Sherpas put Everest season on doubt

Nepalese guides on Mount Everest yesterday said they had decided to abandon this year's climbing season, to honour 16 colleagues killed in an avalanche last week.
The decision throws the plans of hundreds of foreign mountaineers into chaos, with many of them waiting in base camp after paying tens of thousands of dollars to scale the world's highest peak.
The sherpas perform essential tasks on the 8,848-metre (29,029-foot) mountain, carrying equipment and food as well as repairing ladders and fixing ropes to reduce risks for their clients.
"We had a long meeting this afternoon and we decided to stop our climbing this year to honour our fallen brothers. All sherpas are united in this," local guide Tulsi Gurung told AFP from base camp.
The guides had threatened to cancel all climbing on Mount Everest and issued an ultimatum to the government, demanding higher compensation, an agreement to revise insurance payments and a welfare fund by next Monday.
The sherpas have asked for $10,000 to be paid to families of the guides killed in the avalanche as well as those who were injured and cannot resume work.
Sherpas earn between $3,000 to $6,000 a season, but their insurance cover is almost always inadequate when accidents happen.
More than 300 people, most of them local guides, have died on the peak since the first ascent by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953.
The government has issued permits to 734 people, including 400 guides, for 32 expeditions this season to climb Everest.