Word: rana
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...empty balcony above the hushed courtyard outside his deserted restaurant in Kathmandu, Gautam Rana sets down a heavy scrapbook on a cocktail table and slides open its leather fastener. Inside, newspaper clippings written by society columnists, restaurant critics and travel writers from across the world document how, six years ago, Rana opened the most chic and elegant collection of boutiques, bars and bistros Asia had ever seen, in the restored outbuildings of his family's former palace. There is praise from British historians, a rave review from Bombay's most acerbic social commentator, write-ups in international leisure magazines...
...daily bloody shoot-outs between rebels and government forces that dominate the news from Nepal today. Squads of armed police and Royal Nepalese Army soldiers in armored cars and mine-clearing vehicles now guard every street corner in the capital. Gatherings of more than five people?even, Rana assumes, his famous parties?have been outlawed, and the city grinds to a halt every few days as armed police cordon off downtown blocks and break up protests against the crackdown. On the outskirts, the army raids house after house, making hundreds of arrests every...
...Saddam Hussein's daughters suddenly break cover last week to emerge in Amman, Jordan, and why did Jordan's King Abdullah welcome them? Jordanian sources close to the former dictator's family say Raghad and Rana Hussein had sent feelers to several Arab capitals in the weeks before their siblings Uday and Qusay were killed in Mosul, but their brothers' grisly end inspired the sisters to speed up their search for a safe haven...
Having the sisters in Jordan suits the Bush Administration too. The Americans know they can rely on Abdullah's intelligence agency Mukhabarat to keep a close eye on Raghad and Rana. "It could have been worse," said a State Department official. "They could have gone to Libya or Syria, where we'd have no way of knowing what they were...
Uday and Qusay Hussein are accounted for, but what about Saddam's other close relatives? It's hard to say. A butler who worked for the Iraqi leader until the regime fell says Saddam's first wife Sajida and the couple's daughters--Raghad, Rana and Hala--fled to Syria after the war started but were deported back to Iraq. Another butler, who served Uday, says the women made their way to Mosul, where Uday and Qusay died, and remain there--presumably with at least some of their combined seven children--protected by a tribal chief...