All World Leaders Felicitated At One Go
RSS
As part of His Majesty's Government's efforts to streamline its activities, the Ministry of Foreigner's Affairs has decided to stop issuing individual congratulatory messages to heads of states of countries with which Nepal has full diplomatic relations on their National Days.

Instead, HMG will henceforth send out just one group email once a year to all world leaders wishing them personal health and happiness and the people of the respective countries continuing progress and prosperity on the auspicious occasion of their national day.

"It will save us time and money to do it all in one go," said our mole at Shital Nibas on condition that we reveal his full name and designation: he is none other than Balaram Nepal, Section Officer in the Department of Congratulations and Felicitations.

The collective congratulatory message for 2006 sent out on Wednesday to kings, queens, presidents, prime ministers, potentates, sheikhs, pretenders to thrones, tyrants, tinpot dictators, generals in charge of ruling juntas and despots says in part: 'His Majesty's Government has just sent you a BlueMountain e-card. Please open it on your National Day by clicking on www.BlueMountain.com/hmg.gov.np. Thank you.'

Nepal Can Be Greater Again
RSS-VHP
The nation marked the 285th birthday of King Prithibi Narayan Shah the Great on Wednesday with a rally calling for an even greater Nepal and a return to the glorious tradition of interfering in the internal affairs of neighburing countries by invading and capturing their territory.

"There is no reason why Nepal can't be as great as or even greater than, when His Late Majesty King Pritibhi united the country," said the chairman of the 128-member Prithibi Jayanti Celebration Main Standing Committee at a commemoration program, "Let this be a warning to any foreign diplomats who meddles in our internal affairs. If you continue interfering, we'll attack and occupy your country just like we did in the good old days."

RPP Splits Yet Again
FROM OUR DOMESTIC DESK
The Rastriya Prajantra Party (RPP) split again on Friday into its 47th faction with every Central Committee member now heading his own splinter group.

After an emergency meeting of the disgruntled group, Pashupati SJB Rana told reporters he was now heading a new rump RPP of which he is the only member. At a parallel press conference elsewhere in the city another disgruntled RPP stalwart, Deepak Bohara, said he was splitting off from the royalist party that broke off from the not-so-royal faction of a splinter group of the Roshan Karki bloc that itself was carved out of the ex-royalist Surya Bahadur Thapa-led remnant of the original pro-royalist RPP before it splintered into the Rajeswor Debkota and Rabindranath Sharma semi-royalist factions.

Meanwhile the ultra-royalist RPP faction under the leadership of Kamal Thapa denied his branch of the party had used government helicopters to fly in party heavyweights from remote areas. "It's not true," he told the press, "we just rented the helicopters. And we'll take action against the airline for carrying overweight passengers and endangering their lives."

Airline Still Missing
BY A FLY-BY-NIGHT REPORTER
A private Nepali airline, missing since December 22, has still not been traced despite an extensive search operation, the Civil Aviation Authoritarians of Nepal has said.

The airline, Phantom Air Nepal, which had started operating international routes from Kathmandu with a Boeing 767 took off on a routine sortie to Bangkok three weeks ago with 150 passengers and 12 crew and hasn't been seen or heard from since.

"It's weird, one moment the airline was here, the next moment it was gone," said a puzzled CAAN official, "we have stepped up our search and hope to locate the airline within the current fiscal year."

Hundreds of worried passengers thronged the airport where they were joined by executives of Nepal Oil Corporation and Nepal Food Corporation demanding settlement of unpaid bills by another private carrier, Bellyup Airlines.