Category Archives: Nepal

Hilaree Nelson, famed US mountaineer, missing on Nepal’s Manaslu peak

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Trek organiser says the US climber had an accident on Monday as bad weather hampers rescue efforts

The renowned US big-mountain skier Hilaree Nelson has gone missing on a trek in the Himalayas after apparently falling into a 2,000ft crevasse.

Nelson and her partner, Jim Morrison, had scaled the 26,781ft peak of Manaslu mountain on Monday morning. Jiban Ghimire of Shangri-La Nepal Treks, which organised the expedition, told Outside Magazine that the pair reached the summit at 11:30am local time.

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Nepal’s tiger numbers recover but attacks on people cause alarm

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Nepalese population of Bengal tigers has nearly tripled in 12 years and conflict with humans is increasing

Nepal’s tiger population has nearly tripled in 12 years, the country’s prime minister has announced. But concerns about the human cost of the big cat’s recovery are growing after a rise in fatal attacks.

From a low of 121 in 2010, the Nepalese population of Bengal tigers has risen to 355, according to the latest survey, revealed by the prime minister, Sher Bahadur Deuba, to mark International Tiger Day on Friday.

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Old planes, risky skies: fatal crash lays bare Nepal’s air safety record

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The family of the veteran pilot who lost his life in the May crash – along with everyone else on board – joins those calling for updated tech in aircraft

“He used to say, ‘24 hours [in a day] is not enough for me!’”

Bibhuti Ghimire’s voice breaks as she describes her father, a well-respected pilot in Nepal and a multitalented man with a flair for music, who would get bored with playing the piano and move on to the harmonium. “And he loved to fly.”

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Nepali woman’s account of rape prompts wave of protest over laws

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Calls grow for repeal of statute of limitations and widening of definition of rape after former model makes allegations on TikTok

A young woman’s account on TikTok of being drugged, raped and then blackmailed by a beauty pageant organiser when she was 16 years old has provoked outrage in Nepal and prompted calls to reform the country’s “grossly inadequate” rape laws.

In one of a series of videos, which together have been viewed millions of times, the former model and child actor broke down in tears as she talked about Nepal’s statute of limitations that dictates survivors must report cases of rape within one year of the offence being committed.

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Crash site found after plane goes missing over Nepal with 22 onboard

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Bodies being recovered after army locates Tara Air aircraft that took off from Pokhara, after conditions hampered earlier search

Rescue workers in Nepal have recovered 14 bodies from the crash site of a small plane carrying 22 people that went down in a remote region, according to an airport official.

“The search for others is continuing,” said Tek Raj Sitaula, a spokesman for the Tribhuvan international airport in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu.

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Nepali mountaineer Kami Rita Sherpa scales Mount Everest for 26th time, beating own world record

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Fifty-two-year-old used customary route up 8,850-metre mountain while leading 10 other climbers

A Nepali sherpa has scaled Mount Everest for a record 26th time, breaking his own previous record set last year, a government official says.

Kami Rita Sherpa, 52, scaled the 8,849-metre mountain on Saturday along the traditional south-east ridge route leading 10 other Sherpa climbers.

“Kami Rita has broken his own record and established a new world record in climbing,” Taranath Adhikari, director general of the Department of Tourism in the capital of Kathmandu, said on Sunday.

Kami Rita’s wife, who gave her name as Jangmu, said she was happy at her husband’s achievement.

The climbing route used by Kami Rita was pioneered by New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Nepali sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953 and remains the most popular.

This year Nepal has issued 316 permits to climb Everest in the peak season, which runs through May, compared with 408 last year, the highest ever.

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Indian climber dies in summit bid on Mount Kanchenjunga

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The 52-year-old man collapsed in the final stages of climbing the world’s third highest mountain

An Indian climber died has during a summit push on Mount Kanchenjunga, the world’s third highest mountain, an official said.

The death is the third to be reported on Nepal Himalayas during the current climbing season which started in March.

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Revealed: migrant workers in Qatar forced to pay billions in recruitment fees

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Guardian investigation finds labourers – including those on World Cup-related projects – were left with huge debts

Low-wage migrant workers have been forced to pay billions of dollars in recruitment fees to secure their jobs in World Cup host nation Qatar over the past decade, a Guardian investigation has found.

Bangladeshi men migrating to Qatar are likely to have paid about $1.5bn (£1.14bn) in fees, and possibly as high as $2bn, between 2011 and 2020. Nepali men are estimated to have paid around $320m, and possibly more than $400m, in the four years between mid-2015 to mid-2019.

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‘A bad dream’: Nepalis who made UK’s PPE speak out on claims of abusive working conditions

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Glove manufacturer Supermax has repeatedly won NHS contracts during the pandemic, despite claims of forced labour. Now, a group of former workers are seeking justice

“I don’t have any dreams for the future because every dream depends on money,” says Resham, a 45-year-old from Banke, a district in Nepal bordering the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. “Time is passing and I’m getting older. Whatever comes my way, I will face it and go ahead with life.”

Last year, Resham returned to Nepal after spending 10 years working at Supermax, a company producing medical gloves in Malaysia. In October, the US banned imports from Supermax based on evidence “that indicates the use of forced labour”, and the month after, Canada terminated its contracts. The UK, meanwhile, has named the British subsidiary of Supermax as an approved supplier in a new £6bn contract for gloves for NHS workers.

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Fruit pickers lured to Portugal by the dream of a ‘raspberry passport’

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Farm workers from south Asia describe exploitative conditions at the heart of Europe’s soft fruits industry

Three days after Sagar* arrived as a worker in Portugal from Nepal, he began to worry he had made a terrible mistake. “I had expectations to get good work, good money,” he says. “But the reality was different.”

The only job Sagar, 21, could find was on one of the country’s berry farms in Odemira, a rural region on the south-west coast. Earning less than the legal minimum wage to work 16-hour days in 40C heat, he knows he is being exploited. But quitting could jeopardise his residency application – and that’s a risk he cannot afford to take.

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Workers paid less than minimum wage to pick berries destined for UK supermarkets

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Exclusive: Workers in Portugal picking berries ending up on the shelves of Marks & Spencer, Waitrose and Tesco allege exploitative conditions

  • Photographs by Francesco Brembati for the Guardian

Farm workers in Portugal appear to have been working illegally long hours picking berries destined for Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Waitrose for less than the minimum wage, according to a Guardian investigation.

Speaking anonymously, for fear of retribution from their employers, workers claimed the hours listed on their payslips were often fewer than the hours they had actually worked.

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Kill the Bill and period protests: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Cambodia to Costa Rica

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Nepal hospital trials ‘life-changing’ treatment for leprosy wounds

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Technique using artificial scabs made from a patient’s own blood could also help those with diabetes, say doctors

Doctors at a Nepal hospital trialling a new treatment for skin wounds say the technique, which mimics the scabbing process, has “enormous potential”.

Trials at the mountaintop Anandaban leprosy hospital, south of Kathmandu, have been promising, bringing hope to patients worldwide. It is hoped that the treatment will also help millions living with diabetes, who have an increased risk of amputation.

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The world on screen: the best movies from Africa, Asia and Latin America

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From a Somali love story to a deep dive into Congolese rumba, Guardian writers pick their favourite recent world cinema releases

The Great Indian Kitchen

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Books that explain the world: Guardian writers share their best nonfiction reads of the year

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From a Jacobean traveller’s travails in Sindh to the tangled roots of Nigeria, our pick of new nonfiction books that shine a light on Asia, Africa and South America

• Share your top recommendations for books on the developing world in the comments below

You Have Not Yet Been Defeated: Selected Works 2011-2021
By Alaa Abd El-Fattah

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‘The heaven of film-making’: how a Dalit orphan got to tell her own story

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A gift of a camera inspired Belmaya Nepali to rise above poverty and abuse to make documentaries

• I Am Belmaya review

Belmaya Nepali’s life changed for ever when, at 14, she was given a camera.

The British film-maker Sue Carpenter had come to Pokhara, a tourist city in central Nepal, to run a photography project with disadvantaged girls living in an institution. One of those girls was Belmaya.

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‘Monsters at the door’: migrant workers trapped in UN Afghan compound

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Security contractors among hundreds from the Philippines, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka stuck without clear plans for evacuation

When Taliban fighters started to kick at the door of a UN compound in a northern province 250 miles (400km) from the Afghan capital, Kabul, Rajesh* was certain he was going to be killed.

The Taliban had taken control of the area on that day. Rajesh, a UN security contractor from India, hurried with his colleagues into an emergency steel-doored room. Before they sealed themselves in, they saw a group of seven or eight heavily armed men.

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‘No one comes here any more’: the human cost as Covid wipes out tourism

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From Bolivia’s Lake Titicaca to wildlife tourism in Nepal, we find out how the crisis has affected people in four travel hotspots – and whether or not they want the tourists to return

In March last year, it was predicted that the global travel shutdown would cause international arrivals to plummet by 20 to 30% by the end of 2020.

Six weeks later, the UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) revised their warning: international arrivals could fall by up to 80% – equating to a billion fewer tourists and the worst crisis in the history of the industry.

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Nepal sees huge rise in maternal deaths as Covid keeps women at home

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Health workers fear deaths could reach levels not seen this century as up to 90% miss check-ups and many opt for home births

Earlier this month, 21-year-old Lakhu BK decided to have her baby at home in her village in the far west of Nepal. She had feared contracting Covid-19 if she went to a health centre. She lost her life giving birth.

“I thought my daughter-in-law will die from [the] virus but did not think she would die from being unable to give birth,” said her mother-in-law, Pamfi BK, 50.

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