Kathmandu, Apr 28 : Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal met Nepali Congress (NC) President Girija Prasad Koirala on Tuesday morning and urged him to support the government to sack Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Rookmangad Katawal.

The meeting took place at Koirala''s residence in Maharajgunj where Finance Minister Dr Baburam Bhattarai, Defense Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa and party leader Narayan Kaji Shrestha were also present.

Kathmandu, Apr 27 : Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has urged CPN (UML) chairman Jhala Nath Khanal to support the government''s decision to sack Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Rookmangad Katawal.

The move came after Khanal met Dahal at his residence on Monday morning to propose an option acceptable to both the Maoists and the Nepali Congress (NC).

Defense Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa ''Badal'' was also present.

Kathmandu - At least five people were killed trying to put out a forest fire in western Nepal, police said Saturday. The fire broke out in a community forest in Hastipur village of Gulmi district, about 300 kilometres west of the Nepalese capital, on Saturday morning and was now threatening three other nearby villages.

"The five, including three women, were killed when they were trapped by the blaze while trying to control the spread of the fire," said Rajendra Prasad Palikhe, Deputy Superintendent of Police in Gulmi district.

He said the fire was burning out of control, fanned by strong winds and dry conditions.

Kathmandu - 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.

Kathmandu - 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.

Kathmandu, Apr 23: Communist Party of Nepal- Unified Marxist Leninist chairman Jhala Nath Khanal on Thursday said that after keeping in view the ongoing peace process, it is advisable to give priority to the main task that lies ahead – that of taking the peace process to its logical conclusion - rather than “tampering with the Army”.

Khanal, who hastily arrived in Kathmandu on Thursday morning, said that though it has become increasingly necessary to “discipline the Army”, it is not the time to meddle in its affairs just now.