World Teachers' Day today

THT ONLINE

KATHMANDU: The United Nations based in Nepal on Friday has highlighted the roles of teachers on the occasion of World Teachers' Day.

Issuing a press release today, the UN-Nepal has said, "The teachers have a central role in shaping children's lives. They are essential for the cultural, social, economic and intellectual development of the country. They are vital change agents in Nepal's transformational process."

In the massage issued today, the UN has stressed for three requisites in a teacher: proper training, professionalism and teachers' rights.

The UN-Nepal has also called for adequate investment in the national policies, programmes for teachers' training, recruitment, and incentives to encourage them to remain in their posts and enhance their professional skills.

Oil posts biggest gain in 2 months‚ tops $91

ASSOCIATED PRESS

DAMASCUS: Tensions between Syria and Turkey gave oil prices their biggest jump in two months Thursday, while refinery outages boosted wholesale gasoline prices.

Oil settled at $91.71 per barrel, up by $3.57, or 4 percent, on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The rise follows a decline of 4 percent on Wednesday.

Oil prices rose after Turkey's military fired on targets in Syria for the second day. The Middle East and North Africa account for about a third of global oil production. Any tension in the region makes traders nervous about a disruption to supplies.

The energy market is also sensitive to any unplanned outages at a major U.S. refinery with gasoline supplies down about 8 percent from year-ago levels. Exxon Mobil Corp. reported a fire late Wednesday at its Baytown, Texas complex. On Thursday the company said there will be some impact on production, although it expects to "meet its contractual agreements."

Tunisia seeks death penalty over anti-US attacks

ASSOCIATED PRESS

TUNIS: Tunisian authorities are seeking the death penalty against several suspects who have been detained over attacks on the U.S. Embassy and the neighboring American school last month, defense lawyers said Thursday.

Anouar Ouled Ali and Mondher Charni said an unspecified number of the 87 people now held in custody risk capital punishment on charges including attacks against state security. The Sept. 14 violence came amid roiling protests across the Muslim world over a private U.S.-produced film that mocked the Prophet Muhammad.

Several thousand demonstrators stormed the U.S. Embassy compound, tore down the American flag and looted and burned buildings. Police responded with gunshots and tear gas. Four demonstrators died and scores of people were injured, including security forces.

Tunisia's governing moderate Islamist party condemned the attacks on the U.S. sites.

Separately, the Tunisian government extended for an eighth time a state of emergency put in place in January 2011 amid a popular uprising that forced longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from power, the official news agency TAP reported Thursday.

President Moncef Marzouki extended the state of emergency for one month, despite a "notable improvement in the general security situation" in the country, TAP said.

18 students die after landslide hits China school

ASSOCIATED PRESS

BEIJING: Officials say all 18 elementary school students buried in a landslide in a mountainous part of southwestern China are dead, while one other person is missing.

The Yiliang county government said on its website that the children were declared dead early Friday about 18 hours after the landslide smothered the school and three farmhouses. It says the missing person was in one of the farmhouses when the landslide struck after 8 a.m. Thursday.

The government says the landslide blocked a river, and its water pooled around the buried buildings, hampering rescue efforts.

Officials have yet to give a cause for the landslide but the area has been lashed by rain and is prone to earthquakes. A series of quakes last month left 81 people dead.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

A landslide toppled an elementary school building in a mountainous area of southwestern China on Thursday, killing at

Govt promotes controversial Col Raju Basnet

TIKA R PRADHAN

KATHMANDU: The government today promoted Col Raju Basnet, one of the most controversial army officers facing allegations of dozens of cases of human rights violations including enforced disappearances and torture during the time of conflict, as brigadier general.

The earlier attempts to promote Basnet had failed after immense pressure from National Human Rights Commission and international rights bodies.

The government move today is sure to draw fire from several quarters and international human rights watchdog. Rights bodies have long been calling for an independent investigation into the allegations that Basnet, as the commander of the Bhairavnath Battalion in 2003, was involved in meting out torture to Maoists and subsequently their systematic disappearance.

An investigation by the NHRC and one by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights had concluded that the then Lt Col Basnet had played a leading role in torturing and disappearing at least a dozen Maoist cadres from the

Ban on sachels to lighten pre-school kids' load

HIMALAYAN NEWS SERVICE

BHAKTAPUR: Pre-school kids now can have loads of fun as they go to learn; they don’t need to carry heavy sachels on their backs. And for Grade I-XII students, a standard weight for bags has been prescribed. The move is sure to earn accolades from school-goers and parents alike.

A committee formed under the Department of Education to determine new standards for institutional schools has proposed that pre-primary children should not carry bags to schools and fixed the maximum weight of bags primary and secondary schoolchildren carry.

Weight of school bags and number of textbooks students carry to school have always been a major concern in view of possibility of schoolchildren acquiring backache as they grow, but no substantial measure had been taken so far.

Gachhadar's remarks trigger tension in Kailali

HIMALAYAN NEWS SERVICE

DHANGADHI: Tension ran high in Kailali today as supporters of the intact far-west campaign took to the streets to protest remarks by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs Bijaya Kumar Gachhadar who yesterday ‘promised to sever Kailali and Kanchanpur from the far-west region’.

Accusing DPM Gachhadar of inciting the audience to chant slogans like Jaya Tharuhat, intact far-west campaign supporters today held demonstrations at different places in Kailali. They also enforced vehicular strikes at Boradandi, Attariya, Khutiya and Lamki. Police personnel in huge numbers were deployed to escort Gachhadar, who was on his way to mid-west, through an alternative Dhangadhi-Khutiya route.

Angry demonstrators, including cadres of Nepali Congress and CPN-UML, showed the minister black flags at Lamki and Chisapani.

Police had detained four persons during the protest but released them later. The demonstrators also held a corner meeting at the Lamki Bazaar and demanded Gachhadar’s resignation.

Tension ran high in Dhangadhi also after security forces stopped intact far-west campaign supporters from marching

Late ex-minister Sharma convicted

HIMALAYAN NEWS SERVICE

KATHMANDU: The Special Court today convicted late former minister Rabindra Nath Sharma of corruption and decided to confiscate Rs 22.7 million from his family.

A three-member bench of Judges Gauri Bahadur Karki, Om Prakash Mishra and Kedar Prasad Chalise took the decision — the first of its kind in which a former minister has been convicted of graft posthumously.

Stating that Section 176 of the Court Procedure Chapter of Muluki Ain, 1963 does not require punishing the deceased in any criminal case, the bench did not slap jail sentence.

Stating that Sharma died four years ago, the bench ruled that there was no need to slap jail sentence on him for corruption and additional jail sentence for abusing the authority, and therefore decided to ask his family to pay back the amount that the late minister had amassed illegally.

Late Sharma’s wife had been pursuing the case since his death in 2007.

The bench has decided to confiscate land in Baneshwor worth Rs 1.8 million — registered in the name of his son Sarad Gyawali and daughter-in-law Aruna Gyawali — and a house registered in the name of son Sarad at Bishnu VDC, Kathmandu, worth Rs 2.4 million. The bench also decided to confiscate some land Sharma owned in Nawalparasi and Palhi Printing Press.

The bench said Sharma was found to have made only Rs 14.5 million through his legitimate sources of income.

Demanding that Rs 42.4 million be confiscated from Sharma, the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority had filed the case a decade ago. Though the Special Court had given a clean chit to Sharma ‘on technical grounds’

Docs issue flu alert

HIMALAYAN NEWS SERVICE

KATHMANDU: If you are suffering from flu, wash your hands, cough into a tissue paper and get plenty of rest, doctors have suggested.

Dr Geeta Shakya, director of National Public Health Laboratory, said that there is nothing to worry about swine flu as the disease can be cured easily if detected at an early stage.

She suggested that the general public visit a doctor if they think the flu is getting out of hand. Dr Shakya said the

Gyawali questions Prez powers

THT ONLINE

GULMI: UML politburo member Pradip Gyawali has said on Wednesday that the President does not have any right to appoint or unseat the Prime Minister. He further said that the constitution has not given any rights to the president to form the government.

Gyawali who reached Gulmi to participate in a party programme said that the President can mount pressure on the parties to forge consensus and to bring normalcy in the country. Apart from that he could not step forward to appoint or remove the Prime Minister.

Speaking with media persons, leader Gyawali accused the ruling coalition of trying to take the country into a protracted political crisis.

Four perish in Sankhuwasabha landslides‚ floods; 3 missing

KISHOR BUDHATHOKI

BIRATNAGAR: At least four people were killed and three went missing in landslides and floods triggered by heavy downpour in Sankhuwasabha since yesterday night. Dozens of houses have been swept away and several families were displaced.

According to Sankhuwasabha police, three people, including a pregnant woman and an 18-month-old baby, died after a landslide buried the house of Chakra Bahadur Rai in Dhupu of Jyamiretole in the district. Chakra Bahadur’s wife Dilmaya, 45, and a guest Krishna Ghimire, 40, have gone missing. His son Som Kumar, 23, and daughter Kamala, 18, who were injured in the incident, have been airlifted to the Dharan for treatment at the BP Koirala Institute of Health Sciences. Chakra Bahadur works in India.

Inspector Amatlal Majhi said search for the missing is on. The local administration has provided Rs 45,000 to the

DPM Shrestha briefs SG Ban on Nepal's politics

THT ONLINE

NEW YORK: Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Narayan Kaji Shrestha assured the Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon that dialogues and consensus building endeavours pursued by the political parties will provide the solution to all the outstanding issues of Nepal.

Briefing SG Ban on the latest political development of Nepal during a bilateral meeting on Tuesday, Shrestha said that the technical part of the peace process, i.e. the integration of former Maoist combatants, is going to complete very soon.

The Secretary-General had expressed his concerns over the latest state of political development and the process in Nepal.

The Deputy Prime Minister appreciated the role played by the United Nations, particularly the UNMIN, in the initial phase

I won't quit sans package deal: PM

RSS

BIRATNAGAR: Prime Minister Dr Baburam Bhattarai on Wednesday has said that discussions are on between the political parties and the government to strike a deal for removing the present political crisis.

Talking to journalists at the Biratnagar Airport today, Prime Minister Bhattarai reiterated that general election would be held after forging consensus among the parties.

Stating that there was no alternative to holding the election by fulfilling the required process for the same, he claimed that by concluding the peace process the incumbent government has demonstrated that it could do what the past governments had failed to do.

"I will not quit in the present circumstances without an alternative at hand; there is no option to going for elections and

According to all accounts‚ accord still unlikely

HIMALAYAN NEWS SERVICE

KATHMANDU: Four major political forces — the Unified CPN-Maoist, Nepali Congress, CPN-UML and the United Democratic Madhesi Front — in past two days have promised as many times that they would find a solution to current political crisis by mid-October. Can they? Going by the current scenario, it’s unlikely.

First, the parties are backtracking and are not discussing the real issues — amending the Interim Constitution, fixing the date for fresh CA polls and strength of the assembly and a national unity government. Parties have not held talks on basic issues for the last three months, and have gone further apart on constitutional issues. Meanwhile, the NC has also backtracked from its earlier position on mixed-form of government in the new constitution. “Now, the NC is all for a parliamentary model, and nobody wants to take ownership of the mixed-form of government,” says NC leader Gagan Thapa.

“Parties are at odds over whether to move ahead by agreeing on election alone, or by forging consensus after forming a