Twenty-nine runners yesterday set off on a rare high-altitude race in Bhutan to highlight the dangers of climate change to the Himalayan kingdom sandwiched between China and India, two of the world’s biggest polluters.
Bhutan — which is about the size of Switzerland — has forests covering 70 percent of its land, which absorb nearly three times more climate-changing emissions than the country produces a year.
“The race is designed to raise awareness about climate change and its risks to our economy and the livelihood of the people,” Bhutanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Tandi Dorji said by telephone after flagging off the race in the northwestern town of Gasa.
Photo: Reuters
Organizers said the runners would take five days to complete the 203km Snowman Race from Gasa to the northeastern town of Chamkhar along a trail that normally takes trekkers up to 20 days.
South Asia’s only carbon-
negative country, with a population of fewer than 800,000 people, is vulnerable to the effects of climate change, which is speeding up the melting of its glaciers, and causing floods and unpredictable weather patterns.
Pakistan, at the western end of the Himalayas, has this year been hit by unprecedented flooding caused by unusually heavy rain and faster runoff from its glaciers. Its government and the UN have blamed climate change.
The racers from 11 countries — including the US, Germany, Japan, Tanzania and Bhutan — are to run at an average altitude of 4,500m, with a high point of 5,470m.
The route will take them through diverse terrain from subtropical jungle to fragile, high-altitude ecosystems, with diverse flora and fauna, as well as people and cultures.
“I’ve probably completed maybe around 30 ultramarathons, but never like this,” US runner Sarah Keyes told the state-run Bhutan Broadcasting Service.
“It will be somewhat of an unknown going to that high of an altitude, but I do feel good overall, physically,” Keyes said.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
The death toll from a shooting in western Afghanistan rose to 11 on Saturday, after gunmen targeted civilians at a picnic spot in Herat, the provincial authority said. Bullet marks were visible on a wall of the Sayed Mohammad Agha Shia shrine, while bloodstains marked a blanket abandoned at the scene. “Eleven people have been recorded dead and eight others wounded from Friday’s incident, with the condition of two of the wounded reported as critical,” Herat’s information office said in a statement. The update raises a toll of seven killed provided on Friday by the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs
RSS