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Pakistan to host 9th SAF Games

Kathmandu, 17 January: Pakistan will host the bi-annual seven-nation 9th South Asian Federation (SAF) Games in Islamabad from 6-15 October this year, Pakistani officials said. Among the new games included are squash and rowing.

India, the dominant sporting nation among the seven, has agreed to participate in the competition although it still opposes the political summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC) due to the military take-over in Pakistan in 1998. The summit was to be held in Kathmandu.

Nepal Olympics Committee General Secretary Dhruba Kumar Pradhan attended a two-day SAF Games executive committee meeting in Pakistan that decided the final dates of the sporting extravaganza. Nepalnews.com/br/at

Government bans FM news broadcasts

Kathmandu, 16 January: The government has banned broadcast of news and current affairs on private and non-government FM stations with immediate effect, according to a letter sent to 11 FM stations on Tuesday. The ruling immediately affected programming at the Valley's private FM stations. Some, like community broadcaster, Radio Sagarmatha 102.4 FM, went with the signature tunes of their popular Hal-Chal and Aaja Ka Kura, but explained to listeners that they could not transmit regular programmes because of the government directive. Other private FM stations have also got similar letters.

However, the station's relay of the BBC's Nepali Service and the World Today programme went ahead. Kantipur FM declined to comment on the issue while Gopal Guragain from Communication Corner, which makes radio packages for the outside valley FM stations, said it would not affect independent radio producers. But he also added that the language used by the ministry to announce the ban was technically faulty and therefore could be easily misunderstood. He further said, "If the government's intention is to control the information flow the rural community that cannot afford to read newspapers will be adversely affected and this will in-turn reverse the entire democratization process."

Popular FM radio stations had been using the government's laxity in implementing restrictions on news in the broadcasting permits they have. The ministry letter says a three member board consisting of one government official will vet all news programmes, which have to be handed in one week before broadcast. It also said "secondary sources" of news could be used as long as they could be checked for factuality.

The move comes after the government appointed a committee to monitor broadcasts on electronic media and follows the cancellation of a satellite up-link for Spacetime Cable Network earlier this month. Nepalnews.com/br/at

Government commission fails

Kathmandu, 16 January: The government commission headed by former home secretary Bhojraj Pokhrel formed to pinpoint the rumor mongers who incited the communal violence last month in the capital and elsewhere that lead to the deaths of seven persons, injured hundreds, and damaged several million rupees worth of goods and property has not succeeded to in it's task, sources told Nepalnews. 

"The time was too short. It will take sometime to find out the perpetrators although we have compiled other details regarding the violence," an anonymous member of the three-member commission said Tuesday.

The commission will not be able to present its report to the government on Thursday as announced earlier because government leaders are leaving for Pokhara Wednesday for the ruling Nepali Congress party's national convention that begins Friday," another commission member said. 

Meanwhile, a senior leader of the regional Nepal Sadbhavana party said Tuesday his organization was only calling for a judicial inquiry into last month's violence and not a probe by a committee headed by a representative from the tarai community. "A judicial probe will be more independent," he said. A senior government official has accused the party of double talk. Nepalnews.com/br/at

King and Queen to visit China

Kathmandu, 16 January: King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya will visit China for the 10th time in
February, a senior official told Nepalnews Tuesday. The palace has proposed 22-23 February as suitable dates for the visit, and is awaiting final confirmation. 
The King made his first visit to China as Crown Prince in 1966 while his last visit there was in 1996.
Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji is also expected to visit Nepal this year as part of a South Asian tour that will also take him to India. "We had been initially told that Nepal will be the first South
Asian country he will visit," a senior official told us. Nepalnews.com/br/at

CIAA grills tourism minister 

Kathmandu, 16 January: The Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) grilled
Tourism Minister Tarani Dutta Chataut Tuesday for his alleged involvement in a fraudulent deal to lease a Boeing aircraft from Austria's Lauda Air. The move comes soon after the government suspended managing director of the Royal Nepal Airlines Hari Bhakta Shrestha pending investigation on Monday.

The government acted on Friday's recommendation of a watchdog body to suspend Shrestha from his job until investigations are completed regarding alleged corrupt practices while negotiating the lease. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has also been up in arms against the government for defying its recommendation to abrogate the deal with Lauda Air. Critics of PAC said its advice was only recommendatory. Nepalnews.com/br/yl/at

Price of petroleum products reduced

Kathmandu, 16 January: Following a drop in the price of petroleum products in the international market, the government owned Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) has reduced the price of kerosene by Rs 5, and that of petrol and diesel by Rs 1 each with effect from 17 January Wednesday. The new price of kerosene is Rs 17 per litre, petrol Rs 46 per litre, and diesel Rs 26.5 per litre. Nepal Oil Corporation had increased prices of all petroleum products last October citing the hike in the international market rate as the main reason. Nepalnews.com/yl/at

Koirala-Bhattarai fail to reach agreement 

Kathmandu, 16 January: The tradition of meeting, discussing and ending without agreement between Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala and Nepali Congress (NC) leader Krishna Prasad Bhattarai continued yet again on Tuesday. Koirala went to Bhattarai's residence at Bhaisepati of Lalitpur Tuesday morning and was received with a big smile. But as Koirala unfolded the sole purpose of his visit and opened up the agenda, both leaders turned serious. Talks did not last long and Koirala departed from Bhattarai Niwas in 15 minutes.

On the agenda, sources close to Bhattarai said, were party unity and more importantly the forthcoming general convention of the party to be held in Pokhara this week. Bhattarai reiterated his earlier stance that Koirala relinquish one of two posts he currently holds--either prime ministership or party presidency--in order to maintain unity in the party. Koirala offered no specific answer to the proposal, the source said.  Koirala had also sought Bhattarai's cooperation in selecting competent people to the new Central Working Committee (CWC) to be formed at the NC genera  convention. The last meeting of the present CWC of the party is to be held on 18 January in Pokhara. Koirala has announced his candidacy for the post of party president and so has his challenger central NC leader Sher Bahadur Deuba. Several others too have given their names for the central committee membership. Of the 37 members of the NC central working committee, 19 including party president are to be elected by the general convention, while the rest are to be nominated by the new party president. Nepalnews.com/yl/at

Three cops injured in Dolakha

Kathmandu, 16 January: Policemen Lok Bahadur Jha, Padam Thapa, and Tanka Parajuli were injured when they stepped into an electrical ambush laid by underground Maoist insurgents in Dolakha, 150 km east of Kathmandu, Tuesday. Officials say the incident took place at around 4 pm in Chetrapa village of Dolakhawhile the team from Mainapokhari striking base was on regular patrol.  The three injured have been flown to Kathmandu for treatment. Lok Bahadur Jha is reported to be in a critical condition.

Dolakha is an insurgency-affected district where the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has been waging an armed insurgency for the last five years that has already killed more than 1500 people including about 500 policemen. Nepalnews.com/yl/at

Kathmandu, 16 January: For the first time in nearly three years, the US dollar fell appreciably in the foreign exchange market Tuesday by 30 paisa to the rupee. The Nepal Rastra Bank, the country's central bank, fixed the buying rate for the dollar at Rs 73.65 and selling rate at Rs 74.35.

The Bank fixes daily exchange rates with convertible currencies to adjust changing prices in the international money market while the rate is fixed at Rs 160 to Indian Rs 100. In the past, the Nepali currency declined against the dollar mainly because of the slump of the Indian rupee against the US dollar forcing Nepali bankers to adjust the rate with convertible currencies to maintain parity with Indian currency.

Analysts said the rise in the value of the Nepali rupee against the dollar coincides with a fall in demand for the greenback and declining interest rates in the United States. The Nepal Rastra Bank last week was forced to buy in excess of US$18 million from commercial banks. Nepalnews.com/br/at

Probe committee formed

Kathmandu, 16 January: The government has appointed Joint Secretary at the Special Police Department Subarna Lal Shrestha to head a one-man committee to investigate and report the circumstances leading to the death of two inmates at Nepalgunj jail on Sunday and injuries to several others a day earlier. A report is to be submitted to the government within seven days.

A four member Foreign and Human Rights Committee of the House of Representatives headed by chairman Som Prasad Pandey also left for Nepalgunj Tuesday to investigate the firing. Two inmates died and several dozen policemen and prisoners were injured Sunday in police firing and stone throwing incidents inside the prison about 450 km southwest of the capital. One inmate died inside the prison and the other succumbed to bullet wounds at a hospital in the town.

The police opened fire on protesting prisoners who padlocked the prison from inside and started throwing stones at the guards, police said. The riot was controlled after a two-hour melee that started shortly after noon local time. The prisoners had been agitating for better facilities in the jail.
Nepalnews.com/br/at

NFPA budgets Rs 229 million for 2001

Kathmandu, 16 January:The Nepal Family Planning Association (NFPA) has planned  a Rs 229
million budget for 2001, 37 percent of which will be set aside for family planning services.

Launched in 1959 the association has provided services to over three million people, including maternal and infant health services to 661,985 persons as of 1999. The same year, the NFPA provided temporary family planning services to 290,973 and permanent services to 6,796 persons.

A new executive committee has announced strategic new five-year plans aimed at attracting young people to the services, improving them, making facilities more accessible, and extending the scope of the NFPA's activities. Chhatra Bahadur Giri has been elected the association's president while Nirmal Lacual and Subash Pradhan are vice-president and general secretary respectively.
Nepalnews.com/br/at

Minister Chaudhary's residence bombed

Parsa, 16 January: Suspected Maoists exploded a powerful socket bomb at the residence of Minister for Science and Technology Surendra Chaudhary in Sugauli Birta in Parsa district
according to police. The minister was in Kathmandu at the time of the explosion and has since rushed back. No one was injured in the explosion although Chaudhary's parents were at home. The group of about 100 rebels also torched two motorbikes in the minister's compound. The bombing comes soon after the 31 December explosions at the residences of three senior leaders of the ruling Nepali Congress party. 

The Maoists led insurgency that has been mainly targeting police and Nepali Congress workers has
already claimed more then 1500 lives. Nepalnews.com/br/at