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GOVT. CANCELING LICENESING FOR WEST SETI POWER PROJECT

Kathmandu, 6 June: Energy Minister Gokarna Bista threatened Sunday
to cancel license awarded 16 years ago to West Seti Hydropower Co. Ltd. (WSHPL) for operating the 750MW West Seti project.
Bista said the license will be cancelled if an acceptable reply for delay isn’t received from the company within 15 days
The minister was testifying at a parliamentary committee meeting
Meanwhile, Nepal Army is being deployed for the security of Upper Karnali hydro power project being developed by an Indian company.
The moves follows at attack on its site offices in the far-West.
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CHILIME HYDROPOWER CO.LTD.SHARES OVERSUBSCRIBED SEVEN TIMES

Kathmandu, 6 June: Chilime Hydropower Co Ltd, that went public was oversubscribed seven times, the 20MW company promoted by Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) said Monday.
It went public to sell 1.344 million shares with a par value of Rs.100 per share at Rs408 per share with a premium.
Shares were initially to be sold to the public for four days from 31 May.
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MEDIA GOOGLE

“I have taken the risk for peace. I am the chairman of the largest political party and it is the responsibility of the state to make arrangements for my security.’

(Chairman Prachanda bidding farewell to former Maoist fighters assigned to protest him, Republica, 6 June)
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NRC SAYS HOTELS SHOULD SETTLE CASINO DUES

Kathmandu, 6 June: Nepal Recreation Center (NRC) has refused to pay royalty of two casinos saying hotels are responsible for settling the dues, Kantipur reports
NRC that operates four casinos wrote to the Department of Revenue Investigation (DRI) Sunday saying hotels where casinos are located are responsible for settling dues.
The Center made the claim based on the verdict of the supreme court 25 April on a writ filed by Hotel Soaltee
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ARMY DEMINING OPERATION COMPLETE

Kathmandu,6 June: The government has cleared all anti-personnel mines laid by the Nepal Army during the Maoist insurgency and thus met one of the commitments of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), Kiran Chapagain reports in Republica.

Secretary at the Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction Dhruba Sharma said Sunday that the Nepal Army, with support from the UN Mine Action Team (UNMAT), completed clearing all landmines from 53 different places last week.
"The works on de-mining has completed. But we are waiting for a report on quality assurance from the army to officially declare the completion of de-mining," Secretary Sharma told Republica.

Nepal Army spokesperson Ramindra Chhetri said the army is set to formally announce the completion of de-mining works on June 14. He informed that altogether 10,941 landmines from 53 locations and 1,078 improvised explosive devices (IED) have been cleared.

Clearing the landmines and the IEDs laid during the insurgency is one of the obligations of the government and the UCPN (Maoist) under the historic CPA.

The 5.1.4 provision of the CPA required the government and the Maoists to inform each other about demarcation and storage of ambush or mines laid during the insurgency within 30 days and help each other to defuse or dispose of within 60 days since the date of its signing.

However, the UCPN (Maoist) claims it laid no landmine during the conflict period, though the party had used improvised explosive devices (IEDs) during the armed conflict.

The government had formed the Nepal Mine Action Steering Committee with policy responsibilities and a Technical Committee as implementing body to oversee de-mining of the landmines among other things on June 21, 2007. The national army began clearing the mines from October 2007.

Anti-landmine campaigners welcomed the removal of the mines but said more needs to be done.

"It is a matter of happiness to know that the army has cleared all landmines that it had laid," said Purna Shova Chitrakar, an anti-landmine activist, "The Maoists should also remove all the IEDs as soon as possible."

Though the Maoists defused seven tons of IEDs after they joined the peace process, there still are explosives that remain unattended and yet to be identified, according to Chitrakar.

"It is a historic event and a step forward in implementing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Internationally, it is not every day that a country declare itself minefield free," said Robert Piper, UN resident and humanitarian coordinator, on the completion of the de-mining task.

Specially trained 180 Nepal Army personnel were involved in clearing the mines. International donors such as the UK, Australia and Switzerland provided de-mining equipment to the national army.

International community through the UN invested over $ 6 million for mine clearance in Nepal. This figure excludes the cost of the labor contributed by the Nepal Army.
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NEPALIS IN SAUDI ARABIA TO LOSE MORE JOBS
Kathmandu, 6 June: Nepali migrant workers in Saudi Arabia might lose around 300,000 jobs, if the host country implements its new policy, The Himalayan Times reports.

“We are examining effect of new policy on Nepali workers through Nepali embassy in the destination country,” said spokesperson of Ministry of Labour and Transport Management Purna Chandra Bhattrai. Last Monday, the Saudi government has introduced Saudisation Policy that barred job period of foreign workers to six years and promote employment of Saudi youths. Under the new policy, Saudi government will no longer renew the work permits of foreign workers, who have already spent six years in the country. Saudi Arabia has above 10.5 per cent unemployment rate this year.

Under the policy, companies in Saudi Arabia are required to guarantee at least 10 per cent of their workforce for Saudi nationals.

“We are writing Nepali embassy in Riyadh to report us the impact of Saudisation and suggest necessary measures to protect jobs for Nepali migrant working,” he said, adding that the ministry does not have official information about the policy through formal channel. “It is from the media reports, the ministry came to know about the information.”

Necessary steps will be taken only after the report from Nepali diplomatic mission in the destination country, Bhattrai added.

Saudisation policy formulated in 2006, has adopted some three months ago when Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz had promised to raise employment for youth in the middle of anti-government protest in Middle East and North African countries.

Some of the source countries have started exploring alternate destinations after the royal announcement of Saudisation. Philippines — an Asian country depend in remittance like Nepal — has signed overseas job agreements with South Korea and Australia last month. According to Manila Times, those two agreement consist 11,000 jobs in South Korea and 1,80,000 jobs in Australia.

According to Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies, about 6,00,000 Nepalis are working in Saudi Arabia and the policy will affecting nearly half of them. “About 300,000 Nepalis will be displaced once the Saudi Arabian government enforces the new policy,” said president of the association Som Lal Bataju.

There are an estimated 10 million expatriate workers in Saudi Arabia employed in various trade such as construction, telecommunications, health and service sectors, and domestic workers. The destination is employing Nepalis from more than two decades since 1984.

Meanwhile, Gulf Cooperation Council has assured to source countries that the six-year limit of migrant worker cut will not be introduced in other Gulf countries. Other Gulf Cooperation Council countries will not introduce foreign worker cut policy as their local unemployment rate is low, Emirates 24/7 reported citing GCC sources.

The UAE, Qatar and Kuwait will not follow migrant workers policy as, according to them, they have low unemployment rate among six GCC nations – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. About two million Nepalis are working in Gulf countries though only 1.2 million are documented in the government record.
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