HLPM

CPN MAOIST NOT SERIOUS SAYS HLPM

Kathmandu, 28 July: HLPM Sunday concluded CPN Maoist is not serious in talks to create an environment for the 19 November assembly elections. The body supporting the government met Sunday to draw the opposintion into talks to join the vote. The mechanism of the Big Three and Madeshbadi parties decided to appeal the CPN-Maoist to come to the negotiation table once again. Two invitations has earlier been sent to the main opposition party. The HLPM also decided to take up a report of a eight-member task force to recommend resolution of differences in drawing up 240 electoral constituencies for the November elections.

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UPDATE UML SHUTS DOWN DHADING

Kathmandu, 28 July: UML shut down Dhading Sunday.

The party was protesting arrest Saturday from capital of Dinesh Adhakari Chari

n      A man with criminal record.

n      Normal life was disrupted in the distruct adjoining the capital.

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DRIVER KILLED AFTER TAXI FALLS INTO RIVER IN CAPITAL

Kathmandu, 28 July: A taxi driver died after his taxi fell into

Dhobikhola in Bijulibazaar, New Baneshwor early morning Sunday.

Indra Bahadur Sarki of Dolakha.died.

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MANDELA STILL CRITICAL AFTER OPERATION

Kathmandu, 28 July: South Africa's presidency said that Nelson Mandela was still critically ill in hospital but improving slightly, declining to comment on a report the anti-apartheid hero had undergone

an operation, AFP reports

from Johannasburg/.

The former statesman underwent a "surgical procedure to unblock a dialysis tube" on Friday just before marking his seventh week at a Pretoria health facility, according to US news network CBS.

The operation was "minor", the network reported.

But presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj would not confirm that the procedure took place.

"He is critical, stable, but there is some improvement," he told AFP.

According to earlier reports the 95-year-old Nobel peace laureate was breathing with the aid of a ventilator and had undergone dialysis a few weeks after he was hospitalised for a lung infection on June 8.

CBS also reported two scares on Mandela's condition in the past week.

"On one occasion Nelson Mandela was not responding to his meds (medicines), and on another his life support machine showed him in distress," according to CBS.

Maharaj said he was not aware of any recent scares.

There was no further information over Mandela's possible discharge, which family members alluded to on his 95th birthday two weeks ago.

Mandela's current hospital stay is his longest since his release from prison in 1990, after serving 27 years under the apartheid regime.

He was elected the country's first black president in 1994 and became a global icon for peace and forgiveness after reconciling with his former oppressors.

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