>From the Nepali Times:
http://www.nepalnews.com.np/ntimes/july13-19-2001/daily19th.htm
Prime Minister Koirala resigns
A week after ordering the army to fight the Maoists, Nepal's Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala resigned on Thursday after resisting pressure for over a year from dissidents within his party, the main left opposition and underground Maoist insurgents.
Koirala handed in his resignation to King Gyanendra on Thursday and in a statement on state-run radio and television said he would continue to "fight on".
The prime minister had failed to rally dissidents in his ruling Nepali Congress party and was under opposition pressure to resign since January. The Maoists also wanted him to resign if they were to come to talks with the government.
Deputy prime minister Ram Chandra Poudel, resigned last week after telling parliament he was quitting because he saw Koirala's resignation as the only "outlet" to the political stalemate and he did not seem willing to go just yet.
However, the last straw seemed to be Thursday's protests in parliament where opposition lawmakers demanded his resignation for making "anti-national" statements and "threatening them to seek foreign help" to tackle problems facing the country.
At Tuesday's meeting of the Federation of Nepalese Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) Koirala had said that if things did not improve Nepal could become a "play ground for foreign powers". He added: let us not be forced to seek "help of foreigners to solve our problems" because we cannot do it ourselves.
The prime minister had been under pressure by dissidents in his party to give up one of two positions-as party president and prime minister. He defeated a no-trust motion tabled by Sher Bahadur Deuba, former prime minister, in December and went on to defeat Deuba again at the party's convention in January to become its president.
The opposition led by the UML stepped up its campaign to oust Koirala in January and paralysed the parliament's entire two-month session over demands the resign for alleged corruption in a controversial jet-leasing deal. Koirala was not charged formally.
The UML had rested its demand for Koirala's resignation after the 1June royal massacre but on Thursday its members disrupted parliament over the same issues-with a new twist.
They declared the speech by Koirala at the FNCCI meeting as "anti-national" and a "veiled threat against opposition parties" and chanted slogans in the house, forcing the speaker to postpone the session.
Parliament did not meet on Wednesday and all political parties were to have met on Thursday morning to get it back to business. Koirala did not attend the meeting.