SOUTH ASIA

PROTESTS ERUPT IN NEPAL

Crowds of Nepalese took to the streets in protest yesterday, the day after King Gyanendra of Nepal lifted a three-month-old state of emergency. The demonstrations in Kathmandu were the biggest since he assumed complete power. Up to 10,000 people marched through the streets in two separate trade union rallies to mark Labor Day. They carried placards and shouted pro-democracy slogans, but stayed well away from the city center, where protesting is still banned. “It’s good,” a shop owner, AK Pande, said, referring to the lifting of the emergency. “I am a democratic man. All the people want democracy.” But despite the low police presence and carnival atmosphere, many demonstrators were wary. “The king is not a democrat,” Mr. Pande said. “The king is saying that full democracy will come. He is assuring us of that, but let’s see what happens.” King Gyanendra imposed the emergency on February 1, saying that 14 years of democracy had led to corruption and had allowed a Maoist rebellion, which has cost more than 11,000 lives, to spread. The king remains the head of a government without any parliament. Hundreds of his political opponents are in jail and mobile telephones are banned. The press is forbidden from criticizing the government. On Saturday, between three and five students were shot and wounded by soldiers searching for Maoists in Mahendranagar, 400 miles west of Kathmandu.

– The Daily Telegraph

TAIWAN OPPOSITION LEADER VISITS GRANDMOTHER’S GRAVE

Thousands turned up to catch a glimpse of Taiwan’s opposition leader and his family yesterday as they paid their respects to his grandmother’s mainland grave for the first time in 60 years. Nationalist Party Chairman Lien Chan’s trip to Xi’an, the city where he was born and his grandmother died during World War II, follows a landmark visit to Beijing, where he met the president and communist party leader Hu Jintao. That meeting was the highest-level contact between the two parties since China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949. “To come here today is very moving,” Mr. Lien said. “For more than 60 years, because of the situation across the Taiwan Strait, no one from the Lien family could come.” As many as 15,000 townspeople lined the hills around the grave site to wish him well, smiling, clapping, and cheering when he arrived. Some waved banners saying “Welcome Home Lien Chan.” Mr. Lien, his wife, and three of their grown children knelt on cushions and bowed before the black gravestone set in a small garden on the outskirts of Xi’an. Traditional offerings of candles, incense and fruit were set in front of the grave.

– Associated Press

SOUTHEAST ASIA

TRIBUNAL SET UP TO TRY MEMBERS OF KHMER ROUGE

An international tribunal is to be set up after years of wrangling to try the surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge, the ultra-Maoist movement that killed an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians. The last hurdle for the court, to be known as the Extraordinary Chambers, was cleared when U.N. Secretary-General Annan announced that enough money had been given or pledged to fund it “for a sustained period of time.” Japan has promised $22.8 million toward the United Nations’ share of the $59 million cost, and the European Union is contributing $1.3 million. An international judge will have to agree with a Cambodian majority for a verdict to be reached at the trials, expected to begin next year. No senior member of the Khmer Rouge has faced justice for the four years it ruled, and its leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998. Among those likely to be tried are Nuon Chea, Brother Number Two; Ieng Sary, the ex-foreign minister, and Khieu Samphan, the then president. Only two men are currently in prison: the former military commander, Ta Mok, and the head of the Tuol Sleng torture center, Kang Kek Ieu. Human-rights activists have long argued that, without a trial, those who lost relatives will be unable to put the past behind them.

– The Daily Telegraph

WESTERN EUROPE

POPE BENEDICT MAKES FIRST WINDOW APPEARANCE

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI made the first window appearance of his papacy yesterday, saying he was keeping up the popular tradition of his “beloved” predecessor, John Paul II, who last appeared to crowds from his window in silent suffering. With tens of thousands of people gathered in St. Peter’s Square below, Pope Benedict stood at the window of the papal apartment, which he moved into a day earlier, blessed the crowd, wished Orthodox Christians a happy Easter, and said he hoped efforts toward Christian unity would continue. “I address you, my very dear brothers and sisters, for the first time from this window that the beloved figure of my predecessor made familiar to countless people in the entire world,” Pope Benedict said, from the third-floor window of the apostolic palace.

– Associated Press