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As expected, PKD has sailed through his Extended Plenum by lying left, right and centre. He reiterated yet once more how much he hated revisionism, hinting that Rambabu has serious revisionist tendencies. But BRB himself exposed his boss's hobnobbing with ex-royals as being worse than revisionism.
Now, why would Kollywood personality Gopal Bhutani be cremated bedecked in the red hammer and sickle? Do similar honours await other non card-carrying Baddies when they kick the bucket? And what of people who have been at the receiving end of Maobaddie terminal physical elimination?
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Meanwhile, Makunay had all the time in the world to attend the Tiger Summit, but rushed back not to attend to the country's political deadlock, but to resolve a slight glitch in his dotter's wedding plans. Did Nepal commit to double the population of big cats by 2020 or not? And do we trust the Deforestation Minister to do it? And before we could say 'Angkor Wat', Makunay was back at the airport clocking more frequent flier miles by jetting off to Cambodia for a meeting that he could easily have sent a flunkey to. As we speak, he is on his way to Brussels to return only in mid-Dec. Is there a method to Makunay's madness? Is he trying to show everyone else just what he thinks of the inability of his colleagues to resolve the succession issue? Maybe. But my guess is we have a PM who desperately wants his Gold Medallion Status renewed.
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And just as well he is outside the country because when the prime minister is here, he takes momentous decisions like proposing the erection of the Republic Tower on the right bank of the Bagmati. Besides a gate fetish and clock tower craze, this will unleash a nationwide epidemic of Republic Tower erections. MKN has taken personal charge of the design and we have it on good authority that it is an obelisk with a bronze winged horse on top. And dignitaries trooping to it in future to lay floral tributes on Republic Day will all faint as they are asphyxiated by the aroma wafting up from the river.
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Six months after the Chinese gifted the Mandu Municipality with street scrubbers and sidewalk vacuum trucks, the vehicles are still rusting away in Teku. The reason is that the trucks still don't have registration plates and green emission stickers. But even if they did, the Ass's prediction is that they will stall on their first day of scrubbing as their tubes are overwhelmed with all the rubbish this city has to offer.
Maybe the Chinese should have just given us brooms.
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The Minister of Foreign Affairs must be nervous about the Wikileak expos of sensitive American diplomatic cables. Not because everyone will know what the U.S. embassy here thinks about her, but because there may be no mention of her at all. Wot, am I not important enough to be mentioned in secret diplomatic cables? Pity the leaks don't go back to the early 1990s, though. We'd really like to hear about what Julia had to say about her match-making strategy to get Lion Brave hitched to Ar-Zoo.
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Much more interesting would be if we had the Freedom of Information Act to find out what our own embassies are cabling to Naryanhiti. For instance, our envoy to Canberra must have written back about the speech he gave on the Kommunist Manifesto to a group of flustered Kiwis in New Zealand. Our man in Seoul must be cabling back about everything but the imminent war with the North. London's classified cables must reveal some pretty gory details about the structural status of the Kensington building. And we can't wait for the quickie-leaks from Bara Khamba Road about the latest visits by Nepali political figures for 'medical' treatment.
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Kathmandu Irrational Airport is mulling the purchase of full-body scanners. Bad idea. Now that NTA has shut down porn sites, desperate cops may take to ogling the privatised parts of VIP passengers. I'd rather they intensified their pat downs to make them more invasive, then we could market them with a new slogan for Nepal Tourism Ear: 'Get an Arousing Full Body Massage As you Leave the Country'.
ass(at)nepalitimes.com
