COMMUNIST rebels withdrew a blockade of Nepal’s highways yesterday but gave the country’s political parties a two-day deadline to begin the process of rewriting the constitution, their leader said.

Communist rebels withdrew a blockade of Nepal’s highways today but gave the country’s political parties a two-day deadline to begin the process of rewriting the constitution, their leader said.

Nepalese security forces fought back a communist rebel attack today, as foreign diplomats sought to halt the country’s political crisis and officials placed the capital, Kathmandu under curfew for the fifth day due to anti-monarchy protests.

Tens of thousands of protesters marched on the outskirts of the Nepalese capital Kathmandu today, again defying a government-imposed curfew a day after security forces opened fire on demonstrators.

Nepal’s royal government imposed a new curfew today in the capital Kathmandu and surrounding areas where clashes between security forces and tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters a day earlier left at least three dead.

NEPALESE police battled protesters shouting “Down with King Gyanendra” as officials clamped a curfew on the capital for a fourth day to foil demonstrations which have left three dead.

Police fired on stone-throwing protesters in the Nepalese resort town of Pokhara today, wounding two people just kilometres from where King Gyanendra was on holiday, police said.

POLICE fired rubber bullets at anti-monarchy protesters as clashes erupted yesterday in Nepal’s capital, where many residents spent most daylight hours cooped up at home on the third day of a government curfew.

THOUSANDS defied a curfew and shoot-on-sight orders in Nepal yesterday and marched in city streets demanding that King Gyanendra restore democracy.

Nepal’s government announced tonight that a dawn-to-dusk curfew would be extended for a second day in the capital Katmandu in an attempt to foil a planned rally against King Gyanendra’s direct rule.

More than 25,000 pro-democracy activists rioted in the streets of a southern Nepalese town today, prompting police to fire shots that injured at least three people, an official said.

TWO fresh bomb blasts hit the tourist town of Pokhara in Nepal yesterday, following a series of overnight explosions in the Himalayan kingdom, which came just hours after Maoist rebels ended a four-month truce.

Seven French mountaineers and four Nepalese porters and guides are missing after a heavy snowfall hit the Himalayas in northwest Nepal, a government spokesman said today.

More than 2,600 former British soldiers and Nepalese Gurkhas who served in the British army’s Second Gurkha Rifle regiment were reunited today in midwest Nepal to mark 10 years since the regiment was disbanded.

AS green floodwaters rose into homes beside a huge, rain-swollen lake in central China, yesterday, 800,000 workers were racing to shore up dykes that protect six Chinese cities and dozens of villages.

A Briton, an American and 13 German tourists were among 18 people killed today when a small plane crashed in Nepal, authorities said.

A small aircraft carrying 18 people was reported missing in Nepal today as it approached the western resort town of Pokhara.