Kathmandu, August 31, 2007

The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) issued a statement today expressing “deep disagreement and objection” to the accord signed between the government and Madhesi Janadhikar Forum.

The party also appealed to all parties struggling for liberation of the Madhesi people to move forward in a united manner. The statement, signed by chairman Prachanda, says the accord signed by Ramchandra Poudel, Minister for Peace and Reconstruction, and Upendra Yadav, MJF talks team leader, is “extremely objectionable, flawed, deceptive and conspiratorial” in both the content and the procedures adopted.

In what has been described as a historic move, the government yesterday agreed to the MJF’s demand for Madhes autonomy in return for the Forum’s temporary compromise on the proposed parallel election system, which is also one of the major demands of the CPN (Maoists).

The CPN (Maoist) said that the party’s position is to look for an integrated solution to different movements and demands by forging a “common conception” among all parties involved in the interim government and by organising an “expanded roundtable conference.” In such a situation, “the style of carrying out talks and agreements in a mysterious and opaque manner is only going to complicate the problem,” the party statement says.

NAC plane finally takes off for Dubai

Kathmandu, August 31, 2007

The Nepal Airlines 757 Boeing aircraft that was forced to return midair yesterday finally took off for Dubai at 9 pm today.

The plane was earlier scheduled to fly for Dubai at 1:15 pm but the flight was delayed due to wing anti-ice system failure. The plane first took off on a test-flight at 6 pm and it was only after that it was decided to reschedule the flight for 8.30 pm, Raju KC, corporate director of NAC said. “Though it was not required but we conducted a test-flight, which was successful,” RB Shrestha, operational director, confirmed adding that Managing Director Gautam Das Shrestha, 757 Chief Pilot RP Dhakal, Quality Controller Digambar Rajbhandari were on the flight. KC said the flight finally took off with 190 passengers at 9 pm. After returning from Dubai tomorrow morning, the aircraft is scheduled to fly to Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong.

The NAC has rerouted or refunded all the passengers who could not fly to Hong Kong yesterday due to technical snag in the engine. “We have managed to reroute some of the passengers, but others are asking for refund,” KC said. However, he could not confirm how many passengers were refunded by the NAC and how many of them were rerouted.

Though NAC is in the red, the NAC has not yet issued any press release to inform the general public. Karnali is the only Boeing 757 aircraft that has been doing the international flights non-stop.