KATHMANDU, March 18: As a precautionary measure to prevent the spread of coronavirus, the government has decided to ban travel to Nepal from Europe, West Asia and Gulf and Japan to be effective from Friday.

The last days of Netanyahu?

September 25, 2019 00:51 am

TEL AVIV – At long last, Israel has taken a step back from the religious nationalist abyss into which Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had been leading it. In the September 17 parliamentary election, the country’s second in five months, the “natural coalition” of Netanyahu’s Likud party, Orthodox groups, and proto-fascist factions failed to reach the 61-seat threshold that would have enabled him to form another government.

BEIJING, Sept 23: Disputes in the Gulf should be resolved peacefully via talks, and all sides should remain calm and exercise restraint, Chinese President Xi Jinping told Iraq’s visiting prime minister on Monday, state television reported.

DUBAI, Sept 7: Iran’s coast guard has seized a vessel for allegedly smuggling fuel in the Gulf and detained its 12 crew members from the Philippines, the semi-official news agency ISNA reported.

DUBAI, Aug 5: Iran will no longer turn a blind eye to “maritime offenses” in the Gulf, its foreign minister said on Monday, a day after it seized an Iraqi oil tanker there that it accused of smuggling fuel.

DUBAI, August 3:  Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps has seized a foreign oil tanker in the Gulf that was smuggling fuel to some Arab states, Iran’s state TV reported, adding that seven sailors onboard of the tanker had been detained.

LONDON/DUBAI, July 20:  Britain said Iran seized two oil tankers in the Gulf on Friday and told Tehran to return the vessels or face consequences in the latest confrontation to ratchet up tension along a vital international oil shipping route.

WASHINGTON, July 19: The United States said on Thursday that a U.S. Navy ship had “destroyed” an Iranian drone in the Strait of Hormuz after the aircraft threatened the vessel, but Iran said it had no information about losing a drone.

Gulf of distrust

June 15, 2019 02:00 am

There is good prospect for trans-Himalayan airways, not just “South of Himalayas,” that could help bring in better connectivity benefits in future

KATHMANDU, March 28: Nepal Lube Oil Limited (NLOL), the licensee of Gulf Oil International to manufacture and market Gulf lubricants in Nepal, will be sponsoring the 3rd season of Shahid Cup T20 Trophy.

DHADING, Dec 3: Devaki Pandit of Siddhilek Rural Municipality hardly sleeps at night remembering her son who disappeared in Malaysia about a decade ago. Her son Damodar had gobe abroad promising her to bring home money and happiness.

ATLANTA, Sept 23: Tiger Woods made it look and sound as if he had never been gone.

MOSCOW, July 3: Tuesday commemorates the 30th anniversary of the crash of Iran Air Flight 655, downed by the US guided missile cruiser Vincennes over the Persian Gulf. All 290 people on board, including 66 children, were killed in what is believed to be one of the worst disasters in the history of aviation.

WASHINGTON, May 26: Even if conciliatory rhetoric revives U.S.-North Korea summit plans, President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un are still left with the gaping disconnect over what a deal on North Korea’s nukes would look like.

Meeting announced after President scheduled to meet with leaders from Qatar in a bid to resolve Gulf crisis

POKHARA, Dec 3: It’s just 4 o’clock in the morning. Others in this part of the world might be in a deep slumber, but Tanka Prasad Gautam is a habitual early riser.

MEXICO CITY, Oct 7:  Hurricane Nate gained force as it continues rapidly moving over the central Gulf of Mexico early Saturday after drenching Central America in rain that was blamed for at least 21 deaths. Forecasters said it was likely to reach the U.S. Gulf Coast over the weekend.

FORT MYERS, September 11: A weakening but still potent Hurricane Irma lashed Florida’s Gulf Coast on Sunday with tree-bending winds, pounding rain and surging surf, leaving millions of homes without power, while flooding streets and swaying skyscrapers across the state in Miami.

KATHMANDU, August 9: A parliamentary investigation has revealed that Nepali women are “being sold like goats” in Gulf countries after being taken to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait through illegal channels.

KATHMANDU, August 8: None of the government bodies in the country has exact information on the number of Nepali migrant workers in the Gulf countries.

KATHMANDU, Aug 7: Concluding that the officials of the Department of Immigration, staffers of airline companies and security personnel at the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) have been involved in human trafficking, a parliamentary panel has suggested the concerned authorities to investigate and punish those involved in the misdeed.

July 14, 2017 -- The Arab quartet which cut diplomatic and trade links with Qatar on June 5 will find it difficult to significantly increase penalties against the world’s largest gas exporter without hurting their own economies.

July 14, 2017 -- The Arab quartet which cut diplomatic and trade links with Qatar on June 5 will find it difficult to significantly increase penalties against the world’s largest gas exporter without hurting their own economies.

Soon after his ten-month-long tenure as health minister came to an end, Nepali Congress Central Committee member Gagan Thapa was busy campaigning for the second phase of local elections. Now that the second phase results are coming in, Congress seems to be trailing its arch-rival, CPN-UML, in overall local level seats and it looks as if the party will have to settle for second place. What explains the losses of Nepali Congress, and what are the party’s strategies for the third round of voting? Separately, what were the achievements of Thapa’s ten months in health ministry, and how was his experience of working as a minister? Mahabir Paudyal and Ashok Dahal met with the Congress leader at his Ratopul home.

Main migratory routes to the gulf countries

KATHMANDU, JUNE 11: Amnesty International (AI) has accused Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of toying with the lives of thousands of Gulf residents as part of their dispute with Qatar, splitting up families and destroying peoples' livelihoods and education.

DOHA, June 11: Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates signaled Sunday they may allow some Qataris to stay in their countries amid a diplomatic rift with the Gulf nation.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, June 6: Kuwait is trying to mediate a Gulf crisis between Qatar and its Arab neighbors, which have severed ties with the energy-rich travel hub and moved to isolate it from the outside world, Qatar’s foreign minister said Tuesday.

KATHMANDU, June 6: Wary of the possible fallout from diplomatic tensions in the region after Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt jointly decided to sever diplomatic relations with Qatar, Nepal has directed its missions in all Gulf nations to evaluate the unfolding developments and report back  for necessary measures to protect the interests of Nepali migrant workers.

KATHMANDU, May 26: How would a family feel when a loved one they had cremated two years ago returns alive from the Gulf ?  Moreover, they had already received compensation from the state for accidental death. This may sound like something from  a movie, but it actually happened in Morang district.

KATHMANDU, April 16: Foreign Employment Promotion Board(FEPB) has started rescuing Nepali migrant workers who are serving jail terms in different Gulf countries and Malaysia with the help of law experts. The FEPB has already allocated Rs 6.3 m for facilitating the rescue process.

KATHMANDU, April 6: The government has temporally banned those Nepali nationals without travel history from visiting Gulf countries after a series of incidents of human trafficking via the Tribhuvan International Airport came to the fore.

KATHMANDU, April 2: The Parliament's International Relations and Labor Committee has instructed the government to effectively implement the ban on Nepali women to travel to Gulf countries for employment as domestic workers.

KATHMANDU, April 2: The International Relations and Labor Committee under the Legislature-Parliament which had declared a role of immigration employees in illegally sending Nepali women to the Gulf countries a week back, has directed the Council of Ministers to completely ban the sending of Nepali workers to such countries until they came with a substantive law relating to domestic help and made a bilateral labour agreement with Nepal.

Ravi Chawla, the managing director of Gulf Oil Lubricants India Ltd, was recently in Nepal, along with former Manchester United footballer Quinton Fortune, for brand promotion of Gulf lubricants in Nepal.

KATHMANDU, Sept 27: Looming economic crisis in the Gulf countries dims the prospects for the Nepali economy as migrant workers there are facing unprecedented problems and demand for workers from the countries has also declined over the past few months.

KATHMANDU, Aug 13: At a time when thousands of migrant workers have been laid off and stranded in Saudi Arabia, the number of Nepali migrant workers leaving for the Saudi has not declined.