At least nine people were killed and four injured after landslides hit three districts in western Nepal, officials said Friday.

The landslides followed heavy monsoonal rains since Thursday night.

The Nepalese government has formally asked the United Nations to extend the term of its peace mission to the Himalayan nation by another six months, media reports said Thursday.

The request came two weeks before the term of the United Nations Mission in Nepal is due expire on July 23.

Nepal's former Maoist rebels say they intend to form a new government despite the collapse of their coalition barely a month ago, media reports said Wednesday.

Hundreds of Maoist supporters clashed with police in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu Wednesday, protesting the president's decision to reinstate a sacked army chief.

The renewed protests came as political parties intensified their efforts to form a new government following the collapse of the Maoist-led coalition over the affair.

"We are talking with other political parties and want to form a government of national consensus," said Jhalanath Khanal, the chairman of Communist Party of Nepal - Unified Marxist Leninists.

Nepal's largest mobile phone service provider Nepal Telecom Saturday announced plans to start services in the Mount Everest region enabling climbers to make phone calls from the top of the world's highest peak. The plans to install mobile phone service in the Everest region are to connect the last few isolated areas in Nepal with the rest of the country and the world.

At least 13 Nepalese soldiers were killed Thursday trying to put out a forest fire in central Nepal, officials said. The soldiers were killed when the forest fire in Ramechaap district, about 100 kilometres east of Kathmandu, changed course, cutting off the soldiers' escape route, the district police office said.

The soldiers who died were part of a 130-member team deployed to put out the massive blaze in a pine forest in the Srikandanda hills close to the town of Ramechaap Bazar.

The family of a homeless Nepalese man shot dead by a Hong Kong police officer has demanded an independent inquiry into the death, claiming police misled the public, media reports said Wednesday.

Hong Kong-born Dil Bahadur Limbu was shot once in the head by a lone officer responding to a complaint call on March 17.

Police say Limbu, 31, was armed with a wooden chair and refused to stop attacking the officer despite repeated warnings.

Nearly a year after the country's politicians abolished the monarchy, former Nepalese king Gyanendra has begun talks to revive it, media reports said Saturday.

Gyanendra held talks with three influential Indian relatives and close aides at his residence in Kathmandu which focused on installing his grandson as new king, the Nepal Samacharpatra newspaper said.

"The four-hour meeting with his Indian relatives centred on how to install Hridendra, the grandson of former king Gyanendra, as the baby king," the newspaper quoted close aides as saying.