http://images.dailykos.com/...
Unless you have been meditating in a cave somewhere...... you would know that an earthquake hit Nepal April 25th, and another big aftershock May 12th brought devastating psychological effects...
Wait - strike that - most of those monastic caves are in the Himalaya - so even if you were in a cave, you felt the ground move.....
The US Army is ending the deployment of it's 300-person detachment - they will return home, following the bodies of the six U.S. Marines whose helicopter crashed in the mountain terrain.
I do not believe any U.S. service personnel have previously died on Nepal soil. It was a somber note for an otherwise well-executed humanitarian mission. The USA has many reasons to be proud of the military, and this mission should be added to the list.
Nepal is fading from the news - unless you live here...... but if you need the definitive summary of the situation, there is one piece, and one journo, who stands head and shoulders above the rest......
I've been at a loss to describe the Byzantine politics of Nepal, and of course, I have adopted the very important policy never to criticize the host country. As a health care worker who travels throughout the larger cities of Nepal, I have had the privilege to gain a larger picture. Though 81% of the population is "rural" Nepal is not a small country. If Nepal were a US State, it would be #2 in population behind only California. It is among the top twenty "sending countries" for students studying in US Universities.
The Institute of International Education calculates that the nation of about 30 million people sent 8,920 students to U.S. colleges and universities in the 2012-2013 school year, the latest for which data was available. That makes Nepal the 14th-ranked supplier of international students to U.S. campuses, just behind the United Kingdom (9,467) and ahead of Iran (8,744).
source:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
By far the best journalist in Nepal during the earthquake crisis has been Kunda Dixit. He first gained recognition during the Civil War period, and published several photo compilations of the conflict and it's aftermath.
Here is the link to the "must-read" -
http://nepalitimes.com/...
For those of you who are Nepal news junkies, you can follow him on Twitter - @kundadixit is the username.
This piece seems to be the best single summary of the issues.