Briefs (Spotlight Weekly)

KING GYANENDRA AND QUEEN Komal will be paying a state visit to the People's Republic of China from July 9 to 18 at the invitation of Chinese President Jiang Zemin, the Press Secretariat of His Majesty the King announced Monday. Before visiting China, the royal couple will be paying a state visit to the Republic of India from June 23 to 28 at the invitation of Indian President K. R. Narayanan.

PER CAPITA CONSUMPTION in rural Nepal has registered a significant increase of over 66 percent over the last five years, Kantipur daily reported quoting a new study. According to the Household Consumption Survey in Nepal 2000/01 commissioned by the Central Bureau of Statistics, the unadjusted total rural consumption in 1995/96 stood at Rs. 6,145, which rose to Rs. 10,254 in 2000/01 mainly due to spectacular growth in the consumption of food, non-food and housing items. On a regional basis, the Western Development Region had the highest per capita consumption expenditure at Rs. 12,557. The increasing inflow of remittances has been attributed as the main reason for significant growth in the consumption of the rural households in Nepal, the report said.

AT LEAST 39 REBELS AND two soldiers were killed in skirmishes in different parts of the country last week, the Defense Ministry said. The security forces shot dead 16 Maoist insurgents in Kailali and 10 others in Jumla district. Two soldiers were also killed in Jumla district on Wednesday. In Surkhet, a joint patrol of the army and police shot dead ten rebels including three female cadres. The troops also recovered arms and ammunition from the site. Two more rebels were killed in Gulmi and one more in Dailekh district, authorities said.

A 14-YEAR OLD boy was killed and two children injured when a crude bomb reportedly left behind by Maoist rebels at a house in Pitdanda village of Dasharathpur Village Development Committee in the mid-western district of Surkhet went off Saturday. The children were playing with the explosive when it went off, security sources said. Meanwhile, the Bhojpur District Police Office said that headless bodies of three policemen - Head Constable Bhimsen Chemjong and Constables Chuda Bahadur Basnet and Krishna Lal Tajpuriya - were recovered from a ditch in Manedada in the district. The policemen, while on leave, were abducted by rebels a month ago. In Palpa, rebels shot dead the Nepali Congress chairman of Jhadewa VDC, Rabi Kumar Thapa, 55, on Saturday evening. Locals said that Thapa was mourning the death of his mother when a group of rebels shot him dead after accusing him of being a police informer.

THE WORLD FOOD Programme (WFP) is to extend food assistance worth US$ 8.5 million over the next 12 months beginning July 1 to the Bhutanese refugees in Nepal. According to the WFP, "depending on the availability of food resources from the donors", there is a plan to provide 19,706 tons of food commodities to 102,100 registered refugees in seven camps in Jhapa and Morang districts. The food assistance will include rice, pulse, vegetable oil, blended food, sugar and iodized salt. Supplementary food rations will also be offered to the estimated 3,400 identified vulnerable refugees. Besides, the program will support the supplementary feeding program for 42,000 school-going children, during three months of the dry season.

THE LEADING PRIVATE SECTOR airline, Necon Air, has resumed its daily flights between Indian city of Patna and Kathmandu. According to Tulsi Karmacharya, company secretary of Necon Air, the airline is also planning to extend its services to the Indian cities of Banaras, Lucknow, Kolkata and Delhi. The airline has two ATR and two BN-1900C aircraft in its fleet. Necon Air is the first Nepalese private airline flying on the international sector.

EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN of ENPHO, a non-governmental research organization, after visiting the source of Jugedi River in Chitwan last week has said that distribution of untreated water by Chitwan municipality was responsible for the outbreak of typhoid. The water reservoir of the municipality lacked testing kit as well as medicines to treat the water, he said. He said the rebels, reportedly hiding in the dense forest in the area, may have suffered from typhoid, thereby transmitting the disease to local people using the same water source. The outbreak of typhoid in Gorkha and Parbat districts may also have been caused by pollution of the water source by the rebels, Dr. Shrestha said.

CHINA HAS GRANTED destination status to Sri Lanka, enabling Chinese national to visit the country as tourists. An agreement would be signed after negotiations, Sri Lanka News, a publication of the Sri Lankan embassy in Kathmandu said. Presently 21 countries, including Nepal, have been granted destination status by China. Around 10.5 million Chinese traveled abroad in 2001.

THE INDIAN GOVERNMENT has asked nine state governments to raise a special task force to crack down on Maoist groups, especially those operating along the Indo-Nepal border, reports said. The news report, filed from New Delhi, has quoted sources in the Indian Home Ministry as saying that the proposed police force would concentrate on severing all links between Indian and Nepalese Maoist groups. Steps are also afoot to set up more police check posts on the India-Nepal border to prevent the infiltration of the extremists.