A scheme to encourage climbers to bring their waste down from Mount Everest is being scrapped – with Nepalese authorities telling the BBC it has been a failure.

Climbers had been required to pay a deposit of $4,000 (£2964), which they would only get back if they brought at least 8kg (18lbs) of waste back down with them.

It was hoped it would begin to tackle the rubbish problem on the world’s highest peak, which is estimated to be covered in some 50 tonnes of waste.

But after 11 years – and with the rubbish still piling up – the scheme is being shelved because it “failed to show a tangible result”

Himal Gautam, director at the tourism department, told the BBC that not only had the garbage issue “not gone away”, but the deposit scheme itself had “become an administrative burden”.

Tourism ministry and mountaineering department officials told the BBC most of the deposit money had been refunded over the years – which should mean most climbers brought back their trash.

But the scheme is said to have failed because the rubbish climbers have brought back is usually from lower camps – not the higher camps where the garbage problem is worst.

“From higher camps, people tend to bring back oxygen bottles only,” said Tshering Sherpa, chief executive officer of the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, which runs an Everest checkpoint.

“Other things like tents and cans and boxes of packed foods and drinks are mostly left behind there, that is why we can see so much of waste piling up.”

Mr Sherpa said on average a climber produces up to 12kg (26lbs) of waste on the mountain where they spend up to six weeks for acclimatisation and climbing.

Apart from the “flawed rule” that required climbers to bring back less trash than they produce, authorities in the Everest region said lack of monitoring has been the main challenge.

“Apart from the check point above the Khumbu Icefall, there is no monitoring of what climbers are doing,” said Mr Sherpa.

Nepalese authorities are hoping a new scheme will be more effective.

Under the changed rule, officials said, a non-refundable clean-up fee from climbers will be used to set up a checkpoint at Camp Two and also deploy mountain rangers who will keep going to the higher parts of the mountain to make sure climbers bring down their trash.

Tourism ministry officials said it will most probably be $4,000 per climber – the same amount as deposit money – and will come into effect once passed by the parliament.

Mingma Sherpa, chairperson of the Pasang Lhamu rural municipality, said the change was something the Sherpa community had lobbied for for many years now.

“We had been questioning the effectiveness of the deposit scheme all this time because we are not aware of anyone who was penalised for not bringing their trash down.

“And there was no designated fund but now this non-refundable fee will lead to creation of a fund that can enable us to do all these clean-up and monitoring works.”

The non-refundable fee will form part of a recently introduced five-year mountain clean-up action plan, with Jaynarayan Acarya, spokesperson at the ministry of tourism, saying it was designed “to immediately address the pressing problem of waste on our mountains”.

Although there has been no study quantifying the waste on Everest, it is estimated there are tons of it including human excrement which does not decay on the higher part of the mountain because of freezing temperature.

And the growing number of climbers each year, averaging around 400 with many more supporting staff, has been a growing concern for mountaineering sustainability.

[BBC]

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has been jailed for 15 years for abuse of power and money laundering, in his second major trial for a multi-billion-dollar state funds scandal.

Najib, 72, was accused of misappropriating nearly 2.3 billion Malaysian ringgit ($569m; £422m) from the nation’s sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

On Friday afternoon a judge found him guilty in four charges of abuse of power and 21 charges of money laundering.

The former PM is already in jail after he was convicted years ago in another case related to 1MDB.

Friday’s verdict comes after seven years of legal proceedings, which saw 76 witnesses called to the stand.

The verdict, delivered in Malaysia’s administrative capital Putrajaya, is the second blow in the same week to the embattled former leader, who has been imprisoned since 2022.

He was handed four 15-year sentences on abuse of power charges, as well as five years each on 21 money laundering charges. The jail terms run concurrently under Malaysian law.

On Monday, the court rejected his application to serve the remainder of his sentence under house arrest.

But the former prime minister retains a loyal base of supporters, who claim that he’s a victim of unfair rulings and who have showed up at his trials calling for his release.

On Friday, dozens of people gathered outside the court in Putrajaya in support of Najib.

The 1MDB scandal made headlines across the world when it came to light a decade ago, embroiling prominent figures from Malaysia to Goldman Sachs and Hollywood.

Investigators estimated that $4.5bn was siphoned from the state-owned wealth fund into private pockets, including Najib’s.

Najib’s lawyers claim that he had been misled by his advisers – in particular the financier Jho Low, who has maintained his innocence but remains at large.

But the argument has not convinced Malaysia’s courts, which previously found Najib guilty of embezzlement in 2020.

That year, Najib was convicted of abuse of power, money laundering and breach of trust over 42 million ringgit ($10m; £7.7m) transferred from SRC International – a former unit of 1MDB – into his private accounts.

He was sentenced to 12 years in prison, but saw his jail term halved last year.

The latest case concerns a larger sum of money, also tied to 1MDB, received by his personal bank account in 2013. Najib said he had believed the money was a donation from the late Saudi King Abdullah – a claim rejected by the judge on Friday.

Separately Najib’s wife, Rosmah Mansor, was sentenced to ten years in jail in 2022 for bribery. She is free on bail pending an appeal against her conviction.

The scandal has had profound repercussions on Malaysian politics. In 2018 it led to a historic election loss for Najib’s Barisan Nasional coalition, which had governed the country since its independence in 1957.

Now, the recent verdicts has highlighted fissures in Malaysia’s ruling coalition, which includes Najib’s party United Malays National Organisation (UMNO).

Najib’s failed house arrest bid on Monday was met with disappointment from his allies but celebrated by his critics within the same coalition.

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim called for politicians on all sides to respect the court’s decisions.

Former Malaysian lawmaker Tony Pua told the BBC’s Newsday programme that the verdict would “send a message” to the country’s leaders, that “you can get caught for corruption even if you’re number one in the country like the prime minister”.

But Cynthia Gabriel, founding director of Malaysia’s Center to Combat Corruption and Cronyism, argued that the country has made little headway in anti-corruption efforts despite the years of reckoning after the 1MDB scandal.

Public institutions have not been strengthened enough to reassure Malaysians that “the politicians they put into power would actually serve their interests” instead of “their own pockets”, she told Newsday.

“Grand corruption continues in different forms”, she added. “We don’t know at all if another 1MDB could occur, or may have already occurred.”

(BBC)

A pile-up involving at least 50 vehicles on a highway in central Japan has left two people dead and 26 injured, according to police.

The incident was caused by a crash between two trucks, sparking a chain reaction that set at least 10 vehicles on fire, local police said.

A 77-year-old woman from Tokyo was killed, and another body was discovered in the driver’s seat of a burnt-out truck. Five people were seriously injured and 21 suffered minor injuries, police said.

There was a heavy snow warning in place at the time of the crash. Police believe icy surfaces likely caused the trucks to skid on the roads.

The crash happened on the Kan-etsu Expressway in Minakami, Gunma prefecture, about 160km (100 miles) north-west of Tokyo, at about 19:30 local time (10:30 GMT) on 26 December.

It took about seven and a half hours to put out the fire, police said.

Following the incident, a section of the highway was closed, with a long line of vehicles, many charred beyond recognition, stuck in the outbound lane. Work is under way to tow them away.

A man in his 60s, whose vehicle was involved in the accident, told local media outlet NHK he heard a loud explosion from the far end of the pile-up and saw fire during the crash. The blaze then spread to other vehicles, he said.

He said he was evacuated to a nearby toll gate with about 50 other people and spent the night in the hallway there.

Nexco, which operates the road, said checks were needed to see if the surface was damaged by the fire.

The company is warning travellers not to use the highway.

(BBC)