With the fear of possible violence that may occur during the massive mass demonstration on May Day and indefinite strike called by the main opposition party Unified Communist Party of Nepal - Maoists from May 2, the Nepalese government on Friday decided to mobilise Nepal Army in highly sensitive areas.

An emergency meeting of National Security Council called by the Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal immediately after arriving from 16th SAARC Summit made the decision in this regard.

“Since the Nepal Police and Armed Police Force will have to be engaged during the Maoists’ nationwide stir the responsibility of the security of the sensitive areas, including the President’s office, airport, have been given to the Nepal Army,” said Home Minister after the meeting.

Meanwhile, Maoists Deputy Chairman and party ideologue Dr Baburam Bhattarai flayed the government decision to deploy the army saying that it was against the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Dr Bhattarai claimed that the Maoists protests would be largely peaceful.

But Defence Minister Bidhya Devi Bhandari said that the government would deploy all the security agencies if the Maoists turned violent during their protests.

She also warned the agitating Maoists not to go against the spirits of the peace agreement.

Meanwhile, United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) Chief Karin Landgren has appealed to all parties and groups to exercise maximum restrain and reach consensus before the situation escalate.

But neither the ruling coalition parties nor the agitating Maoists have changed their stance in striking amicable solution through dialogue. Instead both the Maoists has expressed commitment to topple the government from the urban-centric protests whereas the government has reiterated to foil it.

The Nepal Police and Armed Police Force personnel have sized a huge amount of improvised explosive devices from the Maoists cadres in different parts of the country, including Kathmandu, suspecting that they may detonate it against the security forces during their street agitation.

Meanwhile, the representatives of business community have drawn the attention of the President Dr Ram Baran Yadav to the rampant extortion carried out by the Maoists cadres across the country.

Business representatives led by Surendra Bir Malakar, president of the Nepal Chamber of Commerce and Industries (NCCI) informed President Yadav saying that entire business entrepreneurs and common people have been terrorised due to the latest donation spree unleashed by the Maoists in the pretext of supporting their cadres during the agitation.

Despite UCPN-Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s repeated denial to his cadres having had hand in threatening the businessmen for forced donation, the business community has always been the target of the Maoist cadres, Malakar said.

Earlier on Thursday and Friday the business entrepreneurs from the major market places in Kathmandu had shut down their business houses as the Maoists cadres forced them to pay donation in accordance with their demand.

Washington, April 30
A mammoth crude oil slick from three leaks in a BP exploratory well in the Gulf of Mexico was headed to the fragile wetlands along the Louisiana shore near the Mississippi river delta, US officials said today.

The officials declared the oil leak to be of “national significance,” signalling the full engagement by the federal government and possibly the military in containing the damage.

Among the most vulnerable wildlife were the shrimp, oysters and birds along the coast. Louisiana officials said they would open a special early shrimp season along the Breton and Chandeleur Sounds to allow fishing boats to harvest as many shrimp as possible before the oil reaches the area.

Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana stressed that Louisiana seafood - a major industry along the coast - is currently safe to eat.

The United States expects BP to comply with the law by reimbursing the government for its response to the spill.

“BP is ultimately responsible,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said. “BP is required to fund the cost of the response and cleanup operations and they are doing so.”

The estimated rate of leakage from the damaged well was raised to 5,000 barrels a day on Thursday, five times more than the 1,000 barrels a day previously feared spilling, BP confirmed.

The three leaks followed an explosion on an exploratory rig in the Gulf last week that killed 11 rig workers before it sank. The leaks are equivalent to nearly 800,000 litres of crude oil per day, a rough estimate issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Several branches of the US government were mobilising to contain the spill, the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said while the immediate focus is on minimising ecological damage, the US government will ensure that taxpayers are reimbursed for the cost.

Napolitano said the disaster will be declared as one of “national significance,” which triggers a government ability to rush emergency assets to the scene and centralise the response. — DPA

In a stunning verdict that may pulverise much of the top bureaucracy stitched together by the PPP government, the Supreme Court has struck down orders of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s promoting 54 bureaucrats to the highest Grade-22 by exercising discretionary powers on a single day without going through regular procedures.

The discretion exercised by Gilani was not in consonance with the well-known principles of fair play and good governance, a three-member division Bench of the court headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad ruled while declaring the Prime Minister’s order as void. The court accepted several petitions filed by several senior officers affected by what they alleged as acts of favouritism in utter disregard of merit and seniority. It suspended the notification of such an unprecedented wholesale promotions in bureaucracy last year .

It puts a rude brake on the policy of promotions, appointments and postings undertaken by the new PPP government in the federal and provincial governments at a breakneck speed to install a brand new administration loyal to the party. Fifty-four persons were promoted in disregard of the rules, destroying the structure of the services and causing anger, anguish, acrimony, dissatisfaction and diffidence, says the judgment.

The court ruled that the BS-22 officers, who were promoted in pursuance of notifications, shall not be entitled to claim any benefits, perks & privileges if they have availed on account of promotion because they shall be relegated to the positions they were enjoying before their promotions vide notifications.

BRIEFLY

Swimming 'good for babies'
London: Parents, please note — swimming is good for your baby, for a new study has claimed that it can help kids outperform their peers later in life. Researchers in the Britain have carried out the study and found that teaching babies how to swim actually helps develop a range of skills, including balance and movement, the Daily Express reported. For their study, the researchers analysed 19 children who had swimming classes for about five months from the age of two to three months and a control group of 19 non-swimmers. — PTI

A Thai army soldier holds a pink rose given to him by members of Thailand’s Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij’s entourage as Korn met with security forces, business owners and pedestrians on Silom Road, which was the scene of grenade attacks last week, in Bangkok on Friday. — Reuters

Library on chip
Washington: An Indian-American scientist has developed a computer chip that can store an unprecedented amount of data - enough to hold an entire library. The new chip stems from a breakthrough in the use of nanodots, or nanoscale magnets, and represents a significant advance in computer-memory technology. "We have created magnetic nanodots that store one bit of information on each nanodot, allowing us to store over one billion pages of information in a chip that is one square inch," says Jay Narayan, professor of Materials Science and Engineering at North Carolina State University. — IANS

Games for special kids
Washington: It was her love of ballet that led her to work with children who have motor disabilities. Dido Green, occupational therapist at the Tel Aviv University (TAU), is using a "virtual tabletop" called the Elements System, developed by her partners at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, to "move" kids with disabilities and provide home-based treatments using virtual reality tools. Combining new three-dimensional exercises with two-dimensional graphical movement games already programmed into the tabletop she reports not only success but also enthusiasm among her young patients. — IANS