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| Nepal sets new date for elections | Nepal sets new date for elections |
| (40 minutes later) | |
| Nepal's government has set 10 April as the date for delayed elections to decide the country's future. | Nepal's government has set 10 April as the date for delayed elections to decide the country's future. |
| The cabinet announcement came after talks between the leaders of the three main parties, which include former Maoist rebels. | The cabinet announcement came after talks between the leaders of the three main parties, which include former Maoist rebels. |
| The poll was postponed twice last year amid disagreements between the parties. | |
| Voters are to elect an assembly which will write a new constitution for Nepal that formally confirms the country as a republic after centuries of royal rule. | Voters are to elect an assembly which will write a new constitution for Nepal that formally confirms the country as a republic after centuries of royal rule. |
| The elections are a key element of a peace deal signed in 2006 that ended 10 years of Maoist insurgency. | The elections are a key element of a peace deal signed in 2006 that ended 10 years of Maoist insurgency. |
| Row over king | |
| The former rebels joined an interim government after the peace agreement, but left it last September, throwing the peace process into doubt. | |
| King Gyanendra's future is the centre of debate | |
| Elections were to have been held first in June, then in November but were delayed due to wrangling over when Nepal will become a republic. | |
| Maoist leaders have demanded the immediate abolition of the monarchy, while others in government have argued the constituent assembly should settle the issue following elections. | |
| In December all of Nepal's main parties agreed the monarchy would be abolished - but only after the elections. That was enough to persuade the Maoists to rejoin the government. | |
| The decision must still be ratified by the 601-member assembly to be elected in April, but correspondents say scrapping the royal system is a foregone conclusion. | |
| The vote will be the first Nepal has held for nearly nine years. | |
| Ministers said the decision was reached by the cabinet on Friday. | |
| "We have set the elections for 10 April," Minister for Labour and Transport Ramesh Lekhak told reporters after the meeting. | |
| Political crisis | |
| The monarchy's popularity has sunk since the death of the well-loved King Birendra in a notorious palace massacre of 2001. | |
| Efforts by his brother, Gyanendra, to tackle the Maoist insurgency led to a worsening of the country's human rights situation. | |
| Analysts say the king lost popular support after his decision in 2005 to sack the government and assume absolute power - only to back down after huge protests. | |
| The Maoists called a ceasefire after the king ended his controversial direct rule in April 2006 and restored parliament. | |
| The latest political crisis came amid a rise in ethnic and religious tension, as regional groups strove to assert their authority in advance of the elections. | |
| More than 13,000 people died during Nepal's decade-long insurgency, many of them civilians caught in cross-fire between the Maoists and the security forces. |