Hillary

Himalayan Daily Ramblings

Rebel group responds to govt. invite

By Bhola B Rana

Kathmandu, 21 Jan: A rebel group has responded to a government invitation to resolve separatist demands in the south bordering India through talks.
Government and the Terai Madesh Loktantrik Party (TMLP) are holding talks Friday; the venue hasn’t been announced.
TMLP picked up offer for talks even as it said a 10 April Assembly election to decide the future of the 238-year-old can’t be held without meeting 11 demands.
More radical groups threatened to disrupt the polls violently.
Eight persons were killed and 26 other passengers were injured when a bus was bombed during the weekend; a minister of state for home escaped unhurt when a public meeting he was scheduled address in central Nepal was bombed.
USA is insisting on a Iraq-style election and has suspended aid to cash-strapped Nepal without a vote.
Nepal does not have the finances let alone an environment for a vote; the Himalayan kingdom has asked for three billion rupees in international assistance just to conduct the polls.
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Low-level Nepal representation at Hillary state funeral

By Bhola B Rana

Kathmandu, 21 Jan: Nepal has sent a low-level delegation to represent the country at the state funeral of Sir Edmund Hillary in Auckland 22 January.
The country, the home of Mount Everest climbed on 29 May 1953, by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa, will be represented by Foreign secretary Gyan Chand Acharya, the country’s top diplomat.
Nepal didn’t even send a ministerial delegation to the funeral.
Hillary willed his countrymen should continue to generously help in Nepal’s development and the Sherpa community in particular through the Himalayan Trust, he founded, even after his death.
Hillary’s untiring efforts lifted up the economy and the people of the Khumbu region at the foot of Mount Everest.

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