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News In Brief
By KTM Metro Reporter
Opening the Eighth International Conference on Community Based Adaptation: Financing local adaptation in Kathmandu on April 28, 2014, Prime Minister Sushil Koirala said that Nepal was committed to responding to the impact of climate change, as the impact of climate change was on the overall development sector all should collectively fight against it. As the first victims of climate change were the rural communities their capacity to adapt to it must be enhanced, he said, "Importance should be given by the developed and developing countries to preservation and utilization of natural resources to minimize the impact of climate-change-induced impact". Prime Minister Koirala also said that as the impact of climate change was on the entire globe, all the countries should work together to resolve it. He said that he confidently hoped the conference would address the issues of alleviating the impact of the greenhouse gas emission on the very poor and developing countries like Nepal. More than 300 delegates including the government and non-government officials, environmentalists, development campaigners, researchers and other stakeholders were participating in the week-long conference held by the Ministry of Science and Technology and Environment with support from IIED Britain, Center for Advance Studies of Bangladesh, Climate Change Network and Clean Energy Nepal. Participants would exchange ideas, views and experiences in community-based adaptation, investment and planning and best practices. (Source: RSS news on gorkhapatraonline.com, April 28, 2014)
The mountaineering teams that lost their 13 Sherpa guides to the avalanche at the Everest base camp on April 18 decided to call off scaling the world's highest mountain this year. Sangrila Nepal Private Limited, Himalayan Guides, Nepal Treks and Expedition Private Limited, Nepal Trekking Private Limited and Himalayan Treks and Expedition had been preparing to cancel the expedition. The pain of loosing members of the expedition team and the lack of necessary human resource as well as the government's decision on allowing the teams that took permit for the Everest expedition this year to make another attempt any time within the next five years led them to call off the climb, said the mountaineers in Solukhumbu on April 28, 2014. Of the 13 Sherpa guides losing their lives in the avalanche, six were members of the team of the Himalayan Guides Nepal Treks and Expedition. However, other teams not suffering any casualty were thinking of continuing the climb, said Kame Magar at the Everest base camp. "Foreign mountaineers come here after a long and arduous exercise for it, so it will be hard for them to call it off", said Magar. A total of 32 expedition teams including one Nepali team had taken permit to scale the Mount Everest this season. (Source: RSS news on gorkhapatraonline.com, April 28, 2014)
A 56-seat new aircraft provided by a Chinese company in grant assistance to the state-owned Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) arrived at Tribhuvan International Airport, Kathmandu from China on Sunday, April 28, 2014. NAC would the aircraft for domestic flights, as NAC had no aircraft after the crash of the only twin-otter it had in February 2014. NAC held a rally at the airport with the traditional music band to welcome the aircraft. Nepalis had made it a tradition to welcome a vehicle or aircraft reaching them after the completion of roads of airports with the traditional music band.
Street vendors continued to picket the Office of the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) on April 27, 2014 calling for ensuring designated areas for the self-employed entrepreneurs (street vendors) to do their businesses while constructing and expanding new roads in the city. The national Self-employed Entrepreneurs' Association, Joint Trade Entrepreneurs' Association, and Nepal Self-employed Business Entrepreneurs' Association picketed the office demanding an alternative to the sidewalks for doing their business. The street vendors' organizations staged a sit-in at the Metropolis Office for two hours from 11:00 am following their third round of protest programs on April 27, 2014. The government had stopped them doing their businesses on the sidewalks since February 26, 2014 citing it had adversely affected the movement of pedestrian. The street vendors had since then staging peaceful agitation. Chairman of the Nepal Self-employed Entrepreneurs' Association Kumar Thapa said that the government should give right alternative to the entrepreneurs that had been running their businesses on the sidewalks.
The women human rights activists' network has begun a national campaign against rape cases starting on April 29, 2014. The activists have called for an amendment to the existing laws related to rape cases. The existing laws have set a 35-day limitation to the rape victim to file a case against the perpetrator and they have demanded correcting it for doing away with the time limit to register rape cases. They demanded setting a fast track justice system to provide the victims with the speedy justice, as the victims have been feeling harassed these days due to impracticability of existing laws; to hold investigation into rape cases scientifically in view of the psychological burden of the victims. The activists have further called for forming a High Level Impartial National Investigation Committee to investigate the war-era rape cases. The network has begun a sit-in at Bhadrakali in Kathmandu on April 29, 2014 and it would continue until mid-May 2014 and this would be changed into fast on to death after mid-May, said Dr Renu Rajbhandari, chairperson of the campaign. The campaign aimed at providing justice to the victim after creating pressure on the concerned authority to amend the existing impractical laws. (Source: RSS news on gorkhapatraonline.com, April 30, 2014)
The government had set up a makeshift police post in the building of Nepal National Primary School at Chauferi of Holiya VDC in the Banke district disrupting the teaching and learning activities in the school. Students had been forced to go for work after they were deprived of attending the school, as the police occupied their school building. Then, the school had become the dispute mediation and detention center. Locals of the disaster-prone Chauferi area had established a two-room school building in 2007 (2064 BS) with the funding from a donor to provide their children with a shelter to learn in a convenient manner. Around 200 students had been pursuing their education in the school until last year. Locals demanded with the concerned authorities to remove the police post from the school building and create an environment conducive to learning for the children. (Source: RSS news on gorkhapatraonline.com, May 2, 2014)
