BRIEFS (Spotlight Weekly)

A STATEMENT ISSUED by Raju on Sunday said a new underground party named Communist Center of Nepal (Maoist) has been formed to launch an underground armed struggle based on the ideology formulated by Comrade Mao Zedong. Accusing the Maoist party of heading in a corrupt way and harboring "individualistic tendencies", the new party has called all the communists to move ahead in the path of armed rebellion, Himalaya Times daily reported. Meanwhile, 24 guerrillas including a local Maoist commander, Comrade Firoz, in the terai district of Rautahat, have left the Maoist party alleging the party leadership of ignoring their call for taking action against Maoist cadres involved in financial irregularities.

A STATE-OF-THE-ART cardiology center has been launched officially in Kathmandu. Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba inaugurated the services offered by the Martyr Gangalal National Heart Center (MGNHC) amidst a function here Wednesday. The 60-bed center offers facilities like open and close heart surgeries, ICU, CCU, cath Lab, Angiography and other indoor services. The center was the joint effort of the government, civil society and donor agencies including the Rotary Club of Australia, said Dr. Bhagwan Koirala, executive director of the MGNHC.

NEPAL AND THE REPUBLIC of Korea have signed an agreement to operate air services. As per the agreement, airlines of Nepal will use Shanghai and airlines of Korea will be using Bangkok as intermediary points and take on 50 passengers each from both the points on Kathmandu-Seoul sector. The air services between the two countries will have to be operated within the purview of the aviation agreement, officials said. Secretary at the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Barun Prasad Shrestha and deputy minister at the Ministry of Works and Transport of the Republic of Korea Cho Woo-Hang signed on the unified air services agreement on behalf of their respective governments.

THE JAPANESE EMBASSY IN Kathmandu has provided a grant assistance of US$ 33,450 (nearly Rs 2.5 million) for the implementation of the Manasalu Conservation Area Project. The grant has been provided under the Grant Assistance for Grassroots Project scheme of the Japanese government in the fiscal year 2001. Declared a conservation area in 1998, KMTNC has been carrying out nature conservation activities in the area with a view to improve the socio-economic conditions of the local people leading to the conservation in the region.

GREEN (HARIYALI) NEPAL PARTY HAS demanded the confistication of unauthorized properties of political leaders who plundered the nation, of bureaucrats who looted the revenue, and of businessme who looted the banks. The Central Committee meeting held under the chairmanship of Badri Prasad Khatiwoda on September 5, 2001, raised strong objection that the dialogue between the government and the Maoists raised no issue to penalize the looters. The meeting demanded to constitute all parties' government with common understanding to hold free and fair election and with less expense. It is stated in the decision of the meeting that all the parties in the parliament are responsible for the present maladies. The national government made out of these parties, therefore, will not be able to solve the present problem. If the unanimous understanding could not reach among the parties in parliament, parties outside the parliament, civil societies and intelligentsia, the problem of Maoists will not be solved, the meeting decided. The meeting has reaffirmed that the present Land Reform program is not the revolutionary. Because of the imposition of land ceiling of ten Bighas, which will bring fragmentation and discourage the investment in agriculture, the agriculture production will not increase. The income from the ten Bighas of land will not be adequate enough to fund proper education to children and as such they will not be able to compete with the children of the urban areas neither in economy nor in education. The economic program, that aids to stop the trade and industries, close the restaurants creating unemployment to the poor, sink the investment and flight of wealth, is not going to be useful, the meeting observed. The meeting belived that the politics that hits the rural feudals and collects fund from the urban feudal is the proper one. The meeting also made demands to end the delay in making decision at the offices and courts, bribery and transgressions of the law, and demanded the compensation to the sufferers from such actions. Also it demanded for the recognition of the able and sincere staffs and making the local government clean and vibrant. The Judiciary is responsible to provide justice over the excesses of the administration, and thus, the party has sent a letter drawing attention of the Chief Justice to the glaring delay in making decision on the registered applications related to land.