Notice the bias again, readers.
"Maoist is prime minister of Nepal; Former leader of rebellion elected" by Tilak Pokharel, New York Times News Service | August 16, 2008
KATMANDU, Nepal - The leader of the decade-long Maoist rebellion in Nepal was finally elected prime minister yesterday, after four months of political wrangling.
His victory sets the stage for the former rebels' toughest challenge: how to uplift the lives of 27 million people in one of the poorest countries in the world, at a time of soaring food and fuel prices.
Pushpa Kamal Dahal - who goes by the nom de guerre Prachanda, "the fierce one" in Nepali - won more than two-thirds of 577 votes cast in the Constituent Assembly yesterday evening. His election had been expected since last April, when the Maoists won a majority in a special assembly elected both to draft a new constitution and to form a government.
Sounds kind of exciting.
For four months, however, Nepali Congress, the nation's oldest party, with a long list of grievances against the Maoists, blocked their bid to lead a government of national consensus. The election of the prime minister opens the way to establish a democratically elected government in Nepal.
I guess the U.S. can't complain then, huh? After all, these guys ain't Hamas, right?
That will be a milestone in resolving the decade-long civil war, a conflict that claimed the lives of an estimated 13,000 people before it ended with a peace accord in 2006. The Maoists have already achieved their main goal, the ending of 239 years of Hindu monarchy.
At its first session, in May, a constituent assembly declared Nepal a federal republic. The former king - Gyanendra, the world's last Hindu monarch - was forced to vacate the main palace here and live as a commoner.
Now THAT sounds like a GOOD IDEA, Americans!
CLEAR 'EM ALL OUT -- federal, state, and local!!!!!!!!!!
Yesterday, Prachanda, 54, won with the support of three of four biggest parties in the 601-member assembly. Nepali Congress still refused to support his Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), accusing its youth force of brutality. It also objected that the Maoists had not returned private property seized from political opponents during the war.
--more--"Yes, the elite corporate press' bias is indeed in full flower!
