Unfortunately, most of the news outlets that reported the bizarre "accident" explanation are not reporting the clarification released by the uncle after Dipendra died. Apparently, since Dipendra was technically king while in the coma, the uncle was legally constrained from making any criticism of the sovereign, such as, oh, say, calling him a murderer.

Now, given those constraints, should he probably have simply kept his mouth shut until after Dipendra was dead? In retrospect, it seems pretty obvious that he should have. But before we shake our heads and go *cluck* *cluck* at those silly, naive third-worlders, we'd do well to remember that we aren't the ones living under a freshly-minted constitutional monarchy that was absolute until what--11 years ago? They've still got some pretty goofy vestigial laws and customs where the monarchy's concerned. But hell, so does the UK, and they've been constitutional for a lot longer.

For me, all that really matters in this, though, is that I have a friend from Nepal who's a student at USD, and he's sick with worry 'cause he still can't get in contact with his brother or his wife and children.

Chris