China has cancelled permits for Mount Everest because of the coronavirus, expedition organisers said Thursday, ahead of the spring climbing season on the world's highest peak.
Last year's traffic-clogged spring window saw a record 885 people summit Everest, 644 of them from Nepal and 241 from the northern flank in Tibet.
ADVERTISING
The Nepal side remains open for now although some expedition operators have seen cancellations and climbers have been asked to submit a 14-day travel history and medical reports.
The Chinese authorities "have informed us that the mountain will close from the north side," Lukas Furtenbach of Austria-based Furtenbach Adventures told us at France24.
Furtenbach said that he will be shifting his 11 clients to Nepal.
Tourist areas in Tibet have been closed since January, according to the local tourism office. The China Tibet Mountaineering Association, which issues permits for Everest, was not reachable.
Another company, Alpenglow Expeditions, has cancelled its Everest plans.
"I am in agreement with China's decision. It is responsible... Climbing a mountain is not currently worth the transmission risk in the Base Camps, nor upon returning home," Adrian Ballinger of Alpenglow Expeditions said in a statement Wednesday.
Some companies in Nepal have also seen cancellations.
"We had bookings from 23 climbers, but two groups have already cancelled. We might have just 8 to 10 climbers this year," said Pasang Tenje Sherpa of Pioneer Adventure.
A Nepali team, specialised in fixing the climbing route, is currently on its way to the base camp to begin fixing ropes on Everest.
Everest attracts hundreds of mountaineers from all over the world each spring, when a window of good weather opens up between late April and the end of May, prompting a rush for the summit.
Nepal has so far seen only one confirmed case of the coronavirus.
It has suspended visas on arrival for visitors from eight countries badly hit, meaning they have to apply beforehand and submit a health certificate.
NEW YORK/TEGUCIGALPA - The Trump administration said on Friday it will end temporary protections for immigrants in the United States from Honduras on Jan. 5, 2020, leaving potentially 57,000 people vulnerable to deportation.
It is the latest in a series of decisions by President Donald Trump to shut down temporary protected status (TPS) granted to immigrants after natural disasters or violent conflicts that would prevent them from safely returning to their home countries.
The government of Honduras said on Friday that it “profoundly regrets the cancellation of the program” and pledged free legal and consular support for Hondurans living in the United States.
Marlon Tabora, the Honduras ambassador to the United States, said the conditions did not exist in the Central American country to deal with the repatriation of tens of thousands of people.
“These families have lived in the United States for 20 years and re-integrating them into the country will not be easy if they decide to return,” he said.
After El Salvador, Hondurans are the second largest nationality with TPS to lose their status, which was granted to the country in 1999 following the devastation of Hurricane Mitch.
The government said it had conducted a review and found “conditions in Honduras that resulted from the hurricane have notably improved.” The 18-month timeline to end the program would allow “individuals with TPS to arrange for their departure or to seek an alternative lawful immigration,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
The Boston-based Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice said later on Friday that it would amend a legal complaint filed in February to include the Hondurans affected. The original complaint challenged the Trump administration’s decision to terminate a similar program protecting immigrants from Haiti and El Salvador.
In January, the Trump administration ended TPS classification for some 200,000 Salvadorans, who had been allowed to live and work in the United States since 2001. Their status will expire in 2019.
The administration also recently ended the program for Nepal.
TPS critics complain that repeated extensions in six- to 18-month increments of the status, sometimes for decades, has given beneficiaries de facto residency in the United States.
In November, then-acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke set a deadline of six months to make a decision about TPS for Honduras, which is one of the most violent countries in the Western Hemisphere and recently has been convulsed by protests following a contested presidential election. Duke is no longer in charge, replaced by Kirstjen Nielsen.
Most of the other countries that have come up for TPS review have had the status terminated, except for Syria, which is in the midst of a devastating war.
FILE PHOTO: A bus carrying deportees, 17 Honduran adult women, as well as 12 girls and nine boys, aged between 18 months and 15 years, according to the Honduran government, from the U.S. leaves the international airport in San Pedro Sula, northern Honduras, July 14, 2014. REUTERS/Jorge Cabrera/File Photo
Canada has become the target of choice for those who fear deportation from the United States. Last year, almost 10,000 Haitians crossed the border illegally amid fears their U.S. temporary protected status might end.
Canadian Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said Hondurans had until 2020 to decide what to do, meaning it was unlikely people would rush north.
“I don’t believe we will see that wave of individuals coming to Canada,” he told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
The decisions on TPS are upending the lives of people who have settled in the United States, sometimes for decades, according to immigration advocates.
“They have made enormous contributions to this nation as workers, small-business owners, homeowners, parents of U.S. citizens and community members,” said Frank Sharry, executive director at the Washington-based America’s Voice Education Fund.
Slideshow (3 Images)
Some Democratic lawmakers decried the decision and said Congress should act to pass legislation that would allow long-time TPS holders to remain in the United States.
Karen Valladares, the director of the National Forum for Migration, a non-governmental organization in Honduras, said people continue to leave because of gang and drug-related violence and lack of economic opportunities.
“There have not been concrete improvements in the security situation,” Valladares said. In some ways, she added, “Honduras is worse off than when they left.”
Image copyrightEPAImage caption An archive picture of a Tara Airlines plane landing in Jomson, a popular resort town
A plane with at least 21 people on board has gone missing in a mountainous area of western Nepal, officials say.
The Twin Otter aircraft, operated by Tara Air was travelling from Pokhara to Jomsom and lost contact with the control tower shortly after taking off.
Two of the passengers are thought to be foreigners. Officials said two children were also on board.
Nepal's aviation industry has a poor safety record.
But Sanjiv Gautam, director general of Nepal's Civil Aviation Authority, told the BBC's Nepali Service this was a new aircraft and weather was good. "We are surprised to know that it has gone missing," he said.
A helicopter search is being hampered by poor weather conditions. Pokhara is a resort town some 200 kilometres (125 miles) west of the capital Kathmandu. Jomsom, a short distance further north, is the starting point for many people trekking in the Himalayas.
There are no landing strips between the two locations and the plane took off at around 7:55am local time (2:10 GMT).
Since 1949 - the year the first aircraft landed in Nepal - there have been more than 70 different crashes involving planes and helicopters, in which more than 700 people have been killed. In 2013, the European Union banned all Nepalese airlines from flying there.
Parliament in Nepal has elected a new prime minister, Khadga Prasad Oli, who faces a series of daunting challenges.
Mr Oli received 338 votes of the 597-member chamber, the Speaker announced.
Mr Oli told cheering supporters in parliament that he saw his appointment as "an honour and a challenge".
The
new leader will have to handle continuing protests over a new
constitution, the rebuilding of the country after April's devastating
earthquake and a fuel shortage.
Mr Oli, who was backed by a
coalition of royalists, Maoists and centrists, is the first prime
minister to be elected under the new constitution, defeating the
previous prime minister, Sushil Koirala.
Some analysts say the conservative Mr Oli will be less able than Mr
Koirala to reach out to the disaffected Madhesi community of southern
Nepal who oppose the new constitution.
BBC South Asia editor Charles Haviland
Forty-five
years ago, Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli was part of a short-lived, violent
Communist uprising. That is distant history. Today he is a polarising
figure within Nepal, which itself is deeply split on whether the new
constitution is democratic enough.
Despite the radical name of
his Unified Marxist-Leninist party, Mr Oli's detractors accuse him of
wanting to perpetuate the status quo of high-caste dominance.
They
say he has ignored the demands of the southern Madhesi and Tharu ethnic
groups, who claim that the new constitution leaves them marginalised
and under-represented.
But his supporters see virtue in his
bluntness and have greeted his victory as a snub to India, which they
accuse of unofficially blockading Nepal to try and force change to the
constitution that is backed by Mr Oli.
The Nepali Times quotes
him as saying on Saturday that he would "go all out" to address the
genuine demands of Madhesis, Tharus and Nepal's many other excluded
groups, as well as to "safeguard our nationality" and rebuild after the
earthquakes.
Modern Nepal has always had a rapid turnover of
prime ministers and it is difficult to predict how long or short the
latest incumbent's tenure may be.
Madhesis have staged weeks of demonstrations which have hampered the flow of fuel and other goods from India.
The fuel shortages have become so acute that traffic has been kept off the roads.
Image copyrightReutersImage caption
Mr Oli has a full in-tray including earthquake
recovery, fuel shortages and disquiet over the new constitution
Some in Nepal blame Delhi for blockading fuel
supplies on the India-Nepal border because it supports Madhesi demands
for changes to the constitution.
But India argues that insecurity
caused by protests has meant that trucks carrying fuel and other
essential goods cannot enter Nepal.
The new constitution was promulgated two weeks ago, but sparked protests in the plains, resulting in more than 40 deaths. Thousands of people lost their lives and thousands more were injured in a 7.8-magnitude earthquake and aftershocks that hit Nepal earlier this year.
