RADISSON HOTEL PROFIT Kathmandu, 8 Nov.: Radisson Hotel Kathmandu earned a Rs.111.50 million profit in the last fiscal year. Profit increased 37.02 percent compared to the previous year. Nnnn THREE STAR CLUB VICTORIOUS IN GANGTOK Kathmandu, 8 Nov.: Three Star Club entered the semifinal of 33rd Governor’s Gold Cup Wednesday in Gangtok beating United Sukkun FC 2-1. Three Star Club will now play Bhawanipur Kolkata. Nnnn ; GOVT. STOPS PROCESSSING VISA APPLICATIONS OF FOREIGNERS Kathmandu, 8 Nov : The government has stopped processing visa applications of foreign workers and providing them work permits for an indefinite period of time after evidences showed some of the applicants had ulterior motives, Bhoj Raj Paudel writes in.Republica. The Ministry of Industry (MoI) has said it would resume the process only after a new integrated standard for issuance of work permits is put in place. "No foreign workers will be able to process visa application or obtain work permit for the next few weeks till the integrated standard is launched," a MoI official said. Anil Kumar Thakur, joint secretary at MoI, also confirmed the news. "All applications that the ministry received were returned to the Department of Industry (DoI)," Thakur said. "Applicants have to re-apply as per the government´s new standard to obtain work permit for foreign workers." Although the government´s new integrated standard is expected to provide one-window system for visa processing by easing work permit application process for foreign workers, the latest halt is expected to hurt companies such as Unilever Nepal and Ncell whose foreign workers are waiting to be eligible to work in Nepal. "Unilever Nepal has applied to obtain work permit for an international staff who comes from Bangladesh and Ncell has filed applications on behalf of 28 staff who come from the Netherlands," the source revealed. The source further revealed that these companies had filed applications on behalf of their foreign staff members around five months ago. However, they could not be processed due to inadequate documents. Unilever Nepal and Ncell denied to comment on the issue despite repeated attempts of Republica. "With the latest decision, they (the companies) will have to wait until integrated standard is put in place," the source said. The government believes that the introduction of integrated standard will help it identify ´genuine´ workers coming to the country, Thakur said. Currently, Industrial Promotion Division (IPD), entrusted with the task of encouraging and facilitating domestic and foreign investors to invest in the country, has started consultations with other concerned ministries and government agencies to develop an integrated standard for visa processing. So far, foreign workers had to get approval from the labor department and the Ministry of Home (MoH) to be eligible to work in Nepal. The MoI and the DoI coordinates with the MoH and labor department to expedite visa application processing. Nnnn ________________________________________ TIBETAN MASTIFFS FAVOURITE ILAM SOUVENIRS Kathmandum 8 Nov : Tourists visiting Ilam district usually buy hard-cheese and tea, among other local products, as souvenirs before they head home, Bhim Chapagain reports from Ilam. However, in recent years, tourists visiting places like Sandakpur, Tumling, Chhintapu of Ilam have been buying a rather strange souvenir instead of the traditional ones. Tibetan mastiffs, or Bhote Kukur as they are locally known, are a new favorite for tourists, mostly from nearby Indian cities like Darjeeling and Kalimpong. Especially after Darjeeling´s Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) president Bimal Gurung bought a few puppies in his Ilam visit last year, buying Tibetan mastiffs, produced by local farmers, has become a new rage among Indian tourists. Nepali tourists, too, have been buying puppies of Tibetan mastiffs during their Ilam visit. “People are now booking puppies in advance,” said Pemba Bhotiya, who collects puppies from local farmers and sells them to tourists. Bhotiya says she has received orders for more than 200 puppies from India this year. “Even from Ilam bazaar, I´ve received orders for 40 puppies,” she said. “I now find it very difficult to meet the demands.” A Tibetan mastiff puppy can fetch anything between Rs 4,000-Rs 8,000. “Mastiff dogs are popular especially among Bengali tourists coming from India,” Pemba said. “But, only a few tourists from other countries have so far bought my dogs.” With the demand for Tibetan mastiff dogs reaching an all time high, producing and rearing puppies has now increasingly become a new means of livelihood in Ilam. Many people have now started to manage their household expenses by selling puppies. If one owns three mature female Tibetan mastiffs, he can earn up to Rs 150,000 a year. Many people in Maimajhuwa, Mabu, Jogmai and Jamuna VDCs of Ilam have now started commercial farming of Tibetan mastiffs, which are popular because of their attractive looks enhanced by thick fur and loud bark. Nnnn ________________________________________ POWER TRANSFER IN CHINA Kathmandu, 8 Nov.:China's ruling Communist Party opened a congress Thursday to usher in a new group of younger leaders faced with the challenging tasks of righting a flagging economy and meeting public calls for better government, AP reports from Beijing.. The weeklong congress starts a carefully choreographed but still fraught power transfer in which President Hu Jintao and most of the senior leadership will begin to relinquish office to a new slate of leaders for the coming decade headed by the appointed heir, Vice President Xi Jinping. Delegates filed into Beijing's Great Hall of the People, bedecked with red banners, and the congress was declared open after the national anthem played. The 2,268 delegates are drawn from the 82 million-member party where the real deal-making is done by a few dozen power-brokers behind the scenes, even as China is ever more connected to the world through trade and the Internet. "We are faced with unprecedented opportunities for developments as well as risks. The party must keep in mind the trust of the people," Hu said in a speech aimed at summarizing successes of the past five years and outlining challenges for the future. "The fight against corruption remains a serious challenge for us." Coming so soon after President Barack Obama's re-election in the United States, the congress has drawn unfavorable comparisons from politically minded Chinese who have bemoaned how little direct influence they have in choosing their leaders. "I am doing nothing but staring at the television before Obama gets re-elected. As for China's party congress, there is no need for me to worry. On the contrary, it would be a waste of my time," Xu Xiaoping, a celebrity entrepreneur who co-founded a successful chain of English language cram schools, said on a Chinese version of Twitter where he has 6 million followers. To many Chinese, China is at an inflection point. Its old model of heavily state-directed growth that lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty and made China an economic powerhouse is sputtering in the face of rising domestic debt and a weak global economy. Meanwhile, the government has to contend with the public's continued expectations of higher living standards and for less corruption and greater accountability, if not outright democracy. In Tiananmen Square, adjacent to the congress venue, a woman in her 30s threw pieces of torn paper into the air and shouted "bandits and robbers!" in the early morning before she was taken away by security forces. On the eve of the congress, four ethnic Tibetans in Sichuan province set themselves on fire in protests against Chinese rule of Tibetan areas, London-based rights group Free Tibet said, adding that the timing of the protests appeared aimed at sending a signal to the Chinese leadership. Whether the new leaders want to move China in a new direction is not known. Xi and other top candidates for the new leadership have forged their careers as capable administrators in provinces and bureaucracies, not as policy trail-blazers. Should ambitious change be on their agenda, they will have to confront vested interests within their ranks: cosseted state industries and conservative officials grown prosperous and powerful under the current system. One thing the party appears to be ruling out is a major shift toward a more open, democratic political system, despite appeals in recent months from commentators, retired party members and government think tanks. "The leading position of the Communist Party in China is a decision made by history and by the people," congress spokesman Cai Mingzhao told reporters on Wednesday. He pointed to China's rise as an economic power and said, "It speaks fully to the strong leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and the fact that the political system suits China's national reality." The congress itself is unlikely to give Xi and his colleagues a mandate for sweeping reform. They have been engaged with Hu, retired party elders and influential senior politicians and military commanders in divisive bargaining, made worse by a pair of scandals. Politburo member Bo Xilai was purged after an aide disclosed that Bo's wife had murdered a British businessman. One of Hu's top lieutenants was also sidelined after his son died crashing a Ferrari, a sign of corruption. A likely result of the back-and-forth is a leadership that balances interest groups, and over the past decade that has been a recipe for plodding, incremental policy. Cai, the congress spokesman, ticked off a list of what Hu's team had accomplished — wider access to state-supported education through the ninth grade, an expanded social safety net and the start of a nationwide low-cost housing sector. "The past decade has witnessed the greatest improvement in people's livelihoods in the history of China's development," Cui said. "We will make guaranteeing and improving the people's well-being the guide and aim of what we do." nnnn