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A CHINESE CLIMBER who lost both legs to frostbite on Everest four decades ago has finally reached the summit, just months after the revocation of a controversial ban on double amputee climbers attempting the world’s highest peak.
Xia Boyu (69) summited Everest earlier today on his fifth attempt to reach the top of the 8,848-metre peak.
“He reached the summit this morning, along with seven other members of his team,” said Dawa Futi Sherpa of Imagine Trek and Expedition, who organised Xia’s Everest bid.
Xia’s dream of standing at the top of the world was nearly thwarted by the Nepalese government, which last year banned double amputee and blind climbers from climbing its mountains.
The ruling was overturned by Nepal’s top court in March, which branded it as discriminatory towards people with disabilities.
Xia first attempted to summit Everest with a Chinese government-backed team in 1975, but was thwarted by bad weather.
He became stuck in the frigid low-oxygen environment near the top of Everest and suffered severe frostbite, losing both his feet.
In 1996 his legs were amputated just below the knee after he was diagnosed with lymphoma, a form of blood cancer.
The tenacious climber returned to Everest in 2014 and 2015 but Nepal’s climbing season was cancelled both years due to disasters.
Bad weather forced him to turn back during his previous attempt in 2016 when he was just 200 metres from the summit.
“Climbing Mount Everest is my dream. I have to realise it. It also represents a personal challenge, a challenge of fate,” Xia told AFP last month before heading to the mountain.
The only other double amputee to summit Everest is New Zealander Mark Inglis, who achieved the feat in 2006.
Xia is among the first of hundreds of climbers expected to summit Everest this month during a narrow window of good weather.
Nepal has issued 346 permits for this year’s spring climbing season, which runs from mid-April to the end of May.
Most Everest hopefuls are escorted by a Nepali guide, meaning about 700 climbers will try to reach the top in coming weeks.
Another 180 climbers are preparing to summit Everest from its north side in Tibet, according to the China Tibet Mountaineering Association.
Last year, 634 people made it to the top and seven died trying.
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The Irish banks are the problem; they are not part of the solution.
The Irish banks, when unleashed on defaulting home mortgagors, will cause pandemonium and will trigger even greater holes in their capital adequacy. The Irish banks are actually insolvent. Some buy to let lending on property is just a superficial pretence that they are back in business.
The elephant in the room is that the Irish banks are bust, insolvent, broken, wrecked and no one wants to recognise that hard reality.
The true extent of mortgage debt default has not yet been properly accounted for by the Banks.
One magazine broadly agrees with your analysis.
http://moneyweek.com/money-morning-ireland-irish-economy-property-and-stocks-60900/
one room to the other room lucky to have the house ..who do you think you are codding Mr Kenny
The emperor has no clothes. Today does not change our dismal economic reality. Combined public and household debt is unsustainable. The burden of debt is too great for Ireland.
The reality is that Ireland is a failed economic state and a steadily failing economy. We can deny that reality for a while but reality will will come knocking on the door.
Platitudes about recovering part of our sovereignty are meaningless and trite.
The article above is a much needed reality check but people will not listen to that reality.
The dismal legacy of he false boom years is a permanent yoke on the necs of the Irish people who, according to Enda Kenny, have only themselves to blame.
The Banks will continue to pursue strategies which are mildly beneficial to the banks but deeply damaging to a failing economy. The mortgage impairment crisis in 2014 and 2015 will be the final nail in the coffin. There is no escaping our fate. The centre cannot hold.
Damien is right to point out the myth that banks have much interest in the real economy of businesses, employment and production of goods and services.
The real economy is merely a sideline that gains them entry to the real game of rent extraction in partnership with the rich, plus, recently, the marvellous public ‘insurance’ that ensures any losses are passed on to ordinary citizens or ‘socialised’.
Globally, this ‘laissez faire’ model has been promoted thru’ deregulation over decades.
Banks have become funds for the purchase of existing assets to be rented out at excessive profit and/or capital gains, with a banking licence tacked on.
Integration with the payments system and various cross connected derivative bets ensure that any failure topples them all in a domino effect, so that governments are obliged to cover any losses they make. This construction was no accident, rather quite deliberate.
And absolutely nothing has been done about it by the political classes. In fact, these ‘systemically’ important ‘too big to fail’ banks are now bigger than ever.
The payments system banking of the high street needs to be separated, as it was following the 1929 crash, from the casino and ‘derivative’ bet banking operations, as a minimum.
But it would appear that the banking lobby has already effectively bought politics and most of the public service advisers, media and mainstream academe.
Mike Hall, well and truly said.
DEFAULT THE ONLY OPTION
So Damien you are basically saying young Irish Citizens were screwed by developers in the noughties, screwed by the Troika for the past three years, and are going to be screwed by bankers and vulture capitalists for the rest of there lives. How did we let this happen under our noses and did nothing?
Welcome to Ireland David. The elite in this country screw it up time and time again. Generation after generation. Just watch reeling in the years, its the same story decade after decade. The PAYE worker foots the bill, and theres no accountability for those who screw it up.
The PAYE will pay.
The law should be set up in away that if the borrower can’t service the loan he just has to hand back the house ,the bank made a decision when they loan the money that the value was in it ,I know it Is not a simple as it sound,s but some mechanism could be worked out ,it would make them more cautious ,it would alter the power they have and stop the big jump in value and it would also control the house selling agents that were riding the wave .
Actually it is as simple as it sounds and works in places such as the US. There are several advantages to the system one of which is that banks that push up a property bubble by imprudent lending pay the cost when mortgages default and they can’t just hound the borrowers forever.
Foreclosure is the name of that system but now it is too late for that solution. The Irish Banks will find that they can’t get blood out of a stillness.
It was the lending policies of the Banks which caused the massive asset bubble. Now they will try to get their pound of flesh. They will fail. The money is not there. The reality is that any home possessions will simply crystallise large losses.
The banks will end up carrying out massive write downs but only after they have caused untold misery.
The situation is totally unsustainable but we comfort ourselves with the delusion that we have successfully exited the bail out.
At least we no longer have to hear commentators describe the Irish electorate as the most intelligent and sophisticated in the world. This electorate putFianna Fáil coalitions into government three times in a row. Madness.
A property obsessed nation followed its love affair with property like a moth to a flame.
Property has been our destruction hastened by plentiful cheap euros.
The Baron of Ballsbridge showed us the madness at work but he was just holding up a mirror to the rest of us.
Ronan Lyons explains here the stimulus for a “no brainer” speculative culture.
http://www.ronanlyons.com/2009/06/12/property-a-shining-example-of-never-a-better-time-to-save/
Most newspapers want this reality hidden from us so their beloved coalition can boast about “regaining sovereignty”
“A Nation once again” – me hole.
It is rather depressing reading the above and the comments. What a mess this country is. I think the saddest thing is the meek reaction of the people. Where is our fight or sense of pride? Why are we not standing up for ourselves.
I guess the reality is that the majority are comfortable enough – in jobs and without huge debts – and not overly willing to see any real change. For the minority who are unemployed or underemployed it is a case of suck it up.
What hope is there for young people who want to get decent employment, start a family and have a home? People are simply locked out with no opportunity. What a legacy has been left.
Where do you arrive at the figure of 52% of pay deducted in Paye/Prsi & Usc? If a Single person is on €33k, they pay €7900 in the three taxes. That works out at 23.8%. A long way off 52%
Good analysis! Question is: what happens next? It doesn’t need an accountant to tell you Ireland is enslaved forever.
If you haven’t seen the Oscar-winning documentary ‘Inside Job’ already I recommend you do now.
Only the little people get hurt, only the little people. We need an Oliver Cromwell to deal with this.
politican vs banker = golf buddies
Great article – a day after a TD suggest Nama are selling off greatly reduced properties to developers. Will we ever be able to stop the money junkies ie bankers, politicians, charity bosses, developers etc? They can’t wait to get their next fix. Like most junkies the price is paid for their addiction by others. It won’t stop until somebody kicks them out of their homes and their comfortable jobs.
have your say