Armed guards escort supplies

Nepal general strike enters fourth day:

NEPAL: Trucks protected by armed guards carried food and fuel supplies into the Nepalese capital Kathmandu on Wednesday, as former rebel Maoists enforced the fourth day of their general strike.

The opposition supporters have shut down much of the country in an attempt to pressure the ruling coalition to resign, in a stand-off that threatens to undermine the peace process that ended Nepal’s civil war in 2006.

Maoist guerrillas fought a bloody insurgency against the state for 10 years before a peace agreement was signed, and the left-wing rebels then won elections in 2008 before falling from power last year.

“Stocks of food are running low. The highways are shut,” the home ministry spokesman, Jaya Mukunda Khanal, told AFP.

“Armed riot police have been escorting fuel and food trucks to provide residents with their daily needs.” Shops, schools and offices were closed except for two hours each evening as Maoists staged mass rallies and threatened anyone who defied the strike.

“The escorts are not enough. Many shopkeepers have stocks for only two to three days,” said , president of the Retail Shop Business Association Pabitra Bajracharya Some protesters tried to blockade government offices on Wednesday, but one minister said all staff had got to work. “The protesters tried to disturb us, but we made it through.

The Government will not stop due to street protests,” Bal Krishna Khand, minister for irrigation, told AFP.

“Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal is not going to bow to this pressure. Kathmandu, Thursday, AFP