Nepal shuddered to a halt yesterday as a three-day strike called by Maoist rebels as part of their campaign to overthrow the monarchy took effect, officials and witnesses said.
The strike comes amid massive daily protests by opposition groups near the royal palace in Kathmandu to pressure King Gyanendra to reverse his 2002 dismissal of the elected government.
Streets in the capital were near-deserted yesterday while schools, businesses, factories and stores remained closed.
Government offices were open but with no buses or private transport running, bureaucrats were forced to walk to work.
Officials and residents contacted in the major cities of Pokhara, Bhaktapur and Lalitpur reported similar scenes.
The strike also paralyzed Bhairahawa and Palpa districts and other tropical regions in the south, officials contacted by telephone told reporters.
Inter-city transport was also affected, with the Maoists imposing a road blockade in parts of western Nepal to thwart a tour of the area by the king.
Palace sources said the king, accompanied by Queen Komal, was determined to continue his program despite the strike and growing protests and was due to visit Bhairawaha tropical region in southwestern Nepal, including Lumbini, the birth place of Buddha, yesterday.
Police reported no immediate major incidents but said Maoist rebels had exploded bombs yesterday morning at the election commission office at Nepalgunj, in far-southwestern Nepal. No one was injured in the attack.
Rebels had also attacked police and bombed a police post and a government building in Saptari district, south of Kathmandu, but no casualties were reported.
Four bombs exploded in eastern Kathmandu overnight but little damage and no injuries were caused, police said.
The Maoists called the strike despite pleas by the five-party alliance which is driving the street protests to delay the protest because it would affect public transport bringing protesters from across Nepal to Ratna park, near Narayanhiti Pa-lace in Kathmandu, for the daily demonstrations.
Some 200 people have been hurt in clashes with police since the Ratna park protests began last Friday, according to human rights groups.
Organizers said further protests would be staged later yesterday at Ratna park as well as in the ancient city of Bhaktapur.
While the political groups want the king to restore the elected parliament, the Maoist rebels want an end to the monarchy.
The rebels have been fighting since 1996 to instal a communist republic in Nepal at a cost so far of some 9,500 lives.
The Burmese junta has said that detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is “in good health,” a day after her son said he has received little information about the 80-year-old’s condition and fears she could die without him knowing. In an interview in Tokyo earlier this week, Kim Aris said he had not heard from his mother in years and believes she is being held incommunicado in the capital, Naypyidaw. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was detained after a 2021 military coup that ousted her elected civilian government and sparked a civil war. She is serving a
REVENGE: Trump said he had the support of the Syrian government for the strikes, which took place in response to an Islamic State attack on US soldiers last week The US launched large-scale airstrikes on more than 70 targets across Syria, the Pentagon said on Friday, fulfilling US President Donald Trump’s vow to strike back after the killing of two US soldiers. “This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance,” US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote on social media. “Today, we hunted and we killed our enemies. Lots of them. And we will continue.” The US Central Command said that fighter jets, attack helicopters and artillery targeted ISIS infrastructure and weapon sites. “All terrorists who are evil enough to attack Americans are hereby warned
Seven wild Asiatic elephants were killed and a calf was injured when a high-speed passenger train collided with a herd crossing the tracks in India’s northeastern state of Assam early yesterday, local authorities said. The train driver spotted the herd of about 100 elephants and used the emergency brakes, but the train still hit some of the animals, Indian Railways spokesman Kapinjal Kishore Sharma told reporters. Five train coaches and the engine derailed following the impact, but there were no human casualties, Sharma said. Veterinarians carried out autopsies on the dead elephants, which were to be buried later in the day. The accident site
‘EAST SHIELD’: State-run Belma said it would produce up to 6 million mines to lay along Poland’s 800km eastern border, and sell excess to nations bordering Russia and Belarus Poland has decided to start producing anti-personnel mines for the first time since the Cold War, and plans to deploy them along its eastern border and might export them to Ukraine, the deputy defense minister said. Joining a broader regional shift that has seen almost all European countries bordering Russia, with the exception of Norway, announce plans to quit the global treaty banning such weapons, Poland wants to use anti-personnel mines to beef up its borders with Belarus and Russia. “We are interested in large quantities as soon as possible,” Deputy Minister of National Defense Pawel Zalewski said. The mines would be part
RSS