TAZIKISTAN, PHILIPPINES COMPEE FOR SEMI-FINAL BERTH IN SEMI-FINAL OF AFC CHALLENGE CUP 2012 IN NEPAL

TAZIKISTAN, PHILIPPINES COMPETE FOR SEMI-FINAL
BERTH IN AFC CHALLENGE CUP 2012

Kathmandu, 13 March: North Korea plays India in the first
match at Dashrath Ranghashala Tuesday in the AFC Challenge Cup 2012.
North Korea has qualified the semi-final while India is out of
the tournament.
Tajikistan plays Philippines in the second match at Halchok ground.
for a semi-final berth.
Along with North Korea, Palestine and Turkmenistan are in the semi-final.
Nepal crashed our of the tournament without scoring a single goal inthree matches.
British national coach Graham.Roberts resigned after the
humiliating defeat of the tournament host charging Nepal
Army (NA) that lent players for the tournament for
‘kidnapping’ two players before the match from a hotel without
information.
"To wake up this [Sunday] morning and find two players were not there..
.they were kidnapped in the middle of the night. Disgusting," said Roberts in a two-page resignation statement.
"Raju Tamang and Bikash Malla were taken away by army personnel. If we didn´t release them soon, they would be court-marshaled. I thought we lived in the 21st century, not in the 16th,
"I´m very upset but that´s life in Nepal.They are in the army. This is their life. In any other country football is football but here they are army. Army is very powerful here," he added.
Nepal was out of the tournament before the match began and the state and the army was participating in its own first South Asian Army competition in
neighbouring Lalitpur playing a soccer match against Sri Lanka.
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PREMIER BHATTARAI’S NEW INTEGRATION PROPOSAL
Kathmandu, 12 March: Amid mounting pressure from the opposition to conclude the integration process of the Maoist PLAs into Nepal Army and an equal pressure from within the party to secure party’s demand, Prime Minister Dr Baburam Bhattarai presented another integration proposal on Monday, Reportersnepal.com reports.

In his proposal, the Prime Minister has proposed for giving another chance to the 9500 PLAs for choosing between integration and rehabilitation to bring down the number to 6500.
The PM has proposed that integration plan be than chartered out while handing over the remaining PLAs to the Nepal Army.
Meanwhile, during the daytime the PM had accused ‘some political parties’ of conspiring to dissolve the Constituent Assembly (CA) and to revive the Constitution of 1990.
He warned that such an action would be against the aspiration of those who sacrificed their life and those have posited their faith in political parties.
Stressing that the parties had no other alternative than to come together, the Prime Minister claimed his government would promulgate constitution even by making compromises and adopting a policy of give and take.
He observed any failure to promulgate constitution by May 27 would result in a great misfortune to the country and the people.
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MANY BRITONS UNWARE EVEREST IN NEPAL

Kathmandu, 13 March: A study in Britain has found that a lot of people here are completely ignorant about some of the basic facts related to their country such as the highest mountain or even the names of nations comprising their country, agencies report t of London.!

The study found that more than one in five adult Britons lacked awareness about the nations comprising their country. Nearly six in 10 thought England’s highest peak is Ben Nevis, Snowdon or even Mount Everest, the Sun reported.

Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak (8,848 metres above sea level), is in Nepal while Britain’s highest summit is Scafell Pike (978 metres above sea level).
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