Two top Nepalese communist leaders on China visit

Nepal's two ex-prime ministers - leaders of two communist parties - have embarked on a visit to China, in what is being termed as an attempt to strengthen party-to-party ties with the ruling CPC.
Jhala Nath Khanal and Baburam Bhattarai are paying separate visits to its northern neighbour.
Leading a 19-member delegation, chairman of ruling alliance CPN-UML Khanal left for Kunming yesterday at the invitation of the Communist Party of China.
While meeting senior CPC leaders, Khanal is expected to invite them to attend the general convention of his party next month.
"My visit will focus on strengthening bilateral relations. It should be seen as a continuity of high-level political exchange visits between the two neighbours," Khanal told reporters.

However, there is no official announcement of the visit from his party, nor details of who he will meet in China.

UCPN-Maoist leader Bhattarai is leaving for Beijing today, as his first-ever trip to China.
He is on a week-long visit to China after quitting a senior position in the party.
"This is purely a private visit," his aide Bishowdeep Pandey told journalists.
Bhattarai's name was excluded from the list of 99 central members of the UCPN-Maoist at his request during the recently concluded first national convention of the party that re-elected Prachanda as party chairman.
The then-Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao had paid an official visit to Nepal in early 2011 when Bhattarai was the prime minister.