News, Views From Nepal

Yuba Nath Lamsal Once again world leaders are meeting in New York in the annual gala UN General Assembly in which leaders are to make their rhetoric on UN’s role in maintaining global order, peace, cooperation and prosperity. This has been a regular phenomenon every year since the United Nations was created 67 years ago. The same is being replicated this year in the UN Headquarters in New York as the UN General Assembly is already underway. It is true that the ideals for which the global body was created are equally relevant at present as they were six decades ago when the world had been virtually devastated by the World War II. In the aftermath of ugly war that killed hundreds of thousands people and wrecked much of the human creation in Europe and elsewhere, the global population was desperately in search of lasting peace so that people’s desire to live peaceful life would be best ensured. Although Allied powers composed of the United Kingdom, the United States and Sovie...

Yuba Nath Lamsal It seems that politics of Nepal is slowly but certainly going back to the square one. In other words, the state of politics is likely to go back to pre-May 28 status. All the developments have clearly indicated that political parties will be left with no option other than reviving the Constituent Assembly. The political parties seem to have virtually agreed for the revival of the Constitution in order to resolve the constitutional deadlock that has emerged in the absence of parliament. The Constituent Assembly saw its demise without accomplishing its mandated job—writing a new constitution— for which it had been constituted through the popular election. The initial timeline of the CA for producing the constitution, as stated in the Interim Constitution, was two years. In the period of these two years, the Constituent Assembly did not even prepare groundwork for writing the constitution, let alone completing it. The priority of the key political players and s...

Yuba Nath Lamsal Recently, some new but encouraging developments have taken place in the bilateral relations between Nepal and the United States. The US Department of State has revoked the designation of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (UCPN-M) as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity under Executive Order 13224, and as a “terrorist organization” from the Terrorist Exclusion List (TEL) under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). A statement of the US State Department says with this decision announced on September 6, the UCPN (Maoist) is no longer a threat to the United States in Nepal. According to the statement, after a thorough review, the United States determined that the UCPN (Maoist) is no longer engaged in terrorist activity that threatens the security of US nationals or U.S. foreign policy. Additionally, in recent years, the Maoist party has been elected as the head of Nepal’s coalition government, has taken steps to dismantle its military ap...

Yuba Nath Lamsal Nepal is situated in a unique geo-strategic location, which has further strengthened and enlarged its strategic value and significance in the international arena in general and in the regional power politics of Asia. Nepal is not only a country between the world’s two fastest growing economies but also a bridge between South Asia and East Asia—the regions that have attracted more international attention and priority because of their rising economic and military power and prowess. Based on the newer concept on international relations and developments in the region, Nepal should reshape its foreign policy and extract maximum benefit out of this geo-strategic situation. However, our politicians, bureaucrats and foreign policy interlocutors have not been able to utilize this strategic opportunity in the optimum interest of the country. This is either because our policy makers and people who are in-charge of conducting diplomatic affairs and foreign policy are si...