s highest peak. The rule, one of several new measures for mountaineering in Nepal, will apply to climbers ascending beyond Everest's base camp from April, said tourism ministry official Madhusudan Burlakoti. "The government has decided, in order to clean up Mount Everest, each member of an expedition must bring back at least 8kg of garbage, apart from their own trash," he said. Authorities would take...
s Department for International Development. It aims to prevent the trafficking of women and girls from South Asia to India and the Middle East. The project focuses on two sectors considered especially vulnerable to abuse: the domestic work sector and the garment industry. At present five countries are covered: Bangladesh, Nepal, India as countries of origin; Lebanon and Jordan as countries of destination....
Photographs from the Guardian Eyewitness series ...
s story is common in many rural Nepalese communities. While the number of child marriages have been decreasing, a staggering 41% of women still get married before they turn 18 (pdf) despite the fact that the legal age of marriage is 20. Despite child marriage being a human rights violation and the negative effects on girls and subsequently their children being well documented (pdf), in rural Nepal,...
s ministry of labour and social affairs told the Guardian : "With specific regard to these new figures, we were aware that local media had previously reported some of these headline numbers, and we are clarifying them. Clearly any one death in Qatar or anywhere else is one death too many – for the workers, for their families, but also for Qataris who welcome guest workers to our country to perform...
s migrant workers are dying has been limited to the Nepalese. But Qatar's campaign to host the 2022 World Cup has made it a focal point It was a cursory, four-paragraph news story: the Times of India last October reported the case of four Indian workers who were killed while cleaning manholes in Doha. They joined a grim tally that has now reached 717 Indians alone since the World Cup was awarded to...
The best photography in news, culture and sport from around the world this week Jim Powell ...
s 2022 football World Cup facilities has been delayed in the Gulf state's planning system, the Guardian has learned. British consultants have been working with a US developer to build improved accommodation with health centres, shops, recreational areas and even psychologists' consulting rooms as an alternative to squalid and overcrowded conditions which are believed to contribute to a high death toll...
s "2030 Vision", of which the staging of the 2022 World Cup is an integral part. Almost immediately, he began complaining of stomach problems but on each occasion was told to return to work without a medical examination. According to a Nepalese organisation tracking his case, he was eventually told on 14 July that if he continued working for a little longer he would be allowed to return home to Nepal....
s original revelations in September . The revelations forced Fifa's president, Sepp Blatter, to promise that football would not turn a blind eye to the issue following a stormy executive committee meeting. Qatar's ministry of labour hired law firm DLA Piper to conduct an urgent review and Hassan al-Thawadi, chief executive of the World Cup organising committee, said the findings would be treated with...
s wife and son face struggle to survive two months after his fatal incident while working for construction firm Pratima Neupane Phuyal was on her way to the market in Inaruwa, a town in southern Nepal, when she received a phone call she would never forget. The man on the line was ringing from Qatar, where her husband, Hari Prasad Phuyal, was working for a construction company. The message was brief...
Photographs from the Guardian Eyewitness series ...
rights endemic in countries such as Qatar. Nepal's department of foreign employment throngs with crowds queuing for the permission they need to migrate. "We process 1,200-1,500 applications a day," said Chiranjibi Adhikari, the acting director of the department, sitting at his desk surrounded by stacks of dusty files. "So many want to go abroad for work. Even if they have a job here, they think they'll...
t go well. First there was the pay. Ram Kumar says there wasn't any. Then there were the conditions – 12-hour shifts, a shortage of food and finally, after a complaint to the manager, summary removal from the labour camp. It was so distressing that the 27-year-old Nepali lost his hair. After weeks in legal limbo at the Nepali embassy in Doha, he finally made it home. The nightmare was over, but a new...
t get a chance to study, they made sure that my sister and I got the opportunity. My grandmother wanted a grandson from my father. She was disappointed when I was born because I was the second child and they expected a son. Though my father was her eldest son, she never showed love towards us because she expected a grandson. I felt sad about this. However later I realised that this is not just my story;...
s youngest son Gus was five, he was asked at school what his father did. "He works for the Buddha," said the boy. Which led to a bit of confusion, recalls Coningham. But it turns out Gus was not that far off the mark. Last week it emerged that a team led by Coningham, a professor of archaeology and pro-vice-chancellor at Durham University, had made a startling discovery about the date of the Buddha's...
s birth Archaeologists in Nepal say they have discovered traces of a wooden structure dating from the sixth century BC which they believe is the world's oldest Buddhist shrine. Kosh Prasad Acharya, who worked with archaeologists from Durham University, said on Tuesday that the structure had been unearthed inside the sacred Mayadevi temple in Lumbini. The Buddha, also known as Siddhartha Gautama, is...
s election after becoming focus of frustration for many Nepalese people For 10 years they waged a bloody insurgency in a conflict that left 16,000 dead. Now Nepal's Maoists, who joined the political process at the end of the civil war in 2006, are facing a new battle to remain relevant to the voters who feel they have been let down. As Nepalese voters go to the polls on Tuesday to choose a new constituent...
After a Guardian special report exposed poor labour conditions and abuse of rights for migrant workers in Qatar, one Nepalese worker tells how joining the construction boom in Doha turned dangerous Pete Pattisson ...
t consider a human being a human being. One [site]foreman said that all Nepali workers are donkeys, they are all foolish, they don't understand anything … I saw that foreman beat workers many times. If there is work going on at the site and we fall ill, they will not allow us to return to our rooms. They keep us detained at the site itself. If [an accident] happens they don't arrange a vehicle to an...