Nepal's King Gyanendra called yesterday for peace and security to help conduct long-delayed elections, days after thousands of people took to the streets urging him to initiate democratic reforms.
"It is clear that peace and security are the Nepalese people's prime desire as well as the nation's necessity," the monarch, who is also facing a deadly Maoist revolt that chas claimed hundreds of lives, said in a statement on the Nepali New Year.
CRISIS
"Highest priority must, therefore, be accorded to the creation of an environment wherein the governance of the country can be handed over to the elected representatives," he said.
King Gyanendra plunged the impoverished nation into a crisis in 2002 when he fired the elected prime minister for failing to contain the Maoist insurgency and indefinitely postponed elections then set for November that year.
More than 9,300 people have died in the rebellion since it started in 1996 to replace the constitutional monarchy with a communist republic.
SURGE IN VIOLENCE
Violence has surged since peace talks between the rebela and the government collapsed last August.
Mainstream political parties have been demanding the monarch set up a multi-party government in place of the one he nominated in 2002.
Gyanendra last month said he hoped to hold elections by April next year but his comments are not seen as a commitment to stick to that schedule and the polls could be further delayed using the lack of security as a reason.
Last week, more than 2,000 people were detained as thous-ands of protesters defied a government ban on rallies to launch the biggest anti-king demonstrations since 1990 when multi-party democracy was set up.
NO ACTION
Organizers said about 150 protesters were still held without any charges but authorities said only 19 people were in custody.
Analysts said Gyanendra, who is officially a constitutional monarch but effectively exercises all state powers, has made several calls for peace in the past but had not come up with measures to match the plea.
"He wants to rule the country directly in the name of multi-party democracy," Rajendra Dahal, editor of the widely read Nepali magazine Himal, said.
"He has not initiated any steps to resolve the current crisis," Dahal said.
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
FAKE NEWS? ‘When the government demands the press become a state mouthpiece under the threat of punishment, something has gone very wrong,’ a civic group said The top US broadcast regulator on Saturday threatened media outlets over negative coverage of the Middle East war, after US President Donald Trump slammed critical headlines from the “Fake News Media.” The US president since his first term has derided mainstream media as “fake news” and has sued major outlets over what he sees as unfair coverage. Brendan Carr, head of the US Federal Communications Commission — which oversees the nation’s radio, television and Internet media — said broadcasters risked losing their licenses over news coverage. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
INFLUTENTIAL THEORIST: Habermas was particularly critical of the ‘limited interest’ shown by German politicians in ‘shaping a politically effective Europe Jurgen Habermas, whose work on communication, rationality and sociology made him one of the world’s most influential philosophers and a key intellectual figure in his native Germany, has died. He was 96. Habermas’ publisher, Suhrkamp, said he died on Saturday in Starnberg, near Munich. Habermas frequently weighed in on political matters over several decades. His extensive writing crossed the boundaries of academic and philosophical disciplines, providing a vision of modern society and social interaction. His best-known works included the two-volume Theory of Communicative Action. Habermas, who was 15 at the time of Nazi Germany’s defeat, later recalled the dawn of
RSS