These are some of the best stories from The Kathmandu Post (February 3, 2020). Several stores in Kathmandu said they have run out of face masks. POST FILE PHOTO
These are some of the best stories from The Kathmandu Post (February 3, 2020).
Despite not being on the agenda, MCC dominates NCP’s central committee meet
When the Central Committee meeting of the ruling Nepal Communist Party started on Wednesday, the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s Nepal Compact was conspicuously missing from a host of contemporary issues up for discussion.
But during his inaugural speech, which lasted around two hours, party Co-chair and Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli brought up the MCC and said why the US programme, which will provide $500 million in grants to Nepal, is important for the country and why it must be ratified at all costs. Oli and Co-chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal also presented a political document, which incongruously has a line that clearly says, “the Indo-Pacific Strategy is aimed at countering China”.
Student’s arrest from university library prompts questions over intent
On Friday, Sudal Rai, a geology student, was quietly studying in the Tri-Chandra Campus library when three police officers, armed with guns and tear gas, entered. They closed the door behind them and when it reopened, Rai and two others had been blindfolded and were summarily taken into custody, according to at least two eyewitnesses who spoke to the Post on condition of anonymity as they feared retribution from the police.
According to Deputy Superintendent Hobindra Bogati, spokesperson at the Kathmandu Metropolitan Police Range, Rai was taken into custody after the police received information that he was involved in “suspicious activities”.
Nepalis rush to buy face masks amidst coronavirus outbreak but there are none available
Roshan Magar visited at least a dozen pharmacies in Kalimati and Teku on Sunday, looking for face masks. Magar works at Total Machinery, a company that supplies machinery parts in Teku and his employer had asked him to get a box of face masks.
All the stores told him that they had run out.
Twenty-seven-year-old Sagar Malla also said that he was unable to find N95 masks anywhere.
180 Nepalis have made requests to return home, Nepali Embassy in Beijing says
As many as 180 Nepalis, mostly students, have approached the Nepali Embassy in Beijing, asking it to evacuate them from Hubei Province of China in the wake of the deadly coronavirus outbreak that has so far killed 303 people in China and one in the Philippines.
The embassy in Beijing on Saturday issued a public notice, asking Nepalis in Hubei to fill out a form if they wish to return to Nepal.
“A total of 180 Nepali nationals, mostly students, currently living in 17 cities in China, including Wuhan of Hubei, have registered their names with the embassy, expressing their desire to return home,” Sushil Kumar Lamsal, deputy chief of mission at the Nepali Embassy in Beijing, told the Post over the phone. “Around 120 Nepalis from other Chinese provinces also want to return.”
9.89°C Kathmandu
