Ten test positive for swine flu in October

November 20 – Nine Bhutanese and a foreigner working in Thimphu tested positive for influenza A H1N1, also known as swine flu, last month, taking the number of confirmed cases in the country to 16. All 16, who were tested positive, have recovered, said health officials. However, there could be more cases, as the referral hospital is yet to receive results of samples sent to Thailand for confirmation. Since the flu surveillance began in the country, 1,546 samples were sent to Thailand, of which... Read more

Kuwait highest contributor

November 20 - The government of Kuwait and Kuwait Red Crescent society contributed USD 5.5 million, approximately Nu 253m to Bhutan as assistance to reconstruct and rehabilitate damages caused by Cyclone Aila on May 26 and the September 21 earthquake. The highest contribution, so far, was handed over to the government yesterday. The government of the state of Kuwait is the only country in the middle east with which Bhutan has diplomatic relations. Meanwhile, the Bhutan Society of the United Kingdom... Read more

Tourism tie-up with Thailand

November 19 – The tourism council of Bhutan (TCB) and the tourism authority of Thailand (TAT) are in talks to increase the flow of tourists between the two countries. TAT director, Chattan Kunjara Na Ayudhya, said that the two authorities recently held a meeting in Thimphu to deliberate areas of collaboration. The first step towards establishing collaboration will be the formation of a ‘working committee’, according to officials of both authorities. The committee will consist of... Read more

Reconstituted as autonomous authority

November 19 – Almost two years after it was established as a council, the tourism council of Bhutan (TCB) will finally function as a fully autonomous authority with nine new council members led by the prime minister and a restructured TCB secretariat. The erstwhile department of tourism was renamed in February 2008 as TCB, and made the apex authority of tourism services and facilities, but it was still functioning as any other government department, according to a TCB secretariat official.... Read more

Bhutanese UNV evacuated from Afghanistan

November 19 – A Bhutanese UN volunteer, Lhap Tshering, was among the 600 UN international staff temporality evacuated from Afghanistan, after terrorists attacked the UN guesthouse in Kabul on October 20. Lhap Tshering, 29, who had started working as an ICT regional support officer in Kabul in October 1, said that he didn’t know what happened as he lived in another UN guesthouse. The attack took place in a UN guesthouse called Bakhtar, a few metres away from the one Lhap Tshering stayed... Read more

Lemon grass oil

November 19 – Late rains and the September 21 earthquake have drastically reduced the extraction of lemon grass oil in the four eastern dzongkhags of Trashigang, Mongar, Lhuentse and Trashiyangtse. According to the manager of the lemon grass cooperative in Sherichhu, Tshering Wangchuk, who has made two rounds to collect the oil, only 30 distillers were active this season, down from 55 last year. Oil production had also dropped from 4.96 metric tonnes (MT) to about 1.6 MT so far this year. “We... Read more

Award for Bhutan

November 18 – The health minister, Lyonpo Zanglay Dukpa, left for Hanoi, Vietnam, to receive an award on behalf of the government for maintaining immunisation coverage over 95 percent since 2005. The award will be bestowed on the eve of the 10th anniversary of global alliance for vaccine initiative (GAVI), on November 19. The minister will also attend the 4th GAVI partner’s forum to be held from November 18 to 19 with a theme “Towards 2015: Responding to the Call for Life-saving... Read more

US company eyes Bhutanese water

November 13 – An American real estate and construction company ‘Carpenter and company inc’ wants to invest in Bhutan’s mineral water resources, albeit with a clause that it be given exclusive rights to sell the water outside the India and Bhutan region. The company has been holding talks with Druk holdings investment (DHI) as a potential foreign direct investment (FDI) partner. This has already raised opposition from those involved in the water sector, like Bhutan agro industries,... Read more

GNH guarantees human rights

November 13 – Bhutan’s experience of democracy, Gross National Happiness, women and child’s rights, an independent judiciary and the issue of the people in the camps in Nepal form the core of the report on the human rights (HR) situation in the country, which will be presented to the human rights council (HRC) in Geneva on December 4. On the experiences and challenges of a parliamentary democracy, the report states that the government is aware of its responsibility to make democracy... Read more

Will Bhutan green policy bear fruit?

November 13 – Bhutan will join 192 countries with three key negotiation points when they sit at the 15th session of the United Nations framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC), also called COP15, which will take place in the Danish capital, Copenhagen, next month. Bhutan’s special focus is on the adaptation fund, reward for conserving and managing sustainable forest and simplifying procedures to obtain green technology projects under clean development mechanism (CDM). “Bhutan... Read more

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