Nepal postpones deadline for new constitution for last time

   Kathmandu (dpa) – Nepal's parliament Tuesday extended the term of the country's Constituent Assembly by a further six months amid persistent disagreements on the content of a new constitution.

   The parliament endorsed the extension bill with an overwhelming majority of 505 votes in favour and 3 against.

   It was the fourth time that the assembly's mandate was extended since its first deadline expired in April 2010. The latest deadline had been set for Wednesday.

   Drafting a new constitution has been repeatedly delayed as politicians squabble over the system of governance, the division of provinces and the electoral system.

   The 601-member Constituent Assembly was first elected in 2008 and was originally given a two-year mandate to write a charter.

   The Supreme Court ruled earlier this week that its mandate could only be extended one last time, meaning lawmakers now have until May 26 to reach a comprehensive deal.
dpa pt npr

Homosexuality reaches the big screen in Nepal

By Pratibha Tuladhar =

   Kathmandu (dpa) - When the curtain fell on the Cine Symposium film festival, the Kathmandu audience had received its first look at a film about the love between two women.

   Sharir, or Body, directed and written by Abhinash Bikram Shah, tells the story of Suman and Chahana, who are separated when the latter is raped and murdered on the streets of Kathmandu.

   The story focuses on Suman's suffering after losing her partner, as the film takes the audience through their love in flashbacks.

   "You could call it the first Nepali film based on a lesbian theme," Shah said. "But when I writing the script, I was telling a love story.

   "I decided to make it a story about two women because it was a subject not explored by others and I wanted to explore something new."

   The country is slowly becoming more accepting of homosexuals since the highest court directed the government to ensure their rights three years ago.

   However, the majority Hindu population is still conservative about issues like homosexuality and transgender people, which have long been hushed topics in the country.

   "When I was working on the film, I was scared that people would not relate to it," Shah said. "But the audience liked it, and I think it is because it is a portrayal of contemporary Nepal."

   The audience of mostly young people watched the intimate scenes between Suman and Chahana in silence. Suman drowns her sorrows in alcohol and tobacco after her lover's death, driven toward self-destruction.

   "You love a person, a book, a dog and it hurts when you lose what you love," said Pooja Gurung, who plays Suman. "The love is the same regardless of whom it is directed at and that's what the film shows."

   Members of the Blue Diamond Society, a group for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders (LGBT), made up much of the audience Tuesday.

   "Nepal is undergoing social change regarding the rights of LGBT people," said Sunil Babu Pant, president of the society and the country's first openly gay lawmaker. "The film is a reflection of it as there's growing awareness about people's sexual orientation."

   Pant has been calling for many of the LGBT community's demands to be enshrined in the country's new constitution, including the right to gay marriage.

   The film Sharir was well received, but is likely to reach only a niche audience.

   In January 2012, Nepal is set to screen its first widely released gay feature film, Snow Flowers, also based on the love between two women at odds with society's values.

   According to Pant, the films mark a change for lesbian, gay and transgender characters, who only had comic roles in the past.

   "Now they have substantial, weighty films devoted to this subject. It is very encouraging for us."

   And Shah says that's exactly what he has tried to achieve: to show the characters as human and not portray them as "something loud."

   But filmmakers have only begun testing the waters, and do not know what the reaction will be among a wider audience.

   "We're just beginning to be aware of homosexuality," said Saran Tandukar, a student of fine arts, as he emerged from the theatre. "For the older generation, a film like this might be shocking.

   "But our generation accepts this as reality."
dpa pt tlo ses cds

British woman beats own world record running down Mt Everest

   Kathmandu (dpa) - A British woman completed a run from Mt Everest Base Camp to Kathmandu in 23 hours and 25 minutes, bettering her own world record by more than two days, local media reported Saturday.

   Elizabeth Hawker, 35, completed the run Friday, stopping for only eight hours at a mountain village to shelter from rain and nurse a chest infection.

   “The first night, I had planned to run straight through,” the Republica daily quoted Hawker saying. “But it started raining, and was very cold.

   “I had to take shelter for eight hours in Bupsa village to keep from getting soaked and getting sick.” She said she did not sleep.

   In 2007, Hawker completed the distance in three days, two hours and 39 minutes.

   The endurance runner had come to Nepal to run the 1,600-kilometer Great Himalaya Trail across the foothills.

   But after losing her equipment, she changed plans and joined a 200-kilometre, nine-day Everest Sky Race, from Dolakha to Ama Dablam base camp.

   Immediately after that race, she decided to run from Everest Base Camp to Nepal's capital.

   Mt Everest, the world’s tallest mountain at 8,848 metres, attracts hundreds of trekkers from around the world each year.
dpa pt tlo

Nepal begins process of integrating Maoist former rebels

By Pratibha Tuladhar, dpa =

   Kathmandu (dpa) - Nepal began integrating former rebels into the national army Saturday, five years after the Maoist insurgency ended with a peace agreement.

   The integration is aimed at bolstering a precarious peace process after a decade-long war that killed 16,000 people.

   Following the peace deal, 19,000 rebels were confined to seven camps across the country, waiting for a decision on their destiny.

   The government is now offers former combatants the choice of  joining the army or reintegrating into civil society.

   The Army Integration Special Committee is scheduled to complete the verification process by November 28.

   “All the preparations are complete and we are set to begin regrouping on Saturday morning,” coordinator Balananda Sharma said before leading a team to the Shaktikhor cantonment in Chitwan, the biggest of the seven camps which shelters 3,950 combatants.

   One-third of the former insurgent forces will be allowed to join the army in non-combat roles. The rest will be offered compensation of 500,000 to 900,000 rupees (6,666 to 12,000 dollars), depending on their rank as combatants.

   The peace process has been stalled for years due to differences between the political parties. The Maoists initially wanted their entire force to be integrated into the national army, but political opponents refused.

   On November 1, the parties reached a deal to allow 6,500 of the 19,000 would be integrated in the army. The agreement assigns them to military units responsible for development, forest security, industry and disaster management.

   “We are fully extending our support to the surveying team,” the Kathmandu Post quoted a Maoist commander named Suk Bahadur Roka as saying. “We will do all we can to take this process to completion.”

   The former rebels were supervised by the United Nations until January 2011, after which they were brought under the supervision of the government.
dpa pt tlo

Nepalese court convicts 19 over aphrodisiac fungus murders

   Kathmandu (dpa) - A court in central Nepal convicted 19 people for  the murder of seven collectors of an aphrodisiac fungus, local media reported Wednesday.

   The court in the remote district of Manang on Monday sentenced six people to 20 years in jail for killing the victims from Gorkha who had tried to collect the caterpillar fungus in their area, according to the Nagarik newspaper.

   The local residents pursued the collectors, lynched them and threw them off a cliff on June 10, 2009.

   The fungus is prized for its allegedly aphrodisiac properties in some countries and is a major source of income for Nepal’s Himalayan communities. It is exported to places like China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Thailand, where it is widely used in oriental medicine.

   Thirteen defendants were given jail terms of two years.

   The court found 21 others not guilty, including an 11-year-old boy. District police had arrested 100 people from Naar village in Manang following the murders.
dpa pt ses tlo

Foreign remittances lift Nepalis out of poverty

Pratibha Tuladhar, dpa

   Kathmandu (dpa) - On a foggy November morning, Sobha Chaudhary sits on a pavement outside the Foreign Ministry in Kathmandu with just a frayed shawl over her shoulders against the cold.

   She is waiting for a passport, which would then allow her to apply for a job in Kuwait.

   Chaudhary, 20, comes from a poor farmer's family in the south-eastern plains of Jhapa, and wouldn't be able to find Kuwait on a map. But she knows she can make enough money there to pay off her family's debts if she can get a job as a housemaid.

   "My village sisters work in Kuwait and they have been able to send money home," says Chaudhary, referring to other women who grew up in the same community. "I hope to do the same."

   Sobha Chaudhary is among the hundreds of aspiring migrant workers lining up outside the Foreign Ministry or employment agencies in the capital every day, in search of a better future.

   Remittances already make up an increasing proportion of the country's gross domestic product, and are a significant contributor to the country's declining poverty levels, according to economists and development experts.

   "More than 50 per cent of Nepalis are receiving remittances, which has given them better living standards," said Jagadish Chandra Pokharel, former vice-chairman of the National Planning Commission.

   Just over 25 per cent of Nepalis live below the poverty line, a government study published in October said, 5.7 percentage points lower than the previous survey found in 2004.

   The progress is particularly positive given the past five years of political instability, and the decade of civil war before that.

   The extra wealth is translating into other improvements, observers say.

   "Food consumption patterns have drastically changed in the last 15 years," said Anil Sharma, an expert with the Central Bureau for Statistics. "Nepalis are eating more protein-rich food items like meat, eggs, fish and milk."

   Despite the rising income levels, many Nepalis continue to be driven abroad by the shortage of career opportunities, and the promise of a better lifestyle elsewhere, even those with jobs at home.

   Rajendra Nagarkoti, 25, left his job as a teacher in Kathmandu two years ago to become a waiter in Saudi Arabia.

   "His monthly salary as a teacher was 4,000 rupees (53 US dollars), and that was barely enough to support the family," his mother Sanu Nagarkoti said.

   "But since he went to Saudi, he's sent home 100,000 rupees a year."

   Nagarkoti has not only been able to repay bank loans, but put some money aside, his mother said.

   The percentage of households who depend on family members working abroad has increased by 33 per cent since 1995, according to the government.

   Migrant workers sent home 259 billion rupees in 2010, up from 13 billion rupees 15 years ago, government figures released in October said.

   This "substantial remittance inflow from migrant workers" has been a major reason for progress in national health and education statistics in the last 30 years, according to the Human Development Report 2011 published by the United Nations Development Programme.

   Between 1980 and 2010, the country's Human Development Index score more than doubled, the report said.

   However, a remittance-based economy is not sustainable in the long run, according to experts.

   "What if migrant workers start to return home?" National Planning Commission Vice-Chairman Pitambar Sharma asked, at the press conference to launch the government report last month.

   "Migration has been the safety net for Nepal in last 15 years but it is not a development solution," said UN resident and humanitarian coordinator Robert Piper.

   "Migration has a lot of negative consequences on agriculture and families and has especially devastating impact on women."

   But so far, the allure of working abroad does not seem to be fading, despite the frequent headlines depicting the hardship, abuse and injustice suffered by migrant Nepalis in their host countries.

   "I've heard it's not easy," Chaudhary said. "But we're poor and it's the only way I can help my family pay off our debts."
dpa pt ses cds

Nepal premier under fire for defending lawmaker convicted of murder

   Kathmandu (dpa) - Nepal Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai was criticized Sunday for trying to defend a lawmaker from his party who was convicted of murder by the Supreme Court.

   The cabinet on Thursday forwarded a written request to President Ram Baran Yadav to pardon lawmaker Bal Krishna Dhungel, who was convicted by the Supreme Court in 2010.

   Dhungel was sentenced to life imprisonment for his involvement in a murder in 1998, when the country was mired in civil war.

   The Supreme Court on Sunday issued a stay order to the government, asking it not to act on the decision to grant amnesty to the Maoist lawmaker. The next hearing was set for November 21.

   According to the interim constitution, the president has the power to grant amnesty in "special cases." The cabinet reasoned that the murder took place during the Maoist insurgency, and said the case was "political" in nature. 

   Bhattarai was earlier criticized by the United Nations, and on Sunday, student unions affiliated to the main opposition parties demonstrated in the capital Kathmandu, asking him to revoke his decision.

   He was also criticized for expanding the cabinet on Sunday - for the second time in a week. At 49 members, it is the biggest cabinet in the country's history. 

   Opposition parties and political analysts said the jumbo cabinet increases the economic burden on the government and is in sharp contrast to the austerity measures Bhattarai introduced when he took office. 

   The Maoists joined mainstream politics after the 2008 elections, after waging a decade-long insurgency that ended in 2006 with the signing of a peace deal with the government.

dpa pt ar