Nepal Highlights

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the legislature parliament on Friday directed the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) to start an investigation into the misuse of diplomatic passports by Constituent Assembly (CA) members. The parliamentary committee gave this instruction to CIAA secretaries Bhagawati Prasad Kafle and Ram Kumar Acharya in a meeting held at Singha Durbar today morning. PAC said that since the issue concerns country's lawmakers, CIAA should carry out the investigation by giving it top priority. Kafle and Acharya were directed to immediately start investigation on the case and report back on the progress. During the meeting, Kafle informed that CIAA has received around 15 complaints about the misuse of diplomatic passports by CA members. He said investigation on diplomatic passport misuse by two - CA members Gyatri Shah of Nepali Janata Dal and B.P Yadav of Madhesi Janadhikar Forum - has reached its final stage. Members of PAC also

The Standing Committee of the UCPN (Maoist) which was supposed to finalise the names of its remaining ministers in Jhala Nath Khanal cabinet on Friday could not do so. The Maoist SC did discuss about the expansion of the cabinet but could not arrive at any decision, a source said. However, party spokesperson Dina Nath Sharma claimed that the meeting dwelled on issues concerning the party's sister organisations, not on the list of ministerial candidates. "We discussed issues concerning various wing of the party including students, youth and intellectuals," he said. The party has not been able to name its ministers with sheer number of leaders from three camps- each loyal to party chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and vice chairmen Mohan Baidya and Baburam Bhattarai- vying for ministerial berths. In the meantime, the Moist leadership is scrambling to settle the dispute within its labour wing and address growing discontent within the Young Communist League (YCL) leadership af