Poor parents routinely duped into sending children to homes where owners use them to extract money from foreign visitors Like an increasing number of tourists visiting Nepal's mountain peaks, colourful markets and lush national parks, Marina Argeisa wanted to experience the latest must-do activity on the tourist trail: a volunteering stint at an orphanage. What the 26-year-old Spaniard did not know...
Matt Allpress went missing in November during trek and his remains were found on 10 May Early autopsy results suggest skeletal remains discovered on a Nepalese mountainside belong to the missing West Australian man Matt Allpress. Friends and family raised the alarm in November after the 23-year-old failed to arrive in Sydney following a solo 10-day trek in the country's Annapurna ranges. Continue...
WARNING: Swearing and graphic scenes of injury throughout US researcher John All made this extraordinary video after he fell about 21 metres (70ft) down a crevasse on Mount Himlung in Nepal while collecting snow samples. Despite a broken arm and ribs, internal bleeding and other injuries he clawed his way out inch by inch, returned to his camp and alerted fellow climbers via Facebook Continue reading......
American researcher John All fell deep into the ice and broke his arm but hauled his way out one-handed with an ice axe An American researcher has recorded the life-or-death climb that he made bloodied and one-handed after falling 21 metres (70ft) down an icy Himalayan mountain crevasse. John All, an associate professor of geography at Western Kentucky University, had been collecting snow samples...
I was one of the 25 runners to take on the high-altitude, 200km run in the Nepalese Himalayas, passing vertiginous canyons, cave temples, orange cliffs and stunning river valleys. It's a race I didn't want to end It is not often that runners deliberately dawdle because the trail is so incredible they don't want it to end, but by the penultimate stage of the Mustang trail race, that is exactly what...
Natural death reports will not be accepted without proof, warns chief of Nepal's foreign employment department More than 90% of deaths of Nepalese migrant workers should be treated as murder, a senior government official has said. Continue reading... ...
The body count is still rising among the 1.4 million migrant workers building new cities in the emirate before the World Cup It began with a steady flow of coffins through the arrivals hall at Kathmandu airport. In departures, hundreds of thousands of young men were leaving their lives in Nepal to provide for their families as the human capital fuelling a multibillion-dollar construction boom in the...
Ganesh, 16, left Nepal for Qatar to help his family out of poverty. Within weeks he was dead. Ten months on, his parents fear their other sons may be forced to seek employment overseas too Ganesh Bishwakarma's story Exactly a year ago, Ganesh Bishwakarma was a young man full of hope. He had just completed the laborious task of collecting the documents needed to migrate to Qatar: passport, visa, job...
Report details deaths of 964 workers from Nepal, India and Bangladesh from cardiac arrests, falls and suicide The major report commissioned by Qatar into its treatment of migrant workers produced more than 60 suggested reforms and one telling confirmation: that hundreds of workers have died, many of them from unexplained sudden illness, over the past two years, at a rate of more than one a day. The...
Matt Allpress has been missing in the Annapurna region since November after he failed to return from a solo 10-day trek Human remains found in the Nepalese mountains are suspected of being that of a 23-year-old West Australian man who has been missing for six months. Matt Allpress has been missing in the Annapurna region since November after he failed to arrive in Sydney following a solo 10-day trek...
Many migrant workers suffer terrible conditions in Lebanon, but poverty and lack of opportunity in Nepal drives them back When the 39 Nepalese migrant domestic workers spilled out of the arrivals gate at Kathmandu airport last month, many vowed to return to the country in which they had experienced terrible hardship. Some had been beaten and forced to endure slave-like conditions; the majority had...
Yadav's womb started to slip from her body after giving birth at just 14. Thirty years later, the condition remains. She is one of a growing number of Nepalese women suffering from uterine prolapse triggered by overwork and early childbirth Ram Kumari Yadav was 14 when her womb started to slip out of her body. She was married before she began menstruating and had just given birth to her first child....
Gulf state urged to take action after official figures show migrant workers dying at rate of more than one a day Migrant workers are still dying in Qatar at a rate of more than one a day, intensifying pressure on the Gulf state to improve conditions for the 1.4 million labourers helping it prepare for 2022 World Cup. On the day that the Qatari authorities confirmed they had received a pivotal independent...
The jury is out on Operation De Pogo, a government scheme to protect migrants from unscrupulous recruitment agencies The Nepalese government has launched a crackdown on rogue recruitment agencies in an effort to stamp out the exploitation of its vast migrant workforce. According to the department of foreign employment, more than 200 agencies have been punished since mid-February, with suspensions and...
One of the first reporters to reach the place where tragedy struck last week on the grief, anger and calls for change The Everest circus is leaving town. With the decision to cancel climbing this year, Sherpas from the 39 expeditions camped at the foot of the mountain are dropping tents and packing gear. Helicopters fly over the Khumbu Icefall that leads into the Western Cwm, recovering equipment stashed...
Call for ski-resort-style barriers comes as virtually all expedition teams give up on climbing Everest from Nepal this season A senior Nepalese mountaineering official has suggested placing barriers such as those used in European ski resorts to safeguard holidaymakers, high on Everest to help prevent avalanches like that which killed 16 local guides eight days ago. The suggestion comes as virtually...
With Sherpas treated like pack animals by the cretinous rich, the crisis of the world's highest mountain was inevitable Mountain Madness was the name of an expedition whose leader perished in the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, chronicled by Jon Krakauer in Into Thin Air and it was well-named. There is an explicit madness attached to serious mountaineering; a desire for pain, isolation and submission,...
City community groups are pushing cycling as a way to cut pollution and improve health in the Nepali capital but getting on your bike here has implications for your safety and your status On the underside of a pedestrian bridge on Kantipath, one of central Kathmandu's busiest roads, there is a large hand-painted sign: "Get a bike you'll never regret." The brightly coloured writing is clearly...
Boycott by guides demanding insurance money, aid for victims' families and better rights could disrupt climbing season Nepalese authorities were meeting with Sherpa mountain guides in an attempt to avert a climbing strike after the deadliest avalanche recorded on Mount Everest killed at least 13 of the guides. A boycott by Nepal's ethnic Sherpa community could disrupt the Everest climbing season, which...
The Nepalese government is considering cancelling expeditions to Everest for the rest of the year , after an avalanche killed 13 sherpas last week. Should the mountain be closed to climbers for a period of time? Continue reading... ...