As Maoists and Communists yet again become major players in Nepal, the Chinese element is poised to dominate the overall geo-politic opus of South Asia.
Democracy in Nepal was largely brought about and led by the bespectacled Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal 17 years ago.
However, when the 68-year-old former Marxist guerrilla leader took up the country’s top job on December 26 last year, his detractors once again called him the “ultimate opportunist.”
Of course, they had enough reasons to call him so.
According to his critics, he is self-centred and clever and can ditch his closest aides and allies at the drop of a hat if it benefits him. Apparently, Dahal has a long history of jumping ship to partner with ruling parties.
Dahal came to the helm of affairs with 32 seats in the Himalayan nation’s 275-member Pratinidhi Sabha (House of Representatives) following the elect-ions.
The November general election failed to produce a clear winner, although the Nepali Congress emerged as the single lar-gest outfit.

Farmers in North Korea have expressed their dismay over the government’s slashing of their annual food ration to half while the cattle food supply remains unchanged as the country reels under an acute food shortage.
North Korean farmers have been relying largely on the government’s supply of food grains that helps them survive massive food shortages, which Kim Jong-un’s regime has now halved, the Radio Free Asia (RFA) Korean Service reported on Jan. 7.
“Due to the lack of harvest this year, farmers who went to work 365 days … only received 200 days’ worth of grain,” an unnamed farmer told RFA.
Unlike the regular farmers, “cow managers” who work on the collective farms and take care of cattle received an additional “100 kilograms for 100 days’ worth of year-end grain all farmers receive for their daily labor,” stated an unnamed cow manager.
Reportedly, Kimjongsuk county has around four to six collective farming work groups consisting of 300-400 farmers who raise three to six working cows.
This preferential treatment has drawn the ire of many farmers who struggle to make ends meet due to declining harvests.
“Farmers complained that cows were treated more favourably than people”
“One hundred kilograms [220 pounds] of the corn kernel and corn stalks were supplied to the working cows on the cooperative farm,” said an official from South Pyongan province who refused to be named.
“As a result, farmers complained that cows were treated more favourably than people and that cows are more important than people [for the government],” the official further added.

The Taliban government has suspended university education for all female students in Afghanistan, the latest step in its brutal clampdown on the rights and freedoms of Afghan women.
A spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Higher Education confirmed the suspension to CNN on Tuesday. A letter published by the education ministry said the decision was made in a cabinet meeting and the order will go into effect immediately.
Girls were barred from returning to secondary schools in March, after the Taliban ordered schools for girls to shut just hours after they were due to reopen following months long closures imposed after the Taliban takeover in August 2021.

A rights body in Bangladesh has called for lifting the unwritten ‘ban’ on the entry of Dalits – the lowest outside the four main castes in the Indian subcontinent’s social order– into restaurants and eateries after a youth burnt his hand in a scuffle over the issue. The Bangladesh Dalit and Excluded Rights Movement (BDERM) made the demand during a press conference held at the Bogra Press Club on Dec. 17 days after Mithun Bashfor, 23, suffered burn injuries at a local hotel in the Santahar municipal area of the northern Bogra district.
The next day, on Dec. 18, police arrested Masud Rana, 33, a Muslim youth for allegedly pushing Bashfor and causing him to fall on boiling oil, after a heated argument over serving him inside the restaurant. “This age-old rule, this racist treatment of a specific class of people who are in a minority is a violation of human rights.

Some 20 years ago when Mohibul Hasan began his textile shop in the Mirpur area of Dhaka, Christmas was largely unknown in Bangladesh but now it has become a season for brisk sales.
“If I sell 100 sarees a month, in the week before Christmas it would be around 300 sarees,” the 52-year Muslim said from his shop adorned with Christmas decorations in the capital of the Muslim-majority nation.
The acceptance of Christmas festivities in mainstream society shows a major social change in the country and it could help build a non-sectarian nation, say sociologists and Christian leaders.
“It is actually a social change and through it, the universality of Christmas is increasing and this change is very positive for us,” said sociology Professor Shah Ehsan Habib of Dhaka University. He said Christmas decorations have become normal in hotels, restaurants, or shopping malls during the Christmas season, which was not the case a decade ago.
“We now see different kinds of Christmas decorations because people like Christmas” in this country for its universal festive spirit, he said.
The city’s top five-star hotel, the Pan Pacific Sonargaon has celebrated Christmas every year for decades, said Mohammed Nefeuzzaman, its public relations manager.
“Christmas Day is celebrated in our hotel gorgeously. People of all religions celebrate this event together,” he said adding that they organize special programs and “the response has been great.”
Its lobby is decorated with lights of different colours, complete with Christmas wishes and images of a red-and-white-clad Santa Claus.
“Our most popular program is the Kids Carnival, which offers a variety of rides for children on Christmas Day,” he said. They organize magic shows, puppet shows and various rides, including horse rides.

Nguyen Van Hai walked around watching hundreds of converts from other faiths making different styles of creches with colourful lights, pretty stars, evergreen trees, Santa Claus figures and other decorations in the compound of Rach Vop church in Soc Trang province on Dec. 18.
Those people, who have been attending courses in catechism for years to join the church, annually erect nativity scenes to decorate the church and celebrate Christ-mas.
“I am too old to put up creches but I am here to encourage people to make beautiful nativity scenes to mark Jesus’ birthday,” Hai, an 85-year-old convert, said.
Fourteen creches erected by groups of converts and children will be displayed around the church to attract people to visit the church and watch Christmas vigil performances. Groups that create the most beautiful creches will be given awards as a way to foster the tradition of making nativity scenes.
“I will invite my neighbours to visit the church on Christmas Eve so that they can see our creches and feel Christmas joy and peace,” the old man, who attends a course for catechumens at the church, said.

Children at the Bethel Memorial Methodist Church in Quetta have rehearsed well for a traditional Christmas play they were forced to abandon by a terror attack five years ago.
The mayhem caused by two suicide bombers at the church in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province in 2017 is still fresh in the minds of the survivors.
“My eldest daughter was acting as Mary and the son was playing an angel. The terrorists jumped over the church gate, killing nine people and wounding 57. The costumes of some of their friends were stained with blood,” recalls Pastor Simon Bashir.
The nativity play was never held thereafter due to the looming fear of terrorism and then the coronavirus pandemic.
This year, Pastor Bashir encouraged his three children to participate along with their friends, some of whom belong to families of the victims.
The kids performed the nativity play at the jam-packed church on Dec. 11.
“Their spirits were high thanks to the Sunday school training. Even those injured sang jingles. We are not afraid of terrorists,” Bashir to UCA News.
The Methodist Church has dedicated the fourth Sunday of Advent to the martyrs.

In ancient times, the phrase “Vox Populi, Vox Dei” — the voice of the people is the voice of God — was almost a sacred incanta-tion of every monarch.
When a king’s legitimacy was being questioned, all he needed to do was to resort to divine teaching that his rule was ordained by God because he was chosen by the people to be their ruler.
To seal the cap, the pope himself or a Catholic bishop crowns the king to symbolize the Catholic Church’s imprimatur of his king-ship.
In the recent Philippine elections, however, the “vox populi” statement was put to the test. Many Catholic clergymen and the country’s most influential prelates openly supported the candidacy of former vice-president Leonor Robredo.
For them, it was a moral crusade — a battle between good and evil — where no Catholic could stand on the middle ground.
Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas said there was no room for neutrality in the face of evil, where one is faced with a moral choice to side with the good.
“Supposing there is a troll farm [that spreads lies] and here is a truth farm, can you remain neutral there? You cannot be neutral. When we are neutral and there is oppression, we end up empowering oppressors,” the archbishop said in a homily.
Catholic prelates called these efforts a “pandemic of lies” that led to historical revisionism.
“Dear Brothers and Sisters, let us stand up for truth. Remember: goodness without truth is pretense. Service without truth is manipulation. There can be no justice without truth. Even charity, without truth, is only sentimentalism,” the bishops said in a pastoral statement.

Terrified residents expre-ssed grave shock as North Korean authorities publicly executed three teenagers by firing including two who alle-gedly watched and distributed South Korean movies, says a report.
A third teenager was accused of murdering his stepmother, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on Dec. 2 quoting witnesses.
The officials in the ultra-communist pariah state have claimed that the crimes committed by teens aged around 16 or 17 were “equally evil” and forced the shocked residents of Hyesen city near the border with China to watch the firing.
“They said, ‘Those who watch or distribute South Korean movies and dramas, and those who disrupt social order by murdering other people, will not be forgiven and will be sentenced to the maximum penalty–death,’” said a local resident. The execution took place in October at an airfield in the city, the resident said.
“Hyesan residents gathered in groups at the runway,” she said. “The authorities put the teen-aged students in front of the public, sentenced them to death, and immediately shot them.”
Brutal public executions are not uncommon in North Korea, which the authorities typically use to terrorize people to deter them from any behaviour not permitted.
The executions came about a week after the authorities declared the state will hand down tough punishments for crimes that involve foreign media, especially those from South Korea.

Suman Haldar, a Catholic who runs a small grocery store in a Bangladesh village, is feeling the pinch thanks to skyrocketing prices and falling income which has led to the rationing of food in his six-member household. “I could afford chicken once a week even during the Covid pandemic, but now it’s become difficult to have it even once a month,” the 37-year-old father of two told. Haldar lives with his wife, kids and elderly parents in Baniarchar, a village in Gopalgonj district, in the southern part of the country. Worse is the situation of some 33 million people, who are estimated to be living below the poverty line in Bangladesh.
“Six months ago I used to earn more than 15,000 taka (US$145) per month, but now I struggle to make 8,000 taka,” he said, adding how his family was surviving on rice and vegetables grown on a tiny plot of family land covering about one-tenth of a hectare.