February 11: Media update Friday papers Nepali Times, Bimarsha and Nepali Parta published as usual but the Nepali Times came with three 'while holes' one in the letters section, one in the op-ed page where C.K.Lal used to appear and one in the Under My Hat column. Military officials have been reading the paper before publication, and the 'holes' represent text and pictures that the editors were forced to purge. Bimarsha carried an interview with Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs minister Dan Bahadur Shahi, speaking of the usual issues that government ministers have been talking about. The paper tried to remain in the middle and reported that the Wednesday cabinet meeting has given R.K. Mainali education minister the task of building bridges with the parliamentary parties?the leaders of the main ones remained in house arrest on Friday morning. The paper said the king also asked the ministers to talk less and talk about the same issues (or not differently). Its editorial argued the need to open up the press, saying that the media sector had not been able to be fully supportive of His Majesty's wishes because of the gap between the State and the media. The paper also had some very general comments of some leaders that had been released from house arrest on Thursday. Nepali Patra had a headline saying 'let this not be an opportunity for those who were unable to amass wealth for the past 15 years' clearly warning that the present state of affairs could give the ministers and government officials a free-for-all opportunity. It also had another news item asking why the new ministers had not made their assets public. Its editorial argued on the need for winning the confidence of the press, which it said could be done through a new policy on the media sector. The dailies appearing on Friday reported about the Indian, US concerns about the arrest/ detention of political leaders and also reported the story about the jailbreak by Maoists in Dhangadi. They also reported the arrest of about a dozen human rights activists, from the Human Rights and Peace Society, who had attempted to protest the takeover by the king. They also reported the closures of newspapers in Dang and Dharan by the local administration. The government has apparently decided to relax control on day-to-day news flows and focus on controlling the more analytical and pro-party vernacular newspapers, which have continued to report visits by army censors. Among the dailies, Rajdhani had a story about the visit by NHRC to places where the detained political activists were being held?it said those belonging to the NC were being held at Kakani and those aligned with the left parties in Bhaktapur. It also said that the NHRC had not been allowed access to the residences of the top leaders being detained at their homes.