Kalpit Parajuli

Maoist lawmakers lift veto on government budget voted today. Main government services will be up and running. New demonstrations are planned for December.

In Bara district, where the ‘living Buddha’ meditates, more than a million Hindus are preparing to sacrifice half a million animals during the festival of Gadhimai Mela. Actress Brigitte Bardot wants the inhumane practice stopped. More than 12,000 police agents are mobilised for the occasion.

Today is the last day of demonstrations in front of the Singha Durbar, Nepal’s seat of government. Maoists plan a future “nation-wide programme of protests”. Interior minister travels to India to strengthen cooperation to counter Maoist influence, whilst Maoist chief is set to fly to Beijing.

Maoists boycott budget debate, preventing appropriations. Government will soon run out of money and will have to suspend services and assistance to the population. Former Maoist guerrillas stage demonstrations and sit-ins across the country.

There are only 3500 specimens left in the world. Their distinction caused by the illegal smuggling of pelts and deforestation. A turnover of billions of euros.

The country’s stability is at stake. United Nations Security Council members slam the continued existence of Maoist camps and the army’s recruitment drive.

Two leaders discuss ways to consolidate relations between their respective Communist parties and strengthen the stability of Nepal. For the former Nepali premier, this is the first visit to China as party leader, after his resignation from the post of prime minister.

From next January over 90 thousand refugees, 17 years in refugee camps, risk not having enough food to survive. Leader of the refugees: "If we were allowed to return to our country we would not depend on UN aid.

The Non-Resident Nepalese Association represents about two of the seven million Nepalis living outside the country. They have been reinvesting millions of dollars in the national economy; now they want to make it easier to invest in the areas of education, infrastructures and the private sector.

A report by the United Nations Development Programme shows that Nepal is the country with the best improvement in human development (2.16 per cent per year) of the last few decades. Yet its economy has had slow growth, whilst standards of living have not changed. The main difference lies in higher remittances by Nepalis living abroad, from US$ 150 million in 1980 to about US$ 2.5 billion now.

The areas most affected are the districts west of Kathmandu. Some villages have been without food for days. The Red Cross has distributed rations of rice, but not enough to feed all the displaced.

Protestant leaders admit their responsibility in the building’s collapse, which killed 25 people and injured more than 100. Thousands attend victims’ funerals.