KATHMANDU, April 2 (Reuters) – A parliamentary panel cleared
the way for a Chinese company to build a $1.6 billion
hydroelectric plant in Nepal, the Himalayan republic’s biggest
foreign investment programme, Nepali officials said on Monday.

Nepal’s Maoist-led government signed an agreement with
China’s Three Gorges International Corp in February allowing the
firm to construct the 750-megawatt West Seti dam in the
northwest.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) – Five wounded current and former British Army soldiers, including one who lost an arm, depart on Saturday for the base camp of Mount Everest to try to climb the world’s tallest peak for charity.

The soldiers are part of a 30-climber British expedition to the 8,850-metre (29,035-foot) summit. They will take the normal South East Ridge route pioneered by New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa in 1953.

GHALEGAUN, Nepal, March 28 (Reuters) – Gam Bahadur Gurung
sits cross-legged on the clean, hard-packed mud floor at the
family kitchen sipping rice beer.

His wife Tek Kumari, who sits across from him at the
fireplace, prepares a meal of lentils, goat meat and rice as her
husband offers vodka-like home-brewed rakshi to the guests, who
lie on straw mats stretching out their legs.

KATHMANDU, March 19 (Reuters) – The crown worn by Nepal’s
kings, once considered the reincarnation of the Hindu god
Vishnu, will be put up for public viewing at a palace museum, an
official said on Monday, nearly four years after the abolition
of the 239-year-old monarchy.

A specially elected assembly dominated by the Maoist former
rebels abolished the Hindu monarchy in May 2008, turning one of
the world’s poorest countries into a secular republic.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) – As the diners enter, Ram Babu Kafle strolls over with a notebook and ballpoint pen and stands beside their table at the Bakery café in the Nepali capital of Kathmandu.

He touches his ear and mouth and raises his fingers, signalling the customers to place their orders using sign language because he can neither speak nor hear.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) – Nepal needs money and technical expertise from international donors to measure Mount Everest afresh, officials said on Wednesday, in a move to end a longstanding row with China about the height of the world’s tallest mountain.

More than 4,000 climbers have scaled the mountain that straddles the Nepal-China border since it was first climbed by New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa in May 1953.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) – Thirteen Tibetans, detained last week for protesting against China in front of the United Nations office in Nepal, started an indefinite hunger strike on Monday to press for their release, the president of the Tibetan Youth Congress in Nepal said.

The activists, including two women, were demanding U.N. intervention in their homeland after a series of self-immolations against Chinese rule there.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) – Home to Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak, the scenic country of Nepal on Sunday added another height-related superlative – of having the world’s shortest man.

A Guinness World Records team measured Chandra Bahadur Dangi at 54.60 centimeters (21.5 inches), declaring the 72-year-old even shorter the previous title holder, Junrey Balawing, from the Philippines, who stood at 23.5 inches at the age of 18 last year.

KASARA, Nepal (Reuters) – As Prem Sharma steps gingerly into the sand-filled chamber, lines of baby crocodiles basking in the warm sunshine splash into a pond, eyes glinting behind their long, thin snouts.

Sharma quietly puts his hand into the green water, takes a young reptile from the pool, opens its mouth with a brush and begins to clean its teeth with potash, its thrashing 60 cm (2 ft) body held under his knee.