TWO NEPALIS ARRESTED WITH INDIAN CURENCY NOTES

TWO NEPALIS ARRESTED WITH BANNED INDIAN CURRENCY NOTES
Kathmandu, 28 Dec.: Two Nepalis have been arrested with huge
cache of banned currency notes.
Madhusudan Bhandari was arrested in Nuwakot IRs.1.2 million ibanned Rs 1,000 currency notes and Navin Basnet with IRs.160,000 Tuesday at TIA.
IRs 1,000 and Irs 500 currency notes are banned
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SOLDIER ARRESTED WITH 13KG HASH
Kathmandu, 28 Dec.: Khem Bahadur Pun, a soldier with Nepal
Army, has been arrested in the capital with 13kg hash from the
capital.
He was posted at Shivapuri.
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STATE AGENCIES BIASED SAYS MADESHI MORCHA
Kathmandu, 28 Dec.:- A meeting of the Samyukta Loktantrik Madhesi Morcha (SLMM) Coordination Committee on Tuesday took exception to decisions taken by the Supreme Court and various state agencies pertaining to Madhes, The Kathmandu Post writes.
The meeting of the committee, which comprises second-rank Morcha leaders, discussed the performance of their seniors in the government. According to Madhesi Janadhikar Forum-Ganatantrik General Secretary Atma Ram Sah, the meeting concluded that the apex court has been making verdicts "unfavourable" for the Madhes. "Right from the issue of citizenship to recruiting Madhesi youths to the Nepal Army, the state does not seem positive," added Sah. "If it has no objection to Maoist combatants inducted in the Army, why should it have reservation over Madhesi youths' recruitment?"
Sah said many participants in the meeting were of the view that the Morcha should organise a mass movement in the southern plains as they believed that "this state cannot deliver on Madhesi issues".
The apex court on Monday stayed the government's decision to recruit 3,000 Madhesi youths to the Army.
According to Rajkishore Yadav, another participant in the meeting, leaders maintained that if the four-point agreement, signed before the formation of the present government, cannot be implemented there is no point in continuing to be part of the government.
Morcha leaders have demanded a meeting of the SLMM before January 1. The meeting is expected to dwell on whether or not support to the government should be continued. Ministers representing the Madhesi Morcha would be grilled on the implementation of the four-point deal that includes integration of Madhesis to the national army.
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MAOISTS CAPTURE LAND DISTRIBUTED TO LANDLESS
Kathmandu, 28 Dec.: As the hard-line faction of the UCPN (Maoist) led by party Vice-chairman Mohan Baidya is hell-bent on retaining the captured properties unless the state makes alternative arrangements for the landless squatters, it has been revealed that the former rebels seized land of some landless people in Bardiya district, writes Kamal Panthi
in The Kathmandu Post from Bardiya.
The Maoists captured one bigha and six katthas (about 0.88 hectares) of land belonging to six families at Sorhawa VDC-3 in the district during insurgency. The seized land was provided in 1998 by the state-formed commission to solve the landless people’s problems.
According to the victims, the Maoist activists have been tilling the land after its capture in 1999.
“I was provided two katthas of land by the commission in 1998. But the Maoists captured it the following year,” said one Nam Bahadur Khatri of Sorhawa-3. He has been working in India to eke out his living for the past few years. Khatri claimed that the Maoists seized his land for following a different political ideology. Besides Khatri’s, the victims said the Maoists captured the commission-provided land of Chandra Lal Neupane, Dilu Bhurtel, Bashundhara Bhurtel, Jhankar Khatri and Nebika Khatri. Neupane said some Maoist activists led by Karna Bahadur Thapa and Chandrabir BK captured the land and seized land ownership certificates as well.
The Maoists, however, claimed they captured the land that was provided by the commission illegally.
The victims have written to three major political parties, local peace committee and the local administration to return the seized land.
When asked Maoist assistant in-charge Durga Bahadur Chaudhary, who is also a member of the taskforce formed to return the seized property, expressed ignorance about the issue.
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BAIDHYA PRESENTS SEPARTE DUCUMENT AT
CC MEET

Kathmandu, 28 Dec:, UCPN-Maoist senior vice-chairman Mohan Baidhya ‘Kiran’ Tuesday presented a separate document in the Central Committee (CC) meeting of the party fuelling the already existing internal strife in the main ruling party, The Rising Nepal reports.
Party chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ had tabled his document in the CC meet that resumed on Saturday, after months of deferral. Initially the meet was called for Sept 18.
Following Kiran’s dissent document, the CC meet has been put off till Wednesday as the CC members asked for time to study the report before engaging in the discussions.
Sources said that the document of the dissent faction had insisted on carrying out the mandate given by the party plenum held in Palungtar of Gorkha last year. The Maoists had decided to opt for people’s revolt if the peace and constitution process did not move ahead for ensuring the rights of and the peace for the oppressed, marginalized and backward people.
In his document Prachanda advocated for continuing with the peace and constitution writing process as it was the people’s mandate given to this party through the CA elections. Kiran had, however, argued that the recent decisions taken by the party establishment on peace and constitution were not in line with the decisions made in the precedent party CC meet.
Maoist cadres
captures land
UCPN-Maoist cadres have captured the land provided by the state to the six families of the landless squatters and distributed it to other landless squatters.
After losing the land they were provided by the a Landless Squatters’ Commission in 1998, the squatters were in great pain.
The victims said that their land was captured in the leadership of local Maoist cadres Karna Bahadur Thapa and Chandrabir BK.
The Maoists were breeding more landless squatters by distributing the land received by one squatter to another," Dilu, Bhurtel, one of the victims, said.
The victims have issued a joint statement asking the major three political parties to create an environment to return their captured land.
The Maoists have captured the land of squatters Chandralal Neupane, Dilu Bhurtel, Tek Bahadur Khatri, Name Bahadur Khatri, Jhanker Bd Khatri and Basundhara Bhurtel.
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MC8 FAILS TO MAKE WAY FOR DOHA PACT
DASHING LDC HOPES





Kathmandu, 28 Dec.:, With the failure to draw any conclusion on Doha Development Round in the Eighth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation held in Geneva this month, many doubts have been raised as to whether the concept of multilateral trading system would be materialized, Raj Kumar KC writes in The Rising Nepal from Geneva
As long as the Doha Development Agenda remains inconclusive, the hope of LDCs to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) would be in limbo.
Even Pascal Lamy Director General of World Trade Organisation (WTO) admitted that "the multilateral trading system is at a crossroads." He hinted that if the MC8 fails to derive any ‘way out’ for the Doha Development Round, further progress in multilateral trading system would be in trouble.
Many LDCs during the Ministerial Conference (MC8) echoed their voice for robust international support measures to address their complex development challenges. But at the end of the three day conference, no concrete result was derived.
WTO Director General Lamy while talking to journalists said ‘plurilateralism’ among the member nations could jeopardize the future of multilateral mechanism which in the can dampen the sprit of the WTO. However, he said that the 8th Ministerial Conference (MC8) has radiated some hopes to promote multilateralism.
Talking about the future of the DDA, he said "we must hammer out solutions to address the issues". The success of DDA depends much on how members show their interests to push forward the issues relating to multi-lateral agreement. Differences in opinion among the LDCs would trigger isolationism.
He urged WTO members to strike a common consensus for the success of the agenda. If we put the issues aside, that will affect the economy of every single nation.
Chairman of the WTO Olusegun Olutoyin Aganga, termed the MC8 a success, but there is a need of common efforts.
However, experts, government representatives gathered in Geneva termed the conference not as a ‘failure’, but ‘inconclusive’. If the DDA continues to linger, the target of least Developed Countries (LDCs) to meet Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 would be a far cry.
What happens if the multilateral trading system withers away? Experts say the gap between rich and poor would further widen. But the concern raised by some of the LDCs in the WTO Ministerial Conference cannot be ignored. They put forth

their views that ‘even within the multilateral trading system, there should be a mechanism of promoting LDCs product in the developed countries’ market. No LDCs can compete with the product of developed nations. Besides, the issues raised by LDCs should be given due importance, they emphasised.
It is to be noted that the least developed countries (LDCs) have declared that they are unlikely to meet ‘many’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 because of growing resource gaps.
The LDCs announced this at the Fifth High-Level Dialogue on the theme ‘the Monterrey Consensus and Doha Declaration on Financing for Development: Status of implementation and tasks Ahead" that was held in New York early this month.
The LDCs pinned much hope on MC8 saying that it would reach a first step Doha Round Outcome.
LDCs had stated that if the Doha Round remains inconclusive, it is imperative that the provisions of the WTO Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration concerning Duty Free and Quota Free (DFQF) provisions, particularly through necessary waver to accelerating LDC services exports, preferential and more favorable treatment to services and service-suppliers and the elimination of trade distorting support measure for cotton must be implemented as early harvest.
The World Economic Outlook recently published by the IMF characterised the world economy in terms of ‘sluggish growth and rising risks’
Failure of the round could lead to fragmentation of the global trading system and a weakening of the WTO and multilateralism. The continuation of such an impasse is, therefore not at the interests of the international community as a whole and the LDCs in particular.
As one of the members of the LDCs, Minister for Commerce and Supplies Lekh Raj Bhatta had also highlighted Nepal’s concern about the much ‘prolonged impasse in the Doha Development Round.
He had asserted that the leading nations should work through a multilateral process for a balanced, ambitious and specific outcome with clarity and precision on its development contents.
The concern showed by other LDCs also prove that Russia’s entry into the WTO would spur the multilateral trading system.
Economists here say that the failure to draw any conclusion on DDA would pose a dire effect on the LDCs, including Nepal.
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