Briefly

NEPAL

King forced to pay tax for the first time

KATMANDU — King Gyanendra has paid customs duty on his personal goods, the first time a monarch of the Himalayan nation has paid any type of tax, a government spokesman said yesterday.

Nepal’s government in May stripped the king of almost all his powers and ordered him to pay taxes like any other citizen of the country. The government also plans to nationalize thousands of acres of land owned by the king.

A Finance Ministry spokesman said the palace had paid about $1,800 in taxes incurred on cargo imported by the king and his son, Prince Paras.

Nepal’s monarchs have traditionally been revered as gods, but Gyanendra’s popularity dipped after he fired the government early last year.

BANGLADESH

Voter rolls revised to eliminate errors

DHAKA — The Election Commission began a weeklong effort yesterday to overhaul the list of voters, which an election watchdog says contains millions of erroneous names, ahead of January’s parliamentary elections.

The Washington-based National Democratic Institute for International Affairs said last week, following a sample survey of voters, that the current list had more than 12 million names entered in error or by repetition.

On Thursday, the Election Commission announced a new election schedule, changing the polling date to Jan. 23 from Jan. 21.

PAKISTAN

Court stops return of British girl

ISLAMABAD — A girl at the center of a tug-of-love between her British mother and Pakistani father was ordered yesterday to remain in Pakistan for another month while the country’s Supreme Court decided her fate.

The father of 12-year-old Molly Campbell filed an appeal with the Supreme Court on Thursday after a high court last week ordered that she be returned to her mother in Scotland. The Supreme Court adjourned the case until the second week of January.

Police in Britain began an investigation in August after Molly left her mother in the Western Isles of Scotland to travel to the Pakistani city of Lahore to be with her father. She says she wants to stay in Pakistan with her father.

Weekly notes …

The Indian city of Calcutta this week banned hand-pulled rickshaws after a debate that raged for more than a year and ended in a vote boycotted by the opposition. Calcutta is one of the few places in the world where the hand-pulled rickshaw, brought to the city by Chinese traders in the 19th century, is still used. China banned them after the communists took over in 1949. … A top court reprimanded authorities in New Delhi for failing to stop hundreds of monkeys from terrifying residents this week. As forest cover around the Indian capital has shrunk, the city has struggled with a growing simian population. Government buildings, temples and many residential neighborhoods are overrun by hundreds of macaques.

From wire dispatches and staff reports