Word: nepal
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...forces trainers are now pushing 20 battalions of 700-800 men each?a quarter of the entire army?through a 12-week counterinsurgency program, according to a Western diplomat. Washington has also supplied the Royal Nepalese Army with 5,000 M-16s, with another 5,000 due; Belgium sold Nepal 5,500 machine guns, and Britain and India have lent military advisers...
...stationing of so many well-armed troops in Kathmandu Valley has made some in the capital complacent. This week the Miss Nepal 2003 contest will go ahead as planned in Kathmandu. And in a bizarrely bold move, a new city-center nightclub, called Platinum, aimed specifically at Nepal's high society, is also due to open this month. "A lot of people still believe the risk is not real," says Bhandari, the media mogul. "There's a degree of denial. History tells us there are always parties and merriment just before regimes fall...
...This surreal failure to face reality is not confined to Kathmandu's socialites. By common consent, Nepal's politicians have been misgoverning the country since 1989: they've squabbled over who should be Prime Minister (there have been 13 in 13 years) and have failed dismally to tackle the aching poverty that gives the Maoists their popular support. The situation was aggravated by the enthronement in June 2001 of King Gyanendra who, rather than displaying some sorely needed sensitivity after much of the royal family was gunned down by a drunken, lovesick prince, has sacked two Prime Ministers and suspended...
...restaurants are shutting down and aid donors are shelving vital infrastructure projects. Life in the capital is being ravaged by Maoist extortion rackets, oppressive policing and a slew of paralyzing protests and strikes. The economy is in recession for the first time in memory, and the possibility of Nepal becoming a failed state is now openly discussed in diplomatic circles. "It could all go up in flames," wrote the Nepali Times in a business commentary last week...
...With so much invested in their homeland, Rana and Bhandari say they have little choice but to stay. "We still feel we have something to contribute," says Bhandari. Rana is more emphatic, arguing that as entrepreneurs, taxpayers and employers, individuals like he and Bhandari did more to bring Nepal into the modern age and alleviate hardship than any politician, diplomat or revolutionary zealot. "You know, I built this out of a cowshed," he says, gazing out over his empty, impeccably tasteful dream. "Everyone thought I was mad, and perhaps even more so now. But I wasn't, you know...