Nepal
Nepal’s King Gyanendra is a textbook case of what goes wrong when a monarch starts throwing his weight around, says Thomas Seifert in Vienna’s Die Presse. In January of last year, the king staged a coup and jailed senior politicians, saying tough action was needed to defeat a 10-year Maoist insurgency, in which 13,000 have died. But for the long-suffering people, the move just meant they now had to endure the thuggery of Gyanendra’s soldiers as well as that of the rebels. For weeks protestors have been braving police and curfews, and rather than provoke a bloodbath, the army generals have now forced the king to hand power back to the politicians. This “medieval” monarch still has a lot to answer for, says Kanak Mani Dixit in Kathmandu’s Himal. He appointed his corrupt cronies as ministers and judges, with the result that the entire bureaucracy has been wrecked and the treasury looted. “The people have brought Gyanendra’s nose to the level of mud, and that is where it should remain.”
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.