Nepal

My father had a good heart, but he had a bad heart, if you know what I mean. Musical and charming, he was something of a voluptuary. On sunny weekends he preferred to sit in our living room, listening to Chopin or Sarah Vaughan LPs instead of playing tennis or jogging. At 52, Dad began showing signs of heart disease. His doctor enrolled him in a modest exercise program and told him that, if he could manage it, he should try to walk around the block once a day. That was in 1983.

Aides to Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) say her husband has died on a mountain climbing expedition in the Himalayas. Congressional aide Barry Nolan said that Clifton Maloney, 71, was resting in a high-altitude camp after a successful ascent to the summit of the world's sixth-highest mountain when he died. Arrangements are still being made to recover the body from the slopes of Cho Oyu, a 26,906-foot peak straddling Nepal and Tibet.

The alleged leader of a syndicate accused of illegally removing hundreds of kidneys, sometimes from poor laborers held at gunpoint, has been deported from Nepal to India. Nepalese authorities handed over Amit Kumar to Indian officials, said Upendra Aryal, a top police officer in Nepal's capital, Katmandu. Indian officials had been seeking his extradition since he was arrested Thursday at a jungle resort in Nepal. Authorities had been searching for Kumar since last month when he fled after police said they broke up the kidney transplant racket they alleged he ran from the New Delhi suburb of Gurgaon.

About 10,000 Bhutanese refugees were without shelter after a fire razed their camp in southeastern Nepal, an official said. Jaya Mukunda Khanal, chief government administrator in Jhapa district, said 1,300 makeshift bamboo homes were destroyed at the Goldhap refugee camp Saturday night. Local humanitarian agencies were distributing aid as police investigated.

Nepal's deposed king left this city's main palace Wednesday night to begin life as a civilian in the newly declared republic. Former King Gyanendra said he handed in his royal scepter and crown of peacock feathers, yak hair and jewels to the Nepalese government as he left his home in the capital for one of his former summer palaces on a forested hill on its outskirts.

Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala on Thursday cleared the way for a government led by former communist rebels by announcing his resignation. For months Koirala had refused to step down and make way for a new government, but he finally announced his plans at Nepal's constituent assembly, elected in April to rewrite the constitution and govern the Himalayan nation.

Nepal's former rebels, who won the most seats in April's national assembly elections, said Tuesday that they would not form a coalition government because lawmakers did not elect their candidate for president. Prachanda, leader of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), said the party had "lost the moral grounds to lead."

Nepal's national assembly chose the leader of the nation's former rebels as prime minister, two years after he gave up an insurgency. The chairman of Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), who goes by the nom de guerre Prachanda, had been widely expected to win because he had the backing of several key parties. His own party won the most seats in April elections but fell short of a majority.

Peru's Foreign Ministry said Royal Nepal Airlines, based about halfway around the world, had put a picture of Peru's Inca ruins of Machu Picchu on a poster with the slogan: "Have you seen Nepal?" "The airline ... offered apologies to Peru for using the picture of the Machu Picchu Sanctuary on a poster to promote their country and assured that the lamentable error has been corrected," a ministry statement said. It said an airline employee had been fired.