UK mountaineer logs most Everest climbs by a foreigner, Nepali makes 29th ascent
UK mountaineer logs most Everest climbs by a foreigner, Nepali makes 29th ascent/node/2508856/world
UK mountaineer logs most Everest climbs by a foreigner, Nepali makes 29th ascent
This photograph, posted on April 19, 2024, shows Britain’s Kenton Cool (right), 50, and Nepali guide Kami Rita Sherpa (left), 54, at Namche Bazaar in Nepal. (Photo courtesy: Instagram/kentoncool)
UK mountaineer logs most Everest climbs by a foreigner, Nepali makes 29th ascent
Both climbers used Southeast Ridge route to summit
They were on separate expeditions guiding their clients
Updated 12 May 2024
Reuters
KATMANDU: A British climber and a Nepali guide have broken their own records for most climbs of Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain, hiking officials said on Sunday.
Rakesh Gurung, director of Nepal’s Department of Tourism, said Britain’s Kenton Cool, 50, and Nepali guide Kami Rita Sherpa, 54, climbed the 8,849-meter (29,032 foot) peak for the 18th and 29th time, respectively.
They were on separate expeditions guiding their clients.
“He just keeps going and going... amazing guy!” Garrett Madison of the US-based expedition organizing company Madison Mountaineering said of the Nepali climber. Madison had teamed up with Kami Rita to climb the summits of Everest, Lhotse, and K2 in 2014.
K2, located in Pakistan, is the world’s second-highest mountain and Lhotse in Nepal is the fourth-tallest.
Lukas Furtenbach of the Austrian expedition operator Furtenbach Adventures called Cool’s feat remarkable.
“He is a fundamental part of the Everest guiding industry. Kenton Cool is an institution,” Furtenbach, who is leading an expedition from the Chinese side of Everest, told Reuters.
Both climbers used the Southeast Ridge route to the summit.
Pioneered by the first summiteers, New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953, the route remains the most popular path to the Everest summit.
Kami Rita first climbed Everest in 1994 and has done so almost every year since, except for three years when authorities closed the mountain for various reasons.
He climbed the mountain twice last year.
Mountain climbing is a major tourism activity and a source of income as well as employment for Nepal, home to eight of the world’s 14 tallest peaks, including Everest.
Nepal has issued 414 permits, each costing $11,000 to climbers for the climbing season that ends this month.
Germany hopes for EU deal on sending failed asylum seekers to third countries, minister says
Updated 2 sec ago
BERLIN: Germany’s interior minister is hoping the European Union can reach a bloc-wide agreement on sending failed asylum seekers who cannot go home to safe countries near their original homelands. Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservatives won February’s national election on a promise to bring down immigration levels, which opinion polls showed many voters regarded as being out of control, although numbers have been falling for over a year. In an interview with the Welt am Sonntag newspaper published on Saturday, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said the approach of using third countries could work only if there was a Europe-wide consensus. “We need third countries that are prepared to take migrants who are objectively unable to return to their home countries,” he told the newspaper. Earlier this month, the EU’s executive Commission proposed a scheme that would let member states reject asylum applications from migrants who passed through a “safe” third country on their way to the bloc. The proposals, criticized by rights groups, have yet to be adopted by national governments or the European Parliament. “No individual EU member state can create this model on its own: it will have to happen on an EU level,” Dobrindt said. “We are preparing the foundations for that right now.” Dobrindt’s initial promises to tighten border controls on taking office angered neighbors who protested at plans to return to their territory those migrants found not to have a right to enter Germany. An Italian plan to process asylum seekers picked up at sea in Albania has stalled amid Italian court challenges. A scheme by Britain, which is not an EU member, under its previous Conservative government to send asylum seekers who arrived in Britain without permission to Rwanda was scrapped by Prime Minister Keir Starmer when he took office last year.
US FDA approves Moderna’s next-generation COVID-19 vaccine for adults 65 or older
The vaccine has also been approved for people aged 12 to 64 with at least one or more underlying risk factors
The Moderna vaccine, branded mNEXSPIKE, can be stored in refrigerators rather than freezers
Updated 4 min 8 sec ago
Reuters
The US Food and Drug Administration has approved Moderna’s next-generation COVID-19 vaccine for everyone aged 65 and above, the company said on Saturday, the first endorsement since the regulator tightened requirements. The vaccine has also been approved for people aged 12 to 64 with at least one or more underlying risk factors, Moderna said in a statement. The Department of Health and Human Services, under the leadership of long-time vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is increasing regulatory scrutiny on vaccines. The FDA said on May 20 it planned to require drugmakers to test their COVID booster shots against an inert placebo in healthy adults under 65 for approval, effectively limiting them to older adults and those at risk of developing severe illness. The Moderna vaccine, branded mNEXSPIKE, can be stored in refrigerators rather than freezers, to offer longer shelf life and make distribution easier, especially in developing countries where supply-chain issues could hamper vaccination drives. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which Kennedy also oversees, said on Thursday that COVID vaccines remain an option for healthy children when parents and doctors agree that it is needed, stopping short of Kennedy’s announcement days earlier that the agency would remove the shots from its immunization schedule.
Musk vows to stay Trump’s ‘friend’ in bizarre black-eyed farewell
“I look forward to continuing to be a friend and adviser to the president,” Musk said in a press conference
Many people were more interested in the black bruise around Musk’s right eye, which he blamed on his son
Updated 35 min 45 sec ago
AFP
WASHINGTON: Billionaire Elon Musk bade farewell to Donald Trump in an extraordinary Oval Office appearance Friday, sporting a black eye, brushing aside drug abuse claims and vowing to stay a “friend and adviser” to the US president.
As the world’s richest person bowed out of his role as Trump’s cost-cutter-in-chief, the Republican hailed Musk’s “incredible service” and handed him a golden key to the White House.
But Trump insisted that Musk was “really not leaving” after a turbulent four months in which his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cut tens of thousands of jobs, shuttered whole agencies and slashed foreign aid.
“He’s going to be back and forth,” said Trump, showering praise on the tech tycoon for what he called the “most sweeping and consequential government reform program in generations.”
South-African born Musk, wearing a black T-shirt with the word “Dogefather” in white lettering and a black DOGE baseball cap, said many of the $1 trillion savings he promised would take time to bear fruit.
“I look forward to continuing to be a friend and adviser to the president,” he said.
But many people were more interested in the livid black bruise around Musk’s right eye.
Speculation about the cause was further fueled by accusations in the New York Times Friday that Musk used so much of the drug ketamine on the 2024 campaign trail that he developed bladder problems.
‘Go ahead punch me in the face’
The SpaceX and Tesla magnate said that his son was to blame for the injury.
“I was just horsing around with lil’ X, and I said, ‘go ahead punch me in the face,’” 53-year-old Musk said. “And he did. Turns out even a five-year-old punching you in the face actually is...” he added, before tailing off.
Musk, however, dodged a question about the drug allegations.
The New York Times said Musk, the biggest donor to Trump’s 2024 election campaign, also took ecstasy and psychoactive mushrooms and traveled with a pill box last year.
Elon Musk looks on during a news conference with US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on May 30, 2025. (AFP)
Musk, who has long railed against the news media and championed his X social media platform as an alternative, took aim at the paper instead.
“Is that the same publication that got a Pulitzer Prize for false reporting on the Russiagate?” said Musk, referring to claims that Trump’s 2016 election campaign colluded with Moscow.
“Let’s move on. Okay. Next question.”
Later in the day, when a reporter asked Trump if he was “aware of Elon Musk’s regular drug use,” Trump simply responded: “I wasn’t.”
“I think Elon is a fantastic guy,” he added.
The White House had earlier played down the report.
“The drugs that we’re concerned about are the drugs running across the southern border” from Mexico, said Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, whose wife works for Musk.
Musk has previously admitted to taking ketamine, saying he was prescribed it to treat a “negative frame of mind” and suggesting his use of drugs benefited his work.
Leaving under a cloud
The latest in a series of made-for-TV Oval Office events was aimed at putting a positive spin on Musk’s departure.
Musk is leaving Trump’s administration under a cloud, after admitting disillusionment with his role and criticizing the Republican president’s spending plans.
It was a far cry from his first few weeks as Trump’s chainsaw-brandishing sidekick.
Elon Musk receives the key to the White House from President Donald Trump during a press conference in the Oval Office at the White House on May 30, 2025. (Reuters)
At one time Musk was almost inseparable from Trump, glued to his side on Air Force One, Marine One, in the White House and at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
The right-wing magnate’s DOGE led an ideologically-driven rampage through the federal government, with its young “tech bros” slashing tens of thousands of jobs.
But DOGE’s achievements fell far short of Musk’s original goal of saving $2 trillion dollars.
The White House says DOGE has made $170 billion in savings so far. The independent “Doge Tracker” site has counted just $12 billion while the Atlantic magazine put it far lower, at $2 billion.
Musk’s “move fast and break things” mantra was also at odds with some of his cabinet colleagues, and he said earlier this week that he was “disappointed” in Trump’s planned mega tax and spending bill as it undermined DOGE’s cuts.
Musk’s companies, meanwhile, have suffered.
Tesla shareholders called for him to return to work as sales slumped and protests targeted the electric vehicle maker, while SpaceX had a series of fiery rocket failures.
Trump says will double steel, aluminum tariffs to 50%
Updated 34 min 26 sec ago
AFP
WEST MIFFLIN, US: US President Donald Trump said Friday that he would double steel and aluminum import tariffs to 50 percent from next week, the latest salvo in his trade wars aimed at protecting domestic industries.
“We’re going to bring it from 25 percent to 50 percent, the tariffs on steel into the United States of America,” he said while addressing workers at a US Steel plant in Pennsylvania.
“Nobody’s going to get around that,” he added in the speech before blue-collar workers in the battleground state that helped deliver his election victory last year.
Shortly after, Trump wrote in a Truth Social post that the elevated rate would also apply to aluminum, with the new tariffs “effective Wednesday, June 4th.”
Since returning to the presidency in January, Trump has imposed sweeping tariffs on allies and adversaries alike in moves that have rocked the world trade order and roiled financial markets.
He has also issued sector-specific levies that affect goods such as automobiles.
On Friday, he defended his trade policies, arguing that tariffs helped protect US industry.
He added that the steel facility he was speaking in would not exist if he had not also imposed duties on metals imports during his first administration.
On Friday, Trump touted a planned partnership between US Steel and Japan’s Nippon Steel, but offered few new details on a deal that earlier faced bipartisan opposition.
He stressed that despite a recently announced planned partnership between the American steelmaker and Nippon Steel, “US Steel will continue to be controlled by the USA.”
He added that there would be no layoffs or outsourcing of jobs by the company.
Last week, Trump said that US Steel would remain in America with its headquarters to stay in Pittsburgh, adding that the arrangement with Nippon would create at least 70,000 jobs and add $14 billion to the US economy.
On Friday, he said that as part of its commitment, Nippon would invest $2.2 billion to boost steel production in the Mon Valley Works-Irvin plant where he was speaking.
Another $7 billion would go toward modernizing steel mills, expanding ore mining and building facilities in places including Indiana and Minnesota.
A proposed $14.9 billion sale of US Steel to Nippon Steel had previously drawn political opposition from both sides of the aisle. Former president Joe Biden blocked the deal on national security grounds shortly before leaving office.
There remain lingering concerns over the new partnership.
The United Steelworkers union which represents thousands of hourly workers at US Steel facilities said after Trump’s speech that it had not participated in discussions involving Nippon Steel and the Trump administration, “nor were we consulted.”
“We cannot speculate about the meaning of the ‘planned partnership,’” said USW International President David McCall in a statement.
“Whatever the deal structure, our primary concern remains with the impact that this merger of US Steel into a foreign competitor will have on national security, our members and the communities where we live and work,” McCall said.
“The devil is always in the details,” he added.
Trump had opposed Nippon Steel’s takeover plan while on the election campaign trail. But since returning to the presidency, he signaled that he would be open to some form of investment after all.
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has slashed US aid and vowed a major rethink on helping the world. A controversial effort to bring food to Gaza may offer clues on what’s to come.
Administered by contracted US security with Israeli troops at the perimeter, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is distributing food through several hubs in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.
An officially private effort with opaque funding, the GHF began operations on May 26 after Israel completely cut off supplies into Gaza for over two months, sparking warnings of mass famine.
The organization said it had distributed 2.1 million meals as of Friday.
The initiative excludes the UN, which has long coordinated aid distribution in the war-ravaged territory and has infrastructure and systems in place to deliver assistance on a large scale.
The UN and other major aid groups have refused to cooperate with GHF, saying it violates basic humanitarian principles, and appears crafted to cater to Israeli military objectives.
“What we have seen is chaotic, it’s tragic and it’s resulted in hundreds of thousands of people scrambling in an incredibly undignified and unsafe way to access a tiny trickle of aid,” said Ciaran Donnelly, senior vice president of international programs at the International Rescue Committee .
Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said his aid group stopped work in Gaza in 2015 when Hamas militants invaded its office and that it refused to cooperate in Syria when former strongman Bashar Assad was pressuring opposition-held areas by withholding food.
“Why on earth would we be willing to let the Israeli military decide how, where and to whom we give our aid as part of their military strategy to herd people around Gaza?” said Egeland.
“It’s a violation of everything we stand for. It is the biggest and reddest line there is that we cannot cross.”
The UN said that 47 people were injured Tuesday when hungry and desperate crowds rushed a GHF site — most of them by Israeli gunfire — while a Palestinian medical source said at least one person had died.
The Israeli military denied its soldiers fired on civilians and the GHF denied any injuries or deaths.
Israel has relentlessly attacked Gaza since Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israel has vowed to sideline the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, accusing it of bias and of harboring Hamas militants.
UNRWA said that nine out of thousands of staff may have been involved in the October 7 attack and dismissed them, but accuses Israel of trying to throw a distraction.
John Hannah, a former senior US policymaker who led a study last year that gave birth to the concepts behind the GHF, said the UN seemed to be “completely lacking in self-reflection” on the need for a new approach to aid after Hamas built a “terror kingdom.”
“I fear that people could be on the brink of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good instead of figuring out how do we take part in this effort, improve it, make it better, scale it up,” said Hannah, who is not involved in implementing the GHF.
Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, defended the use of private contractors, saying that many had extensive Middle East experience from the US-led “war on terror.”
“We would have been happy if there were volunteers from capable and trusted national forces... but the fact is, nobody’s volunteering,” he said.
He said he would rather that aid workers coordinate with Israel than Hamas.
“Inevitably, any humanitarian effort in a war zone has to make some compromises with a ruling authority that carries the guns,” he said.
Hannah’s study had discouraged a major Israeli role in humanitarian work in Gaza, urging instead involvement by Arab states to bring greater legitimacy.
Arab states have balked at supporting US efforts as Israel pounds Gaza and after Trump mused about forcibly displacing the whole Gaza population and constructing luxury hotels.
Israel and Hamas are negotiating a new Gaza ceasefire that could see a resumption of UN-backed efforts.
Aid groups say they have vast amounts of aid ready for Gaza that remain blocked.
Donnelly said the IRC had 27 tons of supplies waiting to enter Gaza, faulting the GHF for distributing items like pasta and tinned fish that require cooking supplies — not therapeutic food and treatment for malnourished children.
He called for distributing relief in communities where people need it, instead of through militarized hubs.
“If anyone really cares about distributing aid in a transparent, accountable, effective way, the way to do that is to use the expertise and infrastructure of aid organizations that have been doing this for decades,” Donnelly said.
