Nepalese police have arrested a lawmaker for allegedly masterminding a bomb attack that killed four people and injured dozens of others in 2012, an officer told AFP on Monday.

Sanjay Kumar Sah, a former government minister, was arrested late Saturday over the attack targeting 150 protesters rallying in the southern city of Janakpur, 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Indian border.

Former Maoist rebels and security forces who committed torture, killings and other crimes during Nepal's decade-long civil war could be granted amnesty under new legislation approved by parliament, a lawmaker said Saturday.

Lawmakers late Friday passed a bill in parliament to set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission and a Commission on the Disappeared, aimed at healing wounds from the decade-long conflict.

Nepalese mountaineering officials on Wednesday denied that sherpa guides on Mount Everest plan to abandon this year's climbing season out of respect for 16 colleagues killed in an avalanche last week.

The Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA), a national body representing tourism promoters, released a statement saying "we have not received any confirmation regarding the abandon(ment) of the expeditions on Everest".

Nepalese guides on Mount Everest said Tuesday they had decided to abandon this year's climbing season, to honor 16 colleagues killed in an avalanche last week.

The decision throws the plans of hundreds of foreign mountaineers into chaos, with many of them waiting in base camp after paying tens of thousands of dollars to scale the world's highest peak.

Former Maoist rebels or security force members who committed crimes during Nepal's civil war could be granted an amnesty except in cases of rape under planned legislation, a senior lawmaker said Thursday.

The government late Wednesday introduced a bill in parliament to set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission and a Commission on the Disappeared, aimed at healing wounds from the decade-long conflict.

Tibetans in Nepal face heightened risks of being detained, beaten and even forcibly returned to China, as Kathmandu bows to growing diplomatic pressure from Beijing, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.

The allegations, detailed in a new report based on the testimony of Tibetan refugees, monks, activists and senior Nepalese officials, highlight the intensified restrictions slapped on Tibetans in the Himalayan nation since 2008.

Tibetans in Nepal face heightened risks of being detained, beaten and even forcibly returned to China, as Kathmandu bows to growing diplomatic pressure from Beijing, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.

The allegations, detailed in a new report based on the testimony of Tibetan refugees, monks, activists and senior Nepalese officials, highlight the intensified restrictions slapped on Tibetans in the Himalayan nation since 2008.

Two detainees at an immigration center in Japan died over the weekend, an official said Monday, just months after the death of another man at the same facility.

An Iranian man in his 30s choked on his dinner on Friday, a spokeswoman at the immigration center in Ushiku, northeast of Tokyo, told Agence France Presse, adding that he was taken to hospital but died on Saturday afternoon.

Nepal's former rebel Maoists said Thursday they would join hands with a hardline splinter group, in a bid to bolster their strength after a humiliating loss in elections.

The Maoists, who swept Nepal's first post-war polls in 2008, slumped to third place in last November's constituent assembly polls, which were boycotted by the breakaway Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M).

Nepalese police arrested nine Tibetans on Monday after stepping up security on the streets of the capital for the anniversary of the 1959 rebellion against China's rule in Tibet.

About 30 police swooped on a handful of protesters, who waved Tibetan flags and chanted "we want a free Tibet", near the Chinese consular offices in Kathmandu, an Agence France Presse reporter said.