Nepal’s ruling Maoists were accused of corruption yesterday after it was revealed they had granted the son of their leader US$250,000 to climb Mount Everest.
Opposition activists burned effigies of Nepalese Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai and warned they would stage “massive” protests across the impoverished Himalayan nation if the government did not withdraw the cash offer.
Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s son Prakash has been quoted as saying his team is taking up the challenge “for the sake of the country, the people and peace and constitution,” sparking widespread derision.
“This is the worst kind of immoral decision taken by this government. There cannot be any financial irregularities greater than this,” said Ramesh Lhekhak, leader of the opposition Nepali Congress, accusing the Maoists of “nepotism.”
“Many common people are forced to live in poverty due to poor economic conditions, but the government ignores them and wastes money in an unmeaning initiative like this,” Lhekhak said.
Dahal senior, who goes by the nom de guerre Prachanda, has been accused of pressuring Bhattarai to release the funds to the 11-man expedition team, which sets off later this month.
“How could the government’s decision to empty the state coffers for these new princelings help achieve peace and constitution? This is an example of institutional corruption,” National Students’ Union coordinator Ranjit Karna was quoted as saying by the Kathmandu Post.
Prachanda, who led a 10-year “people’s war” against Nepal’s royal family and political elites, which left 16,000 people dead, came under fire in January after it was revealed he had moved into a lavish mansion in Kathmandu.
His son was expected to give a press conference on the grant later yesterday.
“This is not the first time the government provided such financial support to those aiming to scale the world’s highest peak,” Bhattarai’s spokesman Ramrijan Yadav said. “The money is not provided just because there is the son of the party chairman, it is provided to a team.”
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
Germany is considering Australia’s Ghost Bat robot fighter as it looks to select a combat drone to modernize its air force, German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said yesterday. Germany has said it wants to field hundreds of uncrewed fighter jets by 2029, and would make a decision soon as it considers a range of German, European and US projects developing so-called “collaborative combat aircraft.” Australia has said it will integrate the Ghost Bat, jointly developed by Boeing Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force, into its military after a successful weapons test last year. After inspecting the Ghost Bat in Queensland yesterday,
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
RSS