'Globalisation has triggered slowdown'

By A Staff Reporter

Kathmandu, June 11: The 64th Council Meeting of the Confederation Asia Pacific Chamber and Industry (CACCI) was held in Ulaanbatar, Mangolia from June 4-7.

According to a press release issued by the Asian Textile and Garments Council (ATGC), industrialists and traders from the countries of the Asia –Pacific region stressed the need to promote economic activities.

Participating in the meeting, chairman of the ATGC Brij Gopa Inani said that globalization and the WTO provision have triggered the economic slowdown in the region. The Septmber 11 incidence has intensified the problem, he added.

Inani also submitted the ATGC report to the CACCI president Lee Soo Young and appraised the current development situaiton.

The meeting was also attended by the major chambers of commerce in the region including the China External Trade Development Council (CETRA), Asian Development Bank, Federation of Indonesia Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Federation of Japan Commerce and Industry.

'Multi-pronged steps needed to fight malnutrition'

By A Staff Reporter

Kathmandu, June 11: UNICEF has said that global success in lowering child malnutrition could only be achieved through comprehensive action on numerous fronts - including many not directly related to food.

UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Kul Chandra Gautam, speaking at the World Food Summit in Rome today, said that child malnutrition must be fought through measures that include enhancing household food security, improving basic health care and ensuring safe water and decent sanitation for hundreds of millions of people who are still living without these basic services.

"The world produces enough food to feed every man, woman and child on earth. Hunger and malnutrition are therefore not due to lack of food alone, but are also the consequences of poverty, inequality and misplaced priorities," Gautam told the international meet.

Gautam further said that efforts to reduce global malnutrition must start with children, on whom poor nutrition has the most damaging and lasting effects.

"Child malnutrition is best addressed by taking holistic, life cycle approach, ensuring that all children are born healthy and are properly cared for in their earliest years and that primary health care and basic education are provided in all communities," added Gautam.

UNICEF said that significant gains could be made in human potential by tapping the power of simple micronutrients such as iodine, vitamin. A and iron, which are necessary for cognitive development, better school performance and work productivity, said a UNICEF press release today.

The UNICEF, a organisation working children health globally, has been promoting integrated support to breastfeeding, investing in girls, women and young people to strengthen their roles as providers of nutrition security.

It is also stepping up efforts to address the critical nutritional needs of communities devastated by HIV/AIDS, especially in sub-Saharan Africa which faces the triple burden of chronic food insecurity, a weakened labour force and increased nutritional needs created by the pandemic, it stated.

World Day against child labour today

By A Staff Reporter

Kathmandu, June 11: The first World Day Against Child Labour will be observed worldwide on 12 June 2002. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) will formally launch this global day with an event at its headquarters in Geneva as well as through area offices and its social partners globally, beginning 11 June, the eve of the first World Day.

Around the world, the World Day Against Child Labour is expected to see an array of activities, ranging from gatherings of child workers and their supporters to school events, children's art shows and drama performances, child-adult information workshops, activities organised by worker and employer representatives, media events and other public activities.

In Nepal, the day is being jointly observed by ILO along with its partner organisations. Events include inter-school essay and oratory contests, role play, drama, and cultural programmes, all on the theme of child labour and all by children themselves, according to a press release.

"This first World Day Against Child Labour is intended to help spread the message that child labour remains a serious problem and that we must do more to combat it," said International Labour Office (ILO) Director-General Juan Somavia in a statement for the day. "We are asking everyone to join together in working towards a world where no children will be deprived of a normal, helathy childhood, where parents can find decent jobs and children can go to school. Our goal is a world free from child labour."

The World Day will be held annually to intensify support for the global campaign against child labour. The World Day will also serve as a catalyst for enhancing the growing worldwide movement against child labour, as relfected in the steadily mounting ratifications of ILO Conventions Nos. 182 (on its worst forms) and 138 (on minimum age), as well as the work of the ILO's International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC).

According to the recently released report "A Future Without Child Labour." 246 million children--one in every six children aged 5 to 17-are involved in child labour. Among its startling findings, the report also revealed for the first time that some 179 million children aged 5-17-one in every eight children in the world-is still exposed to the worst forms of child labour which endanger the child's physical, mental or moral well-being. Nepal is a pilot country which is in the verge of launching a "Time Bound Programme" to tackle such worst forms of child labour at its roots.

Significantly, the recent UN General Assembly Special Session on Children decided to devote an entire section of its final report to combatting child labour, illustrating how far we have come in raising the visibility of this critical issue since the last global gathering of this type, the Children's Summit of 1990.

The event will also feature the launch of SCREAM (Supporting Children's Rights through Education, the Arts and the Media) a community-based educational and social mobilisation project aimed at drawing children and their teachers into the campaign against child labour. SCREAM participants, drama students from the International School of Geneva, will present a mime performance developed around the issue of child labour. Nepal has already been selected as a pilot country for the SCREAM project, the press release says.

Delegations to the 175-nation International Labour Conference are scheduled to spend 12 June, the World Day Against Child Labour, discussing the new ILO Global Report on Child Labour.

Bhattarai asks Koirala to reverse action against Prime Minister

By A Staff Reporter

Kathmandu, June 11: Nepali Congress leader Krishna Prasad Bhattarai has asked Congress President and all the Central Working Committee members to withdraw immediately the disciplinary action taken against Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba.

"I appeal to President Girija Prasad Koirala and all the Congress CWC members to hold a meeting to pull back immediately the unilateral decision taken against the Prime Minister Deuba and also to work for addressing the problems of the party," Bhattarai said.

An Impassioned Plea

In his appeal, former Prime Minister and former NC President Bhattarai said that he had been deeply hurt and to see and hear the recent anti-party activities that have led to the party on the brink of a split. "As one of the founding fathers of the NC, my heart has been split into pieces to know that anti-party activities have, of late, been taking place, encouraging the infighting within the party."

"I will never allow the party to split while I am still alive," he said. "And, to respect and follow the party's time honoured tradition, I appeal all Congress workers of the country to join their hands in keeping intact the party unity."

The tradition of Congress demands patience and tolerance, not excitement and intolerance, Bhattarai said. " The party, in the past, had sailed itself and the country through despite coming across many crises."

Those who want to create chaos in the Congress party and in the nation by encouraging the disturbance, confusion and instability will not be successful at any cost Bhattarai warned.

"At this difficult and complex time, the sacrifices made in the past by the Nepali Congress workers would give impetus to all the honest and sincere Congress activists in making all of them aware one more time to protect the nationality, democracy, the constitution, the monarchy and the Congress Party."

The show of tolerance in action is the only way to solve the problems seen not within the party but also in the country's social, political and economical sector, he said.

Convention called to seek justice: PM
'Upcoming polls boost for peace, democracy'

By Kishore Nepal

Kathmandu, June 11: Nepali Congress' General Convention, which is the supreme decision-making body of the party, has been called to seek justice, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba said today.

"Many friends in the NC have felt that the party has done gross injustice by expelling me," Deuba said at his office this evening speaking to the editors and representatives of the major daily newspapers published here. "All friends who believe on the policy and the principles of the NC will take part in the General Convention. Since all the friends favour peace and stable governance to end terrorism, I hope two thirds of the representatives will be present in the General Convention."

Referring to the big changes in the present political spectrum, Deuba said that the political scenarios have changed since the time of the NC's General Convention in Pokhara last year. "Ideological deviation is evident in Party President Girija Prasad Koirala."

Presenting the blow-by-blow account of the political developments after he arrived back from his recent USA and the UK visit, he said that he had consulted President Koirala whether or not the state of emergency should be extended. "After reaching into an agreement with him, I called for an all-party meeting. Since the leaders of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party were out of station, they could not attend the meet. No leaders of any other party said that the state of emergency should not be extended. It was on that basis, I had registered the proposal to extend the emergency in the Parliament."

"But, I was charged against that move and was asked to make clarification within 24 hours," he reminded. "I was treated the way even a simple employee is not. Then after I had no other choice than to recommend the dissolution of the House."

In the Prime Ministerial system, the ruling party always supports the government's proposal, the Prime Minister said. "That is the essence of the Parliamentary democracy and the Prime Ministerial system."

Instead, Deuba noted, President Koirala interfered in the Prime Minister's rights. "No other than President Koirala himself, who advocates the Prime Ministerial system, made my own party friends to file a case in the court against the Prime Minister's right to dissolve the Parliament. This is the ideological deviation in him."

Reiterating his stand for the party unity, Deuba said to the reporters, "President Koirala renewed the party at the Election Commission on June 7. In the renewed list of the party's officials, nowhere is my name mentioned. This clearly proves that President Koirala is not for the party unity."

"When the government registered the motion to extend the emergency, the party overnight called the Central Working Committee meeting and sought my explanation and I was expelled from the party. But, there has been no meeting in response to my appeal in the CWC against my expulsion."

President Koirala had said he would settle down everything after his China visit, Deuba said. "Even before his China visit, a pamphlet on the "party's policy", which has not been ratified by the party's CWC, was already in distribution. Now, he is set for his tour of districts. Does these all not make clear that Party President is not for party unity?"

Having termed the upcoming election as a referendum to choose either peace or terrorism, Deuba made it clear that there would be no state of emergency during the polls. "By the time the elections are held, the number of security personnel will be up by 15,000. The government will beef up security for the elections."

The Prime Minister expressed surprise over the fact that his own party was not against terrorism while almost all the nations of the world were. He chose not to fix up specific timeframe to end the Maoist terrorism. "The Maoists are influential in many quarters in the country. President Koirala himself is being influenced. Under such a circumstance, how can we predict when would the terrorism be over?"

Referring to the comments on the His Majesty the King's dissolution of the House of Representatives at the recommendation of the Prime Minister as "unfortunate", Deuba said President Koirala's own recommendation to dissolve the House in 1994 was implemented at eleven o'clock at night. The Monarch is an institution. The accusation against the Monarchy is absolutely false."

Focus on power generation at low cost: Gachchhadar

Ilam, June 11 (RSS): Minister for Water Resources Bijaya Kumar Gachchhadar has said that the present government is working for development of agriculture, tourism and hydroelectricity in order to attain the goals of poverty alleviation.

Minister Gachchhadar made this remark while inaugurating the 6.2 Magawat Ilam Puwakhola hydroelectricity project built by the Nepalese technicians by mobilising internal capital here today.

There is great potentials for foreign investment in the development of the hydroelectricity sector if improvements are made in the law and order situation in the country, he said, adding that that His Majesty's Government has introduced a new hydroelectricity policy and water resources strategy for development of small, medium and big hydroelectricity projects in order to improve the living conditions of the people.

Majority of the Nepalese people have been living in darkness as a result of the failure to make proper utilisation of the water resources despite being the second richest country in the world in terms of water resources, Gachchhadar said, adding that Nepal could identify itself as a developed country in the world in the next few years if it could generate electricity at low cost by learning a lesson from the experience of Bhutan.

Stating that His Majesty's Government had extended the state of emergency with the objective of safeguarding democracy and the people's rights by ending terrorism in the country, the minister said that Nepal had been receiving full support and cooperation from the international community in her efforts against terrorism.

Minister of State for Water Resources Narayan Sharma Poudel said that His Majesty's Government wishes to implement major hydroelectricity projects like Arun, Upper Tamakoshi, Karnali and mid-Marsyangdi and attain a revolution in the field of electricity.

Sharma said that the Ilam Puwakhola hydroelectricity project completed by mobilising internal resources has created additional enthusiasm and confidence among the Nepalese people.

Stating that the Maoist terrorists had pushed the country backwards by killing innocent people and destroying development infrastructures, Sharma urged the Maoists to give up the path of violence and join the national mainstream of development.

Minister of State for Physical Planning and Works Keshav Thapa, from the chair, said that economic development could take place by mobilising internal investment in the hydroelectricity projects.

Thapa said that Puwakhola hydroelectricity would contribute to the development of Ilam district.

The political parties should boost the morale of the security forces mobilised against the Maoist terrorists, Thapa said, adding the present government is capable of holding the mid-term elections scheduled for Novemeber 13.

Assistant Minister for Water Resources Birendra Kumar Kanaudiya said the government is making efforts to electrify the rural areas by implementing small and medium hydroelectricity projects.

Executive director of Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) Dr. Janak Lal Karmacharya said that the Ilam Puwakhola hydroelectricity project completed by mobilising internal investment and technicians had created favourable basis for launching small and medium scale hydroelectricity projects in future.

Project chief Bishnu Bahadur Singh informed that the Ilam Puwakhola hydroelectricity project completed at a cost of Rs 1070 million would generate 48 million units of electricity annually. The electricity generated from the project would help in electrification of Ilam district and supply excess electricity to the central electricity grid, he added.

The NC workers of Ilam district met the minister, the Minister of State and Assistant Minister and discussed contemporary issues.