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GURKHA INTERNATIONAL GROUP April 2016 Issue 224 Newsletter Contents • The Last Month in Brief, Shipping Companies ...........................................1 • GI (HK) Business, World Security: Economics, Nuclear, Europe ...........2 • The Arab World, Afghanistan & Pakistan, Palestine, Asia ...................3 • Thiland and Malaysia, The Malacca Straits, Somalia, Africa, The Americas, Myanmar, India ...............4 • Nepal News .....................................5 - 7 • Hong Kong News ..................... 7 - 10 • Conclusion .........................................11 We publish this month a photograph of the M/S Superstar Aquarius of Star Cruises. If you have pictures or postcards of your ship, please send them in to us for future Newsletters. I was in Nepal this month visiting BGOS and going up into the hills in Dhading Jilla to the west of the Kathmandu valley where much of the damage was done in last year’s earth- quake. I and the Directors of BGOS were on a hunt for a suitable recipient for the funds We Welcome that our three Companies had collected last year. We had planned to help rebuild houses in Sindhupalchowk in the Valley, but these will be paid for by the Government, so we Norweigian Cruise Lines looked elsewhere. This time, we found a village that had been entirely flattened by the Kumar Tamang quake. Kumar Bahadur Khati We visited the village of Patale, which is on a ridge at about 1,350 meters in height and had, before the quake, consisted of 92 houses and a school for 300 children of the area. All but two of the houses were destroyed. The school was flattened. One year later, only two buildings have been restored. The villagers remain in shelters and tents and the children are being educated in canvas, plastic and tin in a ‘temporary learning centre’. The village SHIPPING COMPANIES AND used to have a water supply, but the quake moved the water table and now all water has SHIPS LINKED TO US to be carried up the hill from the valley below and the rice paddyfields are dry. We decid- ed to help the village rebuild the school. We are working with 21 shipping Unfortunately, the price of material and labour has rocketed and the money we had (about companies, and have 741 men and NRs780,000 or US$7,500), which we had thought enough to build four classrooms to an 168 women on ships, a total of 909 earthquake-proof standard (on 8 feet of foundations with reinforced pillars) turns out to crew and staff under management. be enough only for one classroom. So we must find another NRs2,800,000, or US$27,000, and will be starting to fund raise. I shall keep you all posted. Across Nepal, it sadly seems that little has been done to rebuild after the quake. Money is not getting through to those who need it. So we must do what we can. Gurkha International Group Newsletter 1 World Security GI (HK) Business Village of Patale We are providing security ser- vices for 32 Hong Kong Clients and have 100 security staff em- World Security ployed. Economics Our employment agency place- ment service found 0 Bodyguard/ There is little news at the moment in the rather dull world economy. Driver post position over the last month. Nuclear North Korea tested a medium range missile out to sea which failed. Europe Arrests and prosecutions are following the ISIS terrorist attack that killed 35 people and wounded over 100 in the previous month in Brussels. The continent remains vigilant against future attacks, which are thought like- ly. The number of refugees and economic migrants reaching the European Union has declined since the agreement made the month before with Turkey to send back refugees and migrants leaving Turkey for Greece and other countries. In Ukraine, tensions with Russia remain high. The main departure hall at Zaventem airport was severely damaged in the March 22 attacks. 2 Gurkha International Group Newsletter World Security The Arab World Peace negotiations continue to end the Syrian civil war but violence has not ceased. The US has announced that it will send more troops to the region. Areas un- der control of ISIS are being slowly reduced in both Iraq and Syria. Conflict has not yet ended in Libya, despite recent attempts to form a government acceptable to all fac- tions. The war in Yemen between the Sunni govern- ment, Saudi Arabian and some Gulf state forces on one side and Shia Muslim Houthi rebels backed by Iran continues. ISIS fighters in the Libyan port city of Sirte, March 2016. Afghanistan and Pakistan Taleban forces have taken the offensive in many areas of Afghanistan. Large numbers of government forces are being killed or wounded, but they have so far held all major populated areas, although much of the countryside is under Taleban control. The security situation in Pakistan remains dangerous with large numbers of active Islamic militants at large. Palestine There is little new currently in Gaza or the West Bank. Asia Tension continues in the areas of the Spratly and Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, which are all claimed by China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia, and in the Sea of Japan around islands claimed by China, Japan and South Korea. China’s insurgency problems in the Muslim areas of far-western Xinjiang province and in Tibet continue. The Black Flag Movement, an ISIS-linked group, continues Muslim terrorism in Mindanao in the southern Philippines, and terrorist recently hijacked an Indonesian ship in the area. A lookout watches on the bridge of the U.S.S. John C. Stennis aircraft carrier in the South China Sea on April 25, 2016 Gurkha International Group Newsletter 3 World Security Thailand and Malaysia The Muslim insurgency in southern Thailand, near the Malaysian border, continues. The Malacca Straits There is no news this month of piracy in the area. Somalia There have been no more reports of Somali piracy. Fighting continues in the country between the govern- ment and its foreign allies and Islamic militant al-Shabaab fighters. Africa Nigerian forces continue to battle Islamic terrorists Boko Haram in the north of the country. The security situ- ation in the Central African Republic remains disturbed. The situation in South Sudan seems to be improving as rival factions appear to be negotiating currently. A girl does laundry in the Dalori camp for internally displaced persons in Maiduguri, Nige- ria, which houses close to 20,000 people. The Americas Venezuela appears to be heading towards bankruptcy. In Brazil, moves are underway to impeach the presi- dent. Dilma Rouseff. Myanmar There is no news of a security nature this month. India There is little news of a security nature this month. 4 Gurkha International Group Newsletter Nepal News A year after the devastating earthquake, people across Nepal still live in tin shacks erected amid rubble they can’t afford to clear. Nepal News Patience wears thin among Nepal to deliver aid, families sink deeper into an wipe away tears. quake survivors as calls for help go economic slump. Like many fellow villagers who were unheeded If the approaching monsoon season unable to show financial assets to the 25 Apr - The villagers gather on top of a wasn’t worrying enough, much of bank, Upadhyaya had taken out a private mountain in Nepal’s Sindhupalchowk Sindhupalchowk is also experiencing a loan to construct a shed for new cattle. district, on the sun-spotted ground dire water crisis, as the quake destroyed Such loans carry interest rates of up in the canopy of two trees, to make a pipes and dried up sources. The economic to 24% a month, according to several last-ditch cry for help. A year after the consequences are severe. With barely villagers. worst earthquake in 80 years hit Nepal, enough water for humans, let alone A $200m World Bank grant has allowed their patience with the government animals, villages have had to give away the Nepalese government to promise and international agencies has all but cattle. 200,000 rupees (£1,335) to 100,000 vanished. The earthquake lasted approximately families each to rebuild their homes. But Clutching a pink smartphone with a 50 seconds but it will upend people’s the money has stalled, due to political patchy internet connection, connected lives for years. The scale of suffering gridlock that, until recently, delayed to a loudspeaker so everyone can listen in this mountainous district east of the establishment of the National in, Ram Krishna calls the people they Kathmandu is staggering. One in seven Reconstruction Authority, the body know they can count on: relatives and of the 22,733 people killed in natural responsible for distributing the aid. Fewer friends overseas, who will send home disasters worldwide last year was from than 700 families have received the first remittances. Sindhupalchowk. instalment of £335. He places a Viber call to Saudi Arabia. At It could have been even worse. In Most affected families have received only the other end of the line, migrant workers Katunjebani, a village a few kilometres 25,000 rupeesand basic food and winter have convened to discuss how to help. from the gathering, no one was killed items. Even if delivered, the promised But they have barely begun the meeting because the quake occurred when they money is a pittance compared with what before the connection cuts. were working in the fields. But the cattle people lost, and nowhere near sufficient “I hope it helps but migrant workers were locked up inside, and all died. to build a new house. earn so little they can’t send much,” says “I was sick and lying in bed when With household economies gutted by a Govindra Buri, 74, as a younger man the earthquake hit.

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