Nepal's royal palace yesterday denied a report that embattled King Gyanendra was planning to abdicate and leave the country after being stripped of most of his powers.
"There is very much absolutely no truth to this report whatsoever. It is highly irresponsible reporting," an official from the palace secretariat said.
"The king is very much here, the peace process is on, everything is going as people would want. The king has always said he would abide by people's aspirations," said the official, who asked not to be named.
The weekly Nepali-language Ghatana Ra Bichar reported earlier this week that the king -- whose future is hanging in the balance amid a peace deal between the government and fiercely republican Maoist rebels -- was considering leaving the country.
The newspaper said the king had increased the number of meetings with family members to discuss the possibility of handing over his throne.
"According to his close relatives, during his meetings, King Gyanendra has said that he planned to hand over the throne to his grandson and leave Nepal for retirement for a few years in a foreign country," the small-circulation newspaper reported.
Nepal's main political parties and Maoist insurgents formed a loose alliance in late 2005, and together organized massive protests in April of last year that forced the king to give up dictatorial powers and reinstate parliament.
A peace deal signed late last year formally ended a 10-year civil war, and has seen the king stripped of his position as head of the 90,000-strong Nepal Army. He has also been temporarily removed as the Himalayan nation's head of state.
King Gyanednra's future will now be decided by a body that is due to be elected to rewrite Nepal's Constitution permanently, but Maoist leader Prachanda on Wednesday called for an end to the 238-year-old Shah dynasty.
The king started his reign under a cloud of grief and suspicion, after the previous king and eight other members of the royal family were shot dead in a palace massacre in 2001.
An alcohol and drug-fuelled Crown Prince Dipendra opened fire on his relatives before killing himself, after his parents prevented him from marrying the woman he wanted, according to reports at the time.
Gyanendra was one of the few royals away from the palace that evening.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion