THE KATHMANDU POST

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Aug 3, 2016- An Emirates plane has crash-landed at Dubai International Airport. All 300 people on board were able to escape from the burning aircraft, but a firefighter was killed.

The plane appeared to have landed on its belly, and images showed thick black smoke rising into the sky.

Emirates chairman Ahmed bin Saeed paid tribute to the firefighter who lost his life fighting the blaze.

The Boeing 777 was flying to Dubai from the southern Indian state of Kerala.

Flights to and from the airport were suspended for several hours but have now resumed.

The chairman told a press conference that evacuation procedures were executed professionally and the cabin crew were the last to leave the plane.

A passenger on board the plane told Reuters that the experience was terrifying.

"As we were landing there was smoke coming out in the cabin," said Sharon Maryam Sharji.

"People were screaming and we had a very hard landing.

"We left by going down the emergency slides and as we were leaving on the runway we could see the whole plane catch fire."

Emirates airline said there were 282 passengers and 18 crew on board from 20 nationalities, most of them Indian, with 24 Britons and 11 people from the United Arab Emirates.

As is usual following a big accident, there are lots of unconfirmed reports out there speculating about what happened.

The aircraft is sitting on the ground without its landing gear, but it is not clear why the wheels are not down.

Some reports suggest the crew were making a normal, rather than an emergency approach, when air traffic controllers told them to abandon the landing and start climbing again, for unknown reasons.

The answers should come out in the next few days.

Whatever the cause, it is a testament to the crew that they got everyone off the plane safely.

Flight EK521, direct from Thiruvananthapuram to Dubai, is popular with hundreds of thousands of Kerala residents who work in the Gulf countries.

Emirates is the Middle East's biggest airline, and has an excellent safety record.

It ranked seventh in a survey of the world's safest airlines by AirlineRatings.com, an independent plane safety website.

Dubai International Airport is a major transport hub, one of the world's busiest for international passengers, operating with only two runways.

Emirates plane crash-lands at Dubai airport

7:59 PM

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Aug 3, 2016- CPN (Maoist Center) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has been elected as the 39th prime minister of the country after securing the required majority in the Parliament.

This is Dahal’s second tenure to the country’s top executive post.

Dahal secured 363 votes during the election for the post of PM held at Legislature-Parliament on Wednesday, while 210 votes were cast against him.

House Speaker Onsari Gharti announced Dahal's victory after he secured a majority votes in the election conducted at the Legislature-Parliament. Dahal was the only candidate for the election.

He was supported by Nepali Congress, Sanghiya Gathabandhan, Madhesi Janadhikar Forum-Loktantrik, Rastriya Prajatantra Party and other fringe parties during the election.

Of the total 595 parliamentarians, 573 lawmakers participated in voting during the election.

Dahal’s first tenure as PM was followed by his party’s victory in the first Constituent Assembly election. The then CPN-Maoist became the largest party in the election and Dahal took office as the country’s 33rd prime minister on 18 August, 2008 after the country was declared republic.

His first tenure as PM lasted for 280 days. Following the controversial sacking of then Nepal Army Chief of Army Staff Rukmangad Katuwal, Dahal resigned from the post on 4 May, 2009.

Dahal has also become the only communist leader to become the PM of the country for two times.

Pushpa Kamal Dahal's Biography

Born December 11, 1954

1978 Starts politics with the CPN (Fourth Convention)

1985 Elected central member of CPN (Masal)

1986 Party splits, Dahal sides with Mohan Baidya-led party

1980 Becomes party’s general secretary after Baidya resigns following a fiasco popularly known as “sector incident”

1992 Becomes general secy of CPN (Unity Centre)

1995 General secy of CPN (Maoist)

2001 Becomes chairman of the CPN (Maoist)

1996 Leads a decade-long armed rebellion which ended in 2006 leaving around 16,000 dead, thousand others disappeared and displaced and disabled

June 16,’06 Appears overground in Baluwatar

Aug 18,’08 Becomes first prime minister of republic Nepal

May 25,’09 Steps down following a row over sacking of then Army chief

Nov ’13 His party faces major setback in second CA elections, gets lapsed into third position

Aug 3,’16 Elected 39th prime minister; become first communist to return to power twice

Dahal elected 39th prime minister of Nepal

7:56 PM

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Aug 2, 2016- A British court on Monday acquitted Nepal Army Colonel Kumar Lama on one count, while the jury failed to arrive at consensus on the second count.

Col Lama, arrested in January 2013, has been on trial at the Old Bailey, for torturing two alleged Maoist rebels—Karam Hussein and Janak Raut—in 2005 when he was in-charge of the Gorusinghe barracks in Kapilvastu district. Lama has all along denied both counts of inflicting severe pain or suffering. The Old Bailey on Monday acquitted Lama on the case of Karam Hussein. Hearing on Janak Raut’s case has been postponed until first week of September.

A 12-member jury is supposed to reach a unanimous decision.

Lt Col Lama was serving with the United Nations peace keeping force in South Sudan when he was arrested while visiting his family in East Sussex in January 2013.

He was arrested under Section 134 (sub-section 1) of the Criminal Justice Act, a law that defines torture as a universal jurisdiction, and the prosecution is being brought in Britain because an obligation under the United Nations Convention Against Torture to bring suspects to justice wherever they are detained. Torture, like war crimes, is subject to universal jurisdiction, allowing those who allegedly committed crimes abroad to be tried in Britain.

Hussein and Raut were arrested during the decade-long Maoist insurgency on suspicion of assisting then Maoist rebels. Lama faces charges of subjecting the two victims to mistreatment during their detention at the barracks of which he was the in charge in 2005.

Lama’s case has been dragging on for the last three years, with on one occasion in March last year the court adjourning the trial for the lack of a qualified interpreter for the Old Bailey hearing.

After Lama’s acquittal on one count on Monday, advocate Satish Raj Mainali said, “It raises questions about the credibility of Nepal’s human rights organisations when it comes to documenting incidents of rights violation. It also shows that issue of universal jurisdiction is not a cake walk.”

Govinda Bandi, another rights lawyer, though expressed happiness over Lama’s acquittal, argued that the case has established the fact that universal jurisdiction can be invoked to seek justice even in foreign land.

“It is not a matter of winning or losing the case,” Bandi said. “The lesson from this case is Nepal must strengthen its own system so that no Nepali national is tried on foreign soil.”

UK court acquits Col Lama on one count of torture

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Aug 2, 2016- The Parliament Secretariat on Monday published the time table for the election of a new prime minister, which will be held on Wednesday.

As per the notice of the Parliament Secretariat, nominations can be filed between 11am and 4pm on Tuesday and a list of the nominations will be published at 4:30pm on Tuesday.

As per Article 298 (3) of the Constitution of Nepal, any member of the Legislature-Parliament can file his/ her candidacy for the post of the prime minister. Parliament then on Wednesday will start the process to elect the new prime minister at 11am.

Manohar Prasad Bhattarai, general secretary of the Parliament Secretariat, published the notice for the election of the prime minister on Monday following instructions from Speaker Onsari Gharti to make all the necessary preparations for the same.

The three-day process to elect a prime minister through election began on Monday after the seven-day deadline set by President Bidhya Devi Bhandari to form consensus government ended on Sunday.

The presidential call to elect consensus prime minister had followed Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s resignation on July 24 after his government was left without a majority in the wake of CPN (Maoist Centre)’s July 12 decision to withdraw support.

The Maoist Centre and the Nepali Congress had filed a no-confidence motion against PM Oli, but the latter announced his resignation on July 24, minutes ahead of the scheduled voting on the motion, which he was certain to lose.

The Office of the President earlier on Monday had sent a letter to Parliament, calling it to start the process to elect a new prime minister.

Dahal likely to face Nembang

KATHMANDU: CPN (Maoist Centre) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal looks all set to win the election on Wednesday to become the next prime minister. In the 595-member Parliament, he will require 298 votes to win the prime ministerial election that will start at 11am on Wednesday. The Maoist Centre, the third largest party with 82 seats in Parliament, has the backing of the Nepali Congress, the largest party with 207 seats. The Maoist-NC alliance is most likely to get the support of the Madhes-based parties and other fringe forces to elect Dahal the new PM. A rough calculation shows there are around 366 votes in favour of Dahal. Meanwhile, the CPN-UML is likely to field its Deputy Parliamentary Party leader Subas Nembang against Dahal. Speaking at a programme in the Capital on Monday, UML leader Rabindra Adhikari claimed that the party would naturally field their deputy PP leader.

Parliament set to vote to elect new PM tomorrow

8:49 PM

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Jul 31, 2016- Sadbhawana Party Chairman Rajendra Mahato has remarked that no infrastructure should be built at no-man’s land along Nepal-India border without the agreement between the two countries.

Mahato said so during his visit to Nepal-India border at Tilathi in Saptarai district where Nepalis and Indians clashed on Thursday after the latter built a makeshift levee allegedly encroaching upon the Dasgaja region. The Sadbawana Party chairman, who was accompanied by a dozen central members of his party including senior vice chairmen Mirgendra Singh Yadav and Nawal Kishor Sah, blamed irresponsibility on the part of Nepal government for the clash.

“The government is engrossed in the worry of losing the chair, while the people are fighting to defend the border,” said leader Mahato. He went on to say that problems at Nepal-India border have been increasing due to the state’s failure to resolve the controversy over dam construction through diplomatic efforts and timely initiatives.

“The clash at Tilathi is the result of government’s lack of accountability. The government is bent on ruining the 'Roti-Beti' relationship between Nepal and India and stir a fight between the people of two countries. The government’s lack of responsibility has caused a situation where maternal uncle and nephew are fighting,” said leader Mahato. He further charged that the government is afflicted by bad feelings towards Madhes.

Twelve people were injured in a clash on Thursday after the Nepali side removed the makeshift levee built by Indian side on Wednesday. Locals had claimed that the structure could cause inundation in the Nepali territory.

People on the Indian side started making the levee on Wednesday after a dam was destroyed by the rain-swollen Khado stream.

In a different context, leader Mahato said that his party had already made up its mind to vote against the KP Oli-led government though Nepali Congress and CPN (Maoist Centre) had not asked for support to topple the government.

“We always wanted to topple KP Oli government that showed towards India’s Utter Pradesh when we demanded separate Madhes state,” said Mahato, “That’s why we supported the alliance that stood against the government.”

He made it clear that his party would not join Nepali Congress (NC)-Maoist coalition government. He arrived here to distribute relief to the flood victims on behalf of the party. He visited the flood affected VDCs in southern part of the district.

Sadbhawana Chair Mahato blames govt for clash at no-man’s land

7:48 PM

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Jul 30, 2016- China’s support to a new government in Nepal will continue, Chinese Ambassador Wu Chuntai said on Friday, adding that Beijing would fully assist Nepal in its development endeavours.

During a meeting between Wu and CPN (Maoist Centre) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, the Chinese envoy told the latter that Beijing will extend all possible cooperation for a stable, prosperous and stable Nepal, a statement issued by Dahal’s secretariat said on Friday.

During the meeting, Dahal, the prime minister-in-waiting, told the Chinese envoy that the pacts and agreements signed by Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli with China would be implemented even after government change.

Apprising the Chinese envoy of recent political development, Dahal told Wu that he would look forward to cooperation from the northern neighbour during his tenure as prime minister.

Congratulating Dahal, the Wu said that the Chinese government, the Chinese people and the Chinese Communist party would work closely with the new government in Nepal, added the statement.

Dahal told the Chinese envoy that agreements and deals signed by the Oli government with Beijing in March were a result of his continued efforts for the same.

In an interview to the Post on Thursday also Dahal had said the new government under his leadership would implement the pacts and agreements signed by the Oli government. “The new government under my leadership will focus on implementation of the new constitution, restoring political stability and peace and expediting post-quake,” the statement quoted Dahal as telling Wu.

Wu says China’s support to Nepal will continue

6:47 PM

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Jul 30, 2016- Ncell has submitted a new proposal to the Department of Industry (DOI), seeking the latter’s approval to capitalise its investments worth Rs73.95 billion. The company has so far got approval to take its authorised capital to Rs17 billion.

Earlier, the Industrial Promotion Board (IPB) had rejected the company’s proposal to increase its authorised capital to Rs155.33 billion on the ground that it had not paid applicable capital gains tax for the divestment of 80 percent stake of Ncell to Malaysian company Axiata by Swedish-Finnish telecom operator TeliaSonera. The IPB has formed a taskforce to study the matter.

The Parliamentary Finance Committee has also directed the government not to accept Ncell’s proposal until it pays the capital gains tax. Ncell has paid 15 out of 25 percent of the applicable capital gains tax.

Industry Secretary Surya Silwal told the Parliamentary Finance Committee meeting on Friday that Ncell had sought approval to convert its investment into authorised capital. The telecom operator has already increased its cap- acity and capital internally.

Silwal and other IPB members present at Friday’s meeting seemed positive on Ncell’s latest proposal. They explained Ncell’s proposal was not a capital increment plan, but a request for approval of what it had already invested. “This is not capital increment,” said Silwal. “The telecom operator is seeking approval for its investment made till date from its earnings.”

A DoI source said since the Finance Committee has directed the government not to accept Ncell’s proposal before the capital gains tax is cleared, “the company and the government authorities came out with new plan”. “In whatever name it comes, it is capital increment.”

The board is planning to approve Ncell’s proposal after charging fine worth Rs500,000, the source added. “Since Ncell has increased its capital without getting DoI’s approval, as per the Industrial Enterprises Act, the company is subjected to be fined Rs500,000,” said the DoI source.