Free Republic

Krishna Tamang had taken his cattle out to graze on a meadow near his farm in Bhojpur in eastern Nepal. Dark clouds were gathering over the mountains beyond, and he had a sense of foreboding. At 2 pm, a neighbour ran up to tell him his daughter had fallen sick in Chainpur. Krishna borrowed some money and headed off with his brother. Krishna says he felt like he had fallen off a cliff when police in Chainpur told him what had happened to his daughter. A 21-year-old apprentice at the Laligurans Rimthen Chholing Boudha Gumba in Dilkharka, the nun had...

The ongoing political paralysis in Nepal—caused by the small Himalayan nation's inability to draft a Constitution—coupled with the rise of Maoists as a major political force in Nepal’s mainstream politics have created the ideal conditions for Beijing to increase its leverage and influence over Nepal. New Delhi is wary of the pace with which Beijing has been able to apply pressure on the Nepalese leadership, make inroads into the political, economic and strategic dynamics of Nepal's development and control the activities of nearly 20,000 Tibetan refugees living in exile in Nepal. This concern precipitated a string of visits by high-level...

The story of Dipprasad Pun, a Nepali soldier fighting in Afghanistan with the British Royal Gurkha Rifles, didn't get a lot of press in the United States because, well, he's a Nepali British soldier. But it's amazing. Last September, Pun fought off thirty Taliban attackers by himself, firing 400 rounds of machine gun ammunition, detonating 17 grenades, a landmine, and finally beating the last attackers back with the tripod of his gun. Naturally, he received a high honor yesterday: Britain's Conspicuous Gallantry Cross. A report from March in the British Forces News explains that Pun was on sentry duty alone...

A Gurkha who single-handedly fought off an attack by at least a dozen Taliban insurgents has been awarded Britain's second highest medal for bravery. Acting Sergeant Dipprasad Pun used up all of his ammunition and resorted to using his machine gun tripod to repel the attack in Afghanistan in September. The Gurkha, 31, of Ashford, Kent, said he was a "lucky guy" and very proud to get the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross. A total of 136 UK servicemen and women are being honoured, four posthumously.

NEW YORK (AFP) – When British climbing legend George Mallory took his iconic 1921 photo of Mount Everest's north face, the mighty, river-shaped glacier snaking under his feet seemed eternal. Decades of pollution and global warming later, modern mountaineer David Breashears has reshot the picture at the same spot -- and proved an alarming reality. Instead of the powerful, white, S-shaped sweep of ice witnessed by Mallory before he died on his conquest of Everest, the Main Rongbuk Glacier today is shrunken and withered. The frozen waves of ice pinnacles -- many .. the size of office buildings -- are...

Whoa...holy cow! Every once in a while someone in the world comes along and reminds us what a true hero really looks like. A 35 year-old Gurkha soldier named Bishnu Shrestha was riding a train when he suddenly found himself in the middle of a massive robbery. 40 men armed with knives, swords and guns stormed the train and began robbing the passengers. Bishnu kept his peace while the gang snatched cell phones, jewelry and cash from other riders. But then, the thugs grabbed the 18 year-old girl sitting next to him and forcefully stripped her naked. Before the bandits...

The United States has signed a deal with Bhutan giving US citizens in the country immunity from prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC), the State Department said Tuesday. The deal with Bhutan brings to 34 the number of countries with which the United States has signed so-called "Article 98" agreements exempting US citizens from the court's jurisdiction, said Lynn Cassel, a department spokesman. Bhutan and Bosnia-Herzegovina both agreed to the pacts on May 16 but the deal with Thimphu was not announced until Tuesday. Washington refuses to support the ICC, arguing that it could become a forum for politically...

In F.B.I., Innocent Detainee Found Unlikely Ally By NINA BERNSTEIN t took no more than a week for James P. Wynne, a veteran F.B.I. investigator, to confirm the harmless truth that only now, more than two years later, he is ready to talk about. The small foreign man he helped arrest for videotaping outside an office building in Queens on Oct. 25, 2001, was no terrorist. He was a Buddhist from Nepal planning to return there after five years of odd jobs at places like a Queens pizzeria and a Manhattan flower shop. He was taping New York street scenes...

SEOUL: A North Korean who went missing in Nepal was a restaurant manager who defected and is now living in India, a South Korean newspaper reported Tuesday. A local media report in the Himalayan country had said last week the man, surnamed Yang, may have been an intelligence official. The South's Chosun Ilbo newspaper said he was in fact the manager of the local franchise of an overseas restaurant chain, operated by the North's regime and known as Pyongyang Okryugwan.

Two S. Koreans detained in Nepal over case of missing N. Korean SEOUL, Dec. 10 (Yonhap) -- Nepalese authorities have detained two South Koreans on suspicion of involvement in the case of a missing North Korean, a foreign ministry official said Friday. "We cannot confirm the identities of the detainees or the details of the incident due to concerns about their safety and the safety of their families," the official said on customary condition of anonymity. "The government, through the South Korean embassy in Kathmandu, is contacting relevant Nepalese authorities and requesting consular interviews," the official added. Japan's Kyodo News,...

A car said to have been a gift from Adolf Hitler to a Nepali king will be repaired and used to drive visitors around the grounds of a palace museum, a government official said on Thursday. The 1939 Mercedes Benz was presented by the Nazi leader to King Tribhuvan, grandfather of Nepal's last King Gyanendra, deposed two years ago. It has been stored at an old palace garage for more than five years, after being abandoned by an engineering college that had been using it for classes.

VIDEO

LONDON: The world-famous Gurkha Regiment, part of the British army for almost 200 years, may be among those axed unless the ministry of defence's demands for more money to fund the replacement of Trident nuclear missile submarines are answered. Last night, hopes for extra funding were fading as chief secretary to the treasury Danny Alexander rejected demands for extra money from Tory defence secretary Liam Fox and insisted the £20 billion cost of replacing Trident had to be met fully by the MoD, The Observer reported. Quoting an expert, the report said the increasing costs of running the regiment following...

They met in Mumbai, fell in love and sought to marry. However, there were several obstacles in the way. The 42-year-old, a social worker of Indian origin from the UK, and his 30-year-old love, a sales executive from Ahmedabad, belong to different religions. One is a Hindu and the other a Muslim. Also, both are men. Fearing an outcry in conservative Gujarat, they packed their bags and drove from Surat to Kathmandu last week. On Tuesday, the couple will wed in a Hindu temple in Kathmandu under the aegis of Blue Diamond Society (BDS), Nepal’s first gay rights organisation that...

LA JOYA — Police found 11 suspected illegal immigrants in an abandoned tool shed Sunday morning. Officers responded to an "old, dilapidated house" at the intersection of 12th Street and Perales Martinez at 10:39 a.m. Sunday after neighbors said they heard people on the property, said Joe Cantu, a La Joya police spokesman. No one was inside the house, but officers found 11 people crowded in a small tool shed littered with soda cans on the property. Two of the immigrants told police they are residents of Nepal, police said. The other nine people, aged between 18 and 44 years...

NEW DELHI: A Pakistan-bound cargo vessel carrying a "huge quantity" of explosives and other weapons has been detained by the authorities at a harbour in eastern India, police said on Saturday. The vessel was heading for the Pakistani port city of Karachi and was detained Friday on an intelligence tip-off at Diamond Harbour, 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of Kolkata, capital of the West Bengal state, police said. "The Indian Coast Guard and navy personnel have found a huge quantity of explosives, rocket launchers, anti-aircraft guns and some bombs in two large containers," West Bengal police director general Bhupinder Singh...

SOUTH ASIA - Abirami is a goat farmer. She and her family raise these animals in a gorgeous, mountainous area of Asia. But today, she is far from her home and her goats. The one thing she does have is her life. If she had stayed at home, she would probably be dead. Abirami is one of several Nepali Christians-among hundreds more Nepali people-who had to flee from Meghalaya, India, in the last month. A sudden outburst of violence between tribal groups in a boundary dispute left Nepali settlers in Meghalaya at risk of losing their lives. After four people...

Kathmandu (AsiaNews) – Hindu fundamentalists are against the transformation of Nepal into a secular state. For this reason, they held a conference in Mumbai titled “Nepal Hindu State Unity Campaign” to prepare the restoration of the monarchy. Delegates from 64 countries, including the United States, Japan and Great Britain, participated in the event, which was organised by Nepalis living in India with the support of the Shiva Sena and the World Hindu Federation. In the meantime, back in Nepal, Maoists are preventing the ruling coalition government from working at a time when it is faced with a 28 May...

As recently as 2007, Nepal classified homosexuality as a crime, punishable by up to two years in prison. Gays and lesbians were harassed and beaten by police, and denounced by Maoist rebels as “a product of capitalism”. Three years on, this Himalayan nation is not only about to become the first in Asia to allow same-sex marriages: it is promoting gay weddings on Everest in an attempt to become the continent’s top gay tourism destination. “We’re completely changing this country. It’s a newborn republic — and we want to showcase this change,” Sharat Singh Bhandari, the Tourism Minister, told The...

Communist China and Nepal have settled a 150-year-old dispute over the height of Mount Everest, agreeing that the "snow height" of the world's highest peak is 29,029 feet. The great mountain lies on the border between the two countries and they have disagreed for years over its exact height, which Nepal had put at 29,029 feet (8,848 metres) - nearly 13 feet more than the measurement used by China. However, officials revealed in talks in Kathmandu this week that the two measurements referred to different things - one to the height of Everest's rock and the other to the height...

Photo detective work could solve an enigma nearly nine decades old. But will it vindicate Hillary's historic climb or rewrite the record books? On June 8, 1924, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine left their camp less than a kilometer from the summit of Mount Everest on a mission to be the first mountaineers to ascend the world's highest peak (8,850 meters). They were never to be heard from again. Whether either man reached the summit—almost three decades before Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's historic 1953 climb—has been an open question for nearly 86 years. Although more than half a...

NEW DELHI — Indian airports were on high alert Friday after intelligence services received information that Al Qaeda-linked militants were plotting to hijack a plane. Such an attack would be the first major terror strike against India since 10 militants rampaged through the city of Mumbai for three days in November 2008, killing 166 people. Aviation spokeswoman Moushumi Chakravarty said that the airports were placed on alert Thursday after the government received warnings from the intelligence agencies.(continued)

Durpati Nepali hides her face in shame as she recalls how she was forced to return to work as a prostitute after her husband was killed during Nepal's 10-year civil war. The 35-year-old mother of five says she resorted to prostitution -- an occupation she first took up aged just 14 -- in desperation after the food stall she set up failed because customers were abusive and refused to pay. Nepali was victimised because she is a Badi, a caste of so-called "untouchables" living mainly in western Nepal whose women have traditionally earned their living as sex workers. Once high-class...

KATHMANDU, Dec. 20 (AP) - (Kyodo)—Nepal's Maoists shut down businesses, schools, factories and transportation throughout Nepal on Sunday, the first day of a three- day nationwide general strike. In the strongest protest since their leader Prachanda resigned in May as prime minister, Maoist supporters took to the streets from 5 a.m. to enforce the strike, called to demand an apology from President Ram Baran Yadav for earlier this year countermanding Prachanda's order to sack the army chief. Maoist cadres lit up tires at the busiest road intersections in Kathmandu to prevent vehicles from plying the roads, forcing tens of thousands...

The world's biggest animal sacrifice got under way in Nepal today with the killing of the first of more than 250,000 animals as part of a Hindu festival in the village of Biriyapur, near the Indian border. * * * In the main event, 250 appointed locals with traditional kukri knives began their task of decapitating more than 10,000 buffalo in a dusty enclosure guarded by high walls and armed police. Frightened calves galloped around in vain as the men, wearing red bandanas and armbands, pursued them and chopped off their heads. Banned from entering the animal pen, hundreds of...

More Than 200,000 Animals Slaughtered at Nepal Sacrifice Festival November 24, 2009 Nov. 24: A butcher prepares to slaughter a buffalo with his knife during a mass sacrifice ceremony at Gadhimai temple in Bariyapur, Nepal. Hundreds of thousands of Hindus gathered at a temple in southern Nepal on Tuesday for a ceremony involving the slaughter of more than 200,000 animals, a festival that has drawn the ire of animal-welfare protesters. A Nepalese minister said it was the largest sacrificial slaughter of animals in the world. Animal rights groups and activists including the actress Brigitte Bardot have condemned the event, which...

UP to a million Hindu devotees have gathered in a village in Nepal to witness the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of animals in a mass sacrifice that has drawn widespread criticism. Worshippers travelled long distances, many coming from India, to attend the two-day Gadhimai festival, which honours the Hindu goddess of power and takes place once every five years in southern Nepal. A huge cry of "Long Live Gadhimai!" went up after the village temple's head priest launched the event with the ritual sacrifice of two wild rats, two pigeons, a rooster, a lamb and a pig. The crowd...

A new type of solar panel using human hair could provide the world with cheap, green electricity, believes its teenage inventor.Milan Karki, 18, who comes from a  village in rural Nepal, believes he has found the solution to the developing world's energy needs.The young inventor says hair is easy to use as a conductor in solar panels and could revolutionise renewable energy.

About 200 women marched through the Nepali capital Monday to denounce a government scheme to pay cash incentives to men for marrying widows, witnesses said. Nepal's center-left coalition announced a plan last month to pay men the equivalent of $650 for marrying widows, angering the widows. Monday, women shouting slogans such as "You can't sell your mother," and "We don't want government dowries," marched toward a government complex that houses the prime minister's office. (snip) But Neupane said it would only add to their woes as men would marry widows for money and later abandon them. Widows, she said, should...

The interior of the Cathedral of the Assumption in Kathmandu Rome, Italy, Jul 16, 2009 / 12:37 pm (CNA).- Following the recent bomb attack on the Cathedral of the Assumption, which was attributed to the Hindu group Nepal Defense Army, extremists are now threatening priests and religious in Nepal with death if they do not leave the country “within one month.” The Apostolic Vicar of Nepal, Bishop Anthony Francis Sharma, said the threats were made to the associate vicar, Father Pius Perumana.  L’Osservatore Romano reported that the police have beefed up security at the diocesan chancery in Godavari, where Father...

A leading mountaineering official on Tuesday urged Nepal to reduce climbing fees for Mount Everest and other mountains during the peak climbing season, to lure climbers back from Tibet where mountaineering is cheaper. Tourists are returning to Nepal, one of the world's poorest countries with largely aid-and tourism-dependent economy, after the Himalayan republic emerged from a long civil war in 2006. Climbing is one of the most popular tourist pastimes but Ang Tshering Sherpa, chief of the Union of Asian Alpine Associations, an umbrella body of 26 alpine groups, said overcharging was driving climbers across the border to Tibet. "The...

Note: The following text is a quote: YOU ARE HERE: Home > Reports > Consular Affairs Bulletins > Report Warden Message: India Urgent Security Concerns CONSULAR AFFAIRS BULLETINS South / Central Asia - India 2 Jun 2009 U.S. Embassy New Delhi released the following warden Message on June 2: The United States Mission in India wishes to urgently remind all U.S. citizens resident in or traveling to India that there is a high threat from terrorism throughout India. As terror attacks are a serious and growing threat, U.S. citizens are urged to always practice good security, including maintaining a heightened...

Kathmandu: After obstructing parliament for three weeks, Nepal's Maoist party finally allowed the house to convene Friday with caretaker Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda making an impassioned valedictory address, in which he blamed neighbour India, Nepal's President Ram Baran Yadav, his allies and the army chief, Gen Rookmangud Katawal and warned of a catastrophe in the days to come. The address paves the way for an election Saturday when the 601-member house will choose a new prime minister to succeed Prachanda. Unless there is a major hitch, veteran communist leader Madhav Kumar Nepal, former chief of the Communist Party...

KATHMANDU, Nepal (CNN) -- Like many Nepalese guides, Apa Sherpa started trekking to the top of Mount Everest in the shadow of more famous climbers -- including the son of the late Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to climb to the top of the world's tallest peak. But the 49-year-old Nepali -- who now lives in the United States -- on Thursday morning became the only person in the world to summit Everest 19 times. Apa says his goals in climbing the 29,029-foot (8,848-meter) mountain have nothing to do with setting the world record for Everest summits, a title...

India is walking a diplomatic tightrope as Nepal tries to form a new government, aware that excessive meddling in its traditional "backyard" could risk pushing the fragile Himalayan democracy closer to China. India has always seen Nepal as part of its strategic sphere of influence, but that has been challenged in the past year since the election of Maoist Prime Minister Prachanda, who before he resigned last week had edged closer to Beijing. Former guerrilla leader Prachanda quit on Monday after his dismissal of the army chief was blocked, sparking a political crisis and dealing a blow to Nepal's peace...

So the chairman of Nepal's Maoist radicals brags that he and his fellow-travellers tricked United Nations officials and admits that the 2006 peace deal was a sham - and gets caught on videotape doing it. The video of the recently resigned Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known as Prachanda, was shot in January 2008 and just surfaced.

KATHMANDU: Battling for the removal of the controversial army chief, Gen Rookmangud Katawal, and his defender, President Ram Baran Yadav, Nepal's Maoist party walked into an ambush when an embarrassing video tape showed Maoist Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda boasting his guerrilla troops' number had been five-fold inflated during a UN count. In the same video, aired by Nepal's gleeful public television stations on Tuesday night, he was also shown as making scathing remarks about "reactionary" India and the US, saying that if they scented the constituent assembly election would lead to a Maoist victory, they would never allow...

The Maoist government of Nepal has collapsed after a failed attempt to remove the country's right-wing army chief. The cabinet bid to sack Gen Rookmangud Katawal prompted the second largest party, the centrist UML, to resign from the ruling coalition. The Himalayan country is emerging from a 10 year civil war which ended with a ceasefire in 2006. Last year the former Maoist rebels won national elections and formed a coalition government. But the peace process is now stuck on the issue that sparked the latest crisis – the integration of former Maoist fighters into the traditionally conservative national army....

Nepal has organized a program to mark its first person to scale the highest mountains in all the seven continents across the world. According to Sunday's The Rising Nepal, Chairman of the Constituent Assembly Subash Chandra Nemwang said that the achievements of Lakpa Rita Sherpa, who scaled the highest mountains in all the seven continents across the world, were a matter of pride for all the Nepalese. Nemwang made this remark at a program here on Saturday organized to felicitate Sherpa's achievements. Lauding mountain guide and climber Sherpa for his feats, Nemwang said "The Sherpas have made significant contributions in...

Kathmandu: A sort of political blizzard is likely to overwhelm Nepal soon. Destructive politics appear to have already taken a shape which awaits only its formalization in a week or so. The frenzied play that is being played in the dim corners of Kathmandu backed by some alien forces in the South will, if it does happen, apparently be very hard to be tackled by the ruling Maoists-the party in government. Exactly after a lapse of three years four months (minus 12 days to be more precise), such a destructive political play is being staged by forces that are visibly...

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - A former Maoist rebel commander said on Tuesday the group plans to recruit thousands of fighters, a move seen as a blow to peace that underlined serious tensions between Nepal's army and the Maoists. Nanda Kishore Pun, chief of the Maoist fighters, told Reuters it was the ex-rebel group's turn to fill vacancies in their ranks after Nepal's national army recruited 2,800 personnel last year. The move could endanger a 2006 peace pact that ended a decades-long civil war and saw the Maoists joining the political process, winning an election last year, analysts said. "It is a...

Kathmandu, Feb 11 (PTI) Nepal's ruling Maoists, who joined the mainstream politics over two years ago after giving up arms, may be taken off a terrorism blacklist of the US, top American diplomat Richard Boucher told Premier Prachanda here today. Boucher, the US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs who is here on a two-day visit, assured Prachanda of continued US support to the Maoist-led government during a meeting between them. He discussed with Prachanda issues relating to political situation in Nepal, the peace process, army integration, Constitution drafting and economic cooperation, according to Prime Minister's...

Nepal government is taking all the possible steps to save other regions of Nepal from falling prey to deadly bird flu. Mechinagar has been declared emergency region where birds were found affected with deadly H5N1 virus. Districts close to the affected areas, including Morang and Chitawan have been issued notices regarding risk of spread of bird flu. Prabhakar Pathak, chief of the department of livestock services in Kathmandu informed that about 13,000 poultry would be culled in five days to control the virus within a 3 km radius of the town, and the government would pay up to $5 for...

A female journalist who reported on women's rights and spoke out against the dowry system in southern Nepal was killed by a group of attackers, an official said Monday.

KATHMANDU: Nepal's Maoists Prime Minister Prachanda faced public ire when a group of students greeted him with black flags and pelted stones on his convoy as he was on his way to Tribhvuan University to attend a function. The students got agitated when security personnel stopped them from handing over a memorandum to the Prime Minister and they indulge in stone throwing. Prachanda escaped unhurt, security officials said. Meanwhile, in a separate incident, Nepal's opposition party's youth wing yesterday organised an anti-Maoist rally in 16 districts, across the country to oppose the ruling party's totalitarian policy and attacks on media...

Nepal's first Maoist prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal “Prachanda” is expected to visit Beijing early next year, marking an unprecedented bonhomie in Nepal-China ties. It would be his second visit to the communist republic within six months of assuming visit, a diplomatic feat unparalleled by any of his predecessors. The invitation came on Wednesday from visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, who along with a 10-member delegation held talks with Prachanda and Nepal’s Foreign Minister Upendra Yadav. Soon after he leaves Kathmandu for Myanmar Thursday, a military delegation from China will arrive Saturday, the second such delegation within a fortnight....

The former rebels plan to put all children in public schools by 2010, saying it will even the playing field. Kathmandu, Nepal - The massive election win last April by Nepal's former rebel Maoists put them in the position to set the government agenda, and bring about drastic changes they promised during their campaign. But their initial proposals on education – to end private investment in schools and distribute academic certificates to Maoist fighters – have left many Nepalese worried. They're concerned that their new government will take the country in too radical a direction that favors its former fighters...

RATANPUR, Nepal — The teenage boy revered as a reincarnation of Buddha sat silently in the jungle as he blessed his devotees Wednesday with a light tap on the head, which they consider the touch of the divine. The followers of Ram Bahadur Bamjan, 18, believe he has been meditating without food and water since he was first spotted in the jungles of southern Nepal in 2005, when believers say he spent months without moving, sitting with his eyes closed beneath a tree. Where is your Obama now ...

The proverb—Every dog has his day — literally came true on Monday when people in Nepal, the world's last Hindu nation, worshipped their dogs with utmost devotion. Despite the transformation of Nepal into a “secular nation”, people did not forget to worship their dogs on the day of Kukur Tihar, and protect their families from destruction. The festival is also known as Narak Chaturdashi. Big red tikas — a paste of vermilion, curd and rice — were put on dogs' foreheads and were garlanded. “It (Kukur Tihar) is a very important festival in our society, and there cannot be any...

KATHMANDU (AFP) – A team of Japanese adventurers say they have discovered footprints they believe were made by the legendary yeti said to roam the Himalayan regions of Nepal and Tibet. "The footprints were about 20 centimetres (eight inches) long and looked like a human's," Yoshiteru Takahashi, the leader of the Yeti Project Japan, told AFP in Kathmandu on Monday. Takahashi was speaking after he returned with his seven-member team from their third attempt to track down the half-man-half-ape, tales of which have gripped the imaginations of Western adventurers and mountaineers for decades. Despite spending 42 days on Dhaulagiri IV...