NC CENTRAL COMMITTEE MEET Kathmandu, 31 Oct.:: Main opposition NC central committee meets Wednesday. The meeting will decide whether to go for constituent assembly election for its reinstatement demanded Sher Bahadur Deuba and Ram Chandra Paudel. President Sushil Koirala is pushing elections.. nnnn DOLE FOR FORMER MAOIST FIGHTERS SEKING RETIREMENT Kathmandu, 31 Oct.: The secretariat is handing over the second and last installment of a golden handshake for 13,000 plus former Maoist in districts Wednesday. Cheques of ADB are being distributed with the help of district administration officials in an effort to complete the peace process. Another 1,200 former combatants have opted to join the Nepal Army and are on home leave before join state security Maoists fought during the 10-year insurgency. Those seeking retirement are getting between Rs.500,000 to Rs.800,000 in government and foreign dole. Nnnn POKHARA CUP Kathmandu, 31 Oct.. NRT play Pokjara Eleven Wednesday in the Safal Pokhara Cup APF entered the quarterfinal Tuesday beating Friends Club. Nnnn MEDIA GOOGLE “There must be consensus on all issues, including the budget,” Lohani quoted the president as saying. “Parties must forge consensus both on political and economic issues. There is no alternative to consensus,” Lohani further quoted the president as saying. (Dr.Prakash Chandra Lohini quoting President Yadav in Republica, 31 Oct.)- BAIDYAYA CHARGES UCPN MAOIST A PARTY OF OPPORTUNISTS Katjmandu, 31 Oct : Categorizing the parties on the basis of their political character, the CPN-Maoist has labeled the UCPN (Maoist) as a “rightist-revisionist and opportunist” party, claiming the latter has undertaken various anti-national and anti-people activities such as the BIPPA agreement, Kiran Pun writes in Republica . Presenting the party´s political document at the party central committee meeting in Buddhanagar on Monday, party Chairman Mohan Baidya said that the UCPN (Maoist) is the biggest danger for the Nepali communist movement. He also accused the party of confusing the communists and the people. "The document does not explicitly name the parties but only hints at them. This has been done deliberately as there is a compulsion to talk them," said a central committee member of CPN-Maoist. After the split, the CPN-Maoist labeled the UCPN (Maoist) a “neo-revisionist and opportunist” party. UCPN (Maoist) chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and vice-chairman and Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai have been termed “red renegades” saying they betrayed the Nepali revolution and Nepali people. Varying interpretation of Marxism in UCPN (Maoist) was the main reason for party split. Interestingly, the political document places CPN (UML) and UCPN (Maoist) in the same category --rightist-revisionist and opportunist. The Nepali Congress (NC) and Madhes-based political parties have been placed in the second category --reactionary and “status quoist”. According to CPN-Maoist leaders, NC and Madhes-based parties represent the landlords, elites, capitalists and upper class people of Nepal. The third category is a group of patriotic, revolutionary and leftist forces. They are fringe leftist parties following Marxism, Leninism and Maoism or Maoism. The 84-page political document presented by Baidya has 13 different parts. The next central committee meeting of the party will be held on Thursday after the CC members thoroughly study the document. Nnnn ________________________________________ DHULIKHEL RESORT BRIMS WITH CHINESE TOURISTS Kathmandu, 31 Oct : Resorts and lodges in Dhulikhel in regular days are generally preferred for hosting domestic and regional seminars and meetings. But this Dashain, they became a favorite destination for Chinese tourists, Madhusudan .Guragain writes in Reublica from Banepa. Resorts operators said almost all the resorts and lodges in Dhulikhel are presently occupied by the Chinese tourists. “We have barely encountered guests other than Chinese since the Dashain festival began,” said Thama Nath Dhungana, manager of Himalaya Horizon Hotel. In other seasons too, Dhulikhel receives Chinese tourists traveling individually. But from October to December, it has been attracting Chinese tourists traveling in groups as well. “As offices remain closed during Dashain, we had feared we might not find any guest during the festival. However, since the festival started, all our rooms have remained fully occupied - thanks to the fascination of Chinese tourists toward Dhulikhel,” added Dhungana. Dipak Thapa, manager of Mirabel Resort echoed Dhungana. Dhulikhel, located some 32 km east of Kathmandu, is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the country. In recent period, it has managed to pull a large number of Chinese tourists. Popular resorts in Dhulikhel like Himalayan Horizon, Dhulikhel Lodge Resort, Mirabel Resort and Dhulikhel Mountain Resort have remained over flown with visitors from the northern neighbor. According to statistics, of the total tourists visiting Dhulikhel, 60 percent are foreigners, while remaining 40 percent are Nepalis. “In the past, Britons, Australians, Canadian, German, Austrian and French used to make the biggest chunk of foreign tourists in Dhulikhel. Now Chinese have outnumbered them,” said Prem Kantha Shrestha, president of Hotel Association Dhulikhel and Director of Dhulikhel Lodge Resort. Shrestha has been offering special travel packages for Chinese tourists entering the country via land route of Kodari. “Wonderful view of sunrise and dozens of snowy peaks, peaceful environment and options for short hiking have really been liked by the Chinese tourists,” he stated. Recent unveiling of a trekking trail between Sundarijal, Nagarkot and Dhulikhel too has helped the ancient Newari town to get more tourists. However, hoteliers say they have not yet succeeded in marketing Dhulikhel and tapping its natural beauty to the extent it should have been done. “Presently, tourists in average are spending 3 to 4 nights in Dhulikhel. However, we have barely managed to market it for luring more visitors,” said Uday Bhusan of Tourism Information Center, Dhulikhel. He viewed entrepreneurs in Dhulikhel should incorporate more activities, which is possible by adding new products, so that visitors could stay longer in the town. Nnnn MIGRANT WORKERS SPEND ONE FOURTH OF INCOME FOR JOBS Kathmandu, 31 Oct.: Migrant workers spend nearly one-fourth of remittance earning to get foreign jobs, Yadav Raj Joshi writes in The Himalayan Times. About 384,665 new migrant workers, who joined foreign jobs in the last fiscal, spent Rs 59.93 billion on service fees charged by outsourcing agencies for employment in Malaysia, the Gulf — Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain — and other countries. This amounts to about 16.66 per cent of the Rs 359.55 billion remittance earned from migrant workers. “It reveals that our real earning is just Rs 299.62 billion, said economist Chiranjivi Nepal. “The government should explore more lucrative destinations and jobs,” he said, adding that the expenditure was too high in comparison to remittance earning. He suggested that the government reduce the cost for joining foreign jobs and enhance the capacity of Nepali workers. “We are exporting unskilled or semi-skilled workers. We can double our remittance, if we export trained manpower,” he said. Outsourcing agencies have been charging more service fees and other charges than prescribed by the government . For instance, the Department of Foreign Employment has set Rs 70,000 as service fee for Gulf countries and Rs 80,000 for Malaysia, but the current market price is Rs 110,000 and Rs 130,000 for Gulf countries and Malaysia respectively. Migrant workers are paying up to six times more than the prescribed amount for lucrative destinations like Israel and Cyprus. Workers in Israel earn $1,200 (Rs 100,800) a month and $650 (Rs 54, 600) in Cyprus. The cost of getting jobs as per the government rate is just Rs 31.59 billion — about 8.78 per cent of the remittance income. But because of weak monitoring, outsourcing agencies and their agents have been overcharging. “Blaming outsourcing agencies is not fair,” said secretary of Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies Subarna Shrestha. The service cost was fixed 10 years ago and it must be revised, she added. “The government must explore other job destinations and provide training to migrant workers as per the global demand.” A lot must to be done, she said, suggesting that a framework for migrant workers be developed with alternative job plans. Nnnn SANDY FOILS NEPAL ELECTION BID FOR UN BODY Kathmandu, 31 Oct.: The devastating Hurricane Sandy today [Tuesday] battered the regular business at the United Nations headquarters in New York, including the one of Wednesday’s election of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), where Nepal is bidding hard for a membership, The Himalaya Times writes. Officiating Foreign Secretary Arjun Bahadur Thapa told The Himalayan Times that the long-scheduled election of the UN forum has been uncertain as the deadly storm forced the global body to shut down on Monday and Tuesday, giving uncertainty of its regular business of Wednesday’s as well. “The election has now been uncertain,” Thapa quoted Foreign Secretary Durga Prasad Bhattarai as telling him from New York over phone. “Even if the UN returns on its regular business on Wednesday, the possibility of the election is very slim because it might give priority to complete first the pending works of on Monday and Tuesday,” Bhattarai added. Nepal has intensified diplomatic lobbying to ensure its quest for having a seat of the UN’s forum. Foreign Secretary Durga Prasad Bhattarai himself has been in UN Headquarters for last one and half months to garner international support for Nepal’s campaign. The ECOSOC is considered as among influential UN organ after the Security Council. It has 54 member states, which are elected by the General Assembly. Nepal is competing for one of 11 seats reserved for the Asian countries. But, this year, only five among 11 seats will be vacated and was scheduled to fill up by an election scheduled on October 31. Nepal needs 128 countries’ support out of the United Nations’ 194 member states to ensure its election to the coveted ECOSOC seat. “As of now, our position is strong in this race,” Foreign Secretary Bhattarai told THT. A source at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told THT that the local authorities at New York has urged all diplomatic community, including the Permanent Mission of Nepal to the United Nations to be keep on inside house and safe location due to the calamity, which has already claimed as many as 16 peoples and 50 million people of the North-East part of the United States, including of the New York City are said affected. Nepal is hopeful to secure its seat in the ECOSOC, which is responsible for coordinating the economic, social and related work of 14 UN specialised agencies, their functional commissions and five regional commissions. It virtually looks after issues of sustainable development, MDGs, uplifting of the status of poorer countries among others. If elected, Nepal’s say will be increased in designing and implementing ECOSOC programmes. nnnn