Nepal's ruling parties and communist rebels worked out their differences and agreed yesterday on an interim constitution, a crucial development in the country's peace process, officials said.
The seven-party ruling alliance and rebels agreed that all executive powers would remain with the prime minister, and that King Gyanendra -- stripped of most of his powers and command of the army earlier this year -- would have "absolutely no power," said Arjun Narsingh of Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala's Nepali Congress party.
The king will remain without powers until the elected assembly decides whether the impoverished Himalayan nation should continue as a monarchy.
PHOTO: AP
Koirala and the ruling-party leaders met through the night on Friday with Maoist rebel leader Prachanda, Narsingh said. Prachanda goes by a single name.
The negotiations on Friday began at 3pm and both sides worked all night at the prime minister's official residence, signing the agreement at 7:57am yesterday.
The ruling party and rebel leaders had been meeting over the past few days to work out the differences over the interim constitution.
Their main disagreements had been over the rebels' wishes to include education, health care and employment as fundamental rights.
The interim constitution will be in place until a permanent one is prepared by a special assembly, to be elected next year.
The assembly will also decide how Nepal's political system will operate.
The assembly had long been a demand for the rebels to end their anti-monarchy conflict which began in 1996 and which has seriously harmed the economy -- dependent on aid and tourism -- and displaced more than 200,000 people.
"It [the draft constitution] will be proclaimed after managing the arms and armies in seven to 10 days," Mahara said referring to an earlier agreement to mandate the UN to monitor their weapons.
The UN says up to 35 monitors are expected to begin work this month but the full monitoring mission will take more time. It has not given any specific timeframe.
The government and rebels last month signed a peace accord under which thousands of rebel fighters will be confined to UN-monitored camps without their weapons.
The Maoists, who have agreed to confine their fighters in camps and lock weapons in containers monitored by the UN, were upbeat.
"Now there is a guarantee that elections for the constituent assembly will be held on the basis of this constitution," chief rebel negotiator Krishna Bahadur Mahara said.
Under the agreement on arms management, the state army is also to remain in barracks in the run up to elections in June. An equal number of its arms are also to be locked in stores.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS