NEPAL: Troubled times for tiny nation locked between superpowers

Despite promises of a new constitution by January, Nepal’s people are tired of waiting, and

Away from the glare of global headlines, Nepal is grappling with a constitutional crisis that could once again propel the tourist mecca, sensitively wedged between India and China, into fully fledged conflict.

From 1996 to 2006, Nepal was wracked by a brutal civil war that pitted a Maoist insurgency against the long-ruling monarchy, whose powerful army initially enjoyed the support of the country’s democratic political parties. Peace (brokered by India, with active UN support) came only after the Maoists and democrats agreed in 2005 to establish a Constituent Assembly. The first election was held in 2008, two years after a “people’s movement” forced King Gyanendra to abdicate.