These are some of the best stories from The Kathmandu Post (March 17, 2020).
Divisions in ruling party manifest in appointment of National Assembly general secretary
The ruling Nepal Communist Party which has long been embroiled in factional infighting is bracing for yet another conflict—this time over the appointment of the general secretary in the federal parliament.
In a unilateral move, House Speaker Agni Sapkota on Sunday elevated Gopal Nath Yogi, a secretary at the Parliament Secretariat, to officiating general secretary of the federal parliament after Manohar Prasad Bhattarai retired after the expiration of his second on Friday.
Restaurants and bars in Thamel are looking at staff layoffs and ultimately, a shutdown
Thamel’s K-Too Beer and Steakhouse Restaurant has already sent five of its 28 staff home on a 45-day hiatus due to a lack of customers. With the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, foreign tourists, K-Too’s primary customer base, have all but vanished, and so has business for the hundreds of restaurants and bars in Thamel that largely cater to visitors.
Even before the government stopped issuing on-arrival visas to all foreign tourists, visitor numbers had already started to fall. But now, with almost all visitors barred from entering the country, Thamel is largely deserted.
Police confiscate over a million surgical masks stockpiled for sale in the black market
The Kathmandu Chief District Office has confiscated over a million surgical masks that were being hoarded to sell on the black market.
With rising panic over the threat of Covid-19, surgical masks have been in short supply across Kathmandu, leading unscrupulous actors to take advantage and sell masks on the black market at exorbitant rates, 15 times the market price in some cases. The Kathmandu Chief District Office has thus been running a market monitoring campaign for the past two days, confiscating stockpiled goods.
Days after the biggest global price fall, Nepal Oil Corporation slashes fuel prices
Last Monday, the crude oil prices suffered the biggest fall after a deal between Saudi Arabia-led Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia broke down.
The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the global economy also led to low demand for oil. Brent crude futures, the global oil benchmark, were down 22 percent, last week closing at $35.45 per barrel.
General people and airlines operators have been expecting that the biggest fall in crude oil in the international market could cheer the domestic market with big price cuts.
But on Monday, when the Indian Oil Corporation, Nepal’s sole oil trading partner, sent the revised list of oil prices, criticism poured into the oil monopoly for cheating consumers at the time of crisis.
Nepali missions in Gulf stop approving workers’ documents
Nepal’s embassies have stopped approving demand letters submitted by local employers in the Gulf seeking Nepali workers, in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak, leaving officials at the department of foreign employment dismayed.
The approval process was postponed until further notice following a decision by the High-Level Coordination Committee to Control and Prevent Novel Coronavirus to suspend labour permits issued to Nepali citizens, Nepali missions in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain said in separate statements.
14.24°C Kathmandu
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