SOUTH ASIA: Maoist Deal with Nepal’s Political Parties May Doom Monarchy

A new deal in the offing between Nepal's main political parties and Maoist rebels has the potential not only of returning the Himalayan kingdom to democracy but also ending a constitutional monarchy that has so far enjoyed New Delhi's support.

NEPAL: Political Parties Compromise With Maoists, Vow Fight to the End

Nepal's political parties, at a closed door meeting in the Thai capital, have vowed an all-out fight against the monarchy after agreeing to the main demand of Maoist rebels to redraft the Himalayan nation's constitution.

RIGHTS: Hard for Nepal to Find Friends in Geneva

At the annual U.N. Human Rights Commission meeting in Geveva last year, Nepal's royal government narrowly escaped tough measures for its appalling rights record, courtesy of the United States and India.

POLITICS-NEPAL: Working Around the Rebels

With rumours of an impending Maoist blockade of the country's highways spreading like spring fever, many people in Nepal are dreading another round of price hikes of fresh vegetables and shortages of items like cooking fuel, flour and sugar.

RIGHTS: World Bank Warns Nepal Over Abuses

The World Bank, under pressure from development and human rights groups to intervene in escalating human rights abuses in Nepal, said Wednesday it was considering stopping its projects and programmes in the country if the current political tension continued and constitutional freedoms were not respected.

NEPAL: Global Condemnation Secures Release of High Profile Journalist

The arrest and quick release late Monday of prominent Nepali journalist Kanak Mani Dixit underscores the current perils of Nepal's free press and highlights the dilemma of the present palace-appointed government.

POLITICS-NEPAL: Regime’s Charm Offensive in India to Win Over Donors

Nepal's royal government sent its highest-ranking diplomat - Foreign Affairs Minister Ramesh Nath Pandey - to New Delhi on Monday in a bid to placate India over political developments in the Himalayan kingdom. But the minister will have a tough sell on his hands.

RIGHTS-NEPAL: ‘Disappearances’ Still Rife, Says Report

Almost one year after Nepal promised to move to end ''disappearances'' of people suspected of aiding a potent Maoist insurgency that has left 11,000 of its citizens dead, the Himalayan nation's commitments still ring hollow.

RIGHTS: Children of War Need More Support

Iman was only 14 when a Liberian warlord took her as his 'spouse'. For months she was forced to serve as his sexual slave.

NEPAL: Donors Threaten Aid Cut But Abuses Continue

The government of Nepal's King Gyanendra is clearly in a state of denial when it said that it was ''business as usual'' after the ambassadors of several donor countries, who were recalled home for consultations, returned back to the capital Kathmandu.

POLITICS-SOUTH ASIA: India Talks Down To Its Neighbours

Last week, India spelt out its emerging thinking and policy towards its neighbours in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). In a public speech, Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran - the chief of the Indian diplomatic service - announced a more assertive approach, to which economic cooperation, leading to a South Asian common market, would be central.

NEPAL: Pressure Builds on King’s Three-Year Plan

The weekend was a glorious one in Nepal's capital; it was easy to forget that just a day earlier dozens, perhaps hundreds, of political party members and other activists who dared to publicly protest the Feb. 1 royal coup were promptly nabbed and jailed by security forces.

RIGHTS-SOUTH ASIA: India in Royal Pickle Over Nepal

King Gyanendra's Feb. 1 'royal coup' has presented Nepal's big neighbour India with one of its biggest foreign policy challenges in recent times and one with no quick or easy resolution in sight, say analysts.

RIGHTS-NEPAL: Arrests of Politicians and Journalists Continue

There is a deep sense of fear and insecurity in the Himalayan nation of Nepal as politicians and journalists continue to be arrested, after King Gyanendra's seizure of power and the imposition of a state of emergency.

RIGHTS-NEPAL: Exiles Vow to Support Maoist Blockade

Supporters of the rebel Nepali Communist Party (Maoist) living in exile in India say they are determined to back a crippling economic blockade imposed by their comrades in Nepal to protest the Feb 1 takeover by King Gyanendra and the subsequent suspension of civil liberties in the Himalayan country.

NEPAL: Escaped Daughter of Ex-Premier Says King Ruling by Terror

Sujata Koirala's decision to escape from Nepal was made after soldiers began to harass her when her 81-year-old father, Girija Prasad Koirala, was put under house arrest following King Gyanendra's seizure of power on Feb. 1.
      She then made a six-day trek overland to neighbouring India.

POLITICS-NEPAL: U.S. Dithers Over Aid Cut-Off

More than a week after King Gyanendra seized control of the government of Nepal, the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush is still undecided precisely how to react, beyond urging the monarch to free all political detainees and restore constitutional freedoms.

RIGHTS-NEPAL: Bush 2 Code Applicable to King Gyanendra?

Barely a month after U.S. President George W Bush's second inaugural address, his government faces its first real test - how to live and lead by the Bush code. And that test ironically is not in the Middle East but in faraway Nepal, the world's only Hindu kingdom.

NEPAL-RIGHTS: Where Fear Rules in High Altitudes

Kapil Shrestha, a commissioner with the Nepali National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), was not allowed by security forces at Tribhuvan airport to board a plane with his boss to the eastern part of the Himalayan nation bordering India. Both were on their way to Biratnagar - the second largest city in Nepal - to inaugurate the NHRC's new regional office.

POLITICS: Nepal Rapidly Plunging Into Deep Rights Crisis – Groups

International human rights groups warn that Nepal is rapidly plunging into a massive human rights crisis as some 1,000 activists from political parties, student groups and trade unions have been rounded up nationwide by security forces, since the king suspended civil liberties and imposed emergency rule last week.

SOUTH ASIA: Jinx Continues on Regional Summit

When India backed out of Sunday's summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) citing 'developments' in Nepal and the host country Bangladesh, the future of the seven-nation grouping looked bleaker than ever before in its chequered 20 year-old history.