2012 Adventurers of the Year
2012 Adventurers of the Year: Sano Babu Sunuwar & Lakpa Tsheri
“Without adventure you are not feeling real life.”
- Sano Babu Sunuwar
With nearly 72,000 votes cast, we are thrilled to announce the 2012 People’s Choice Adventurers of the Year: Nepalis Sano Babu Sunuwar and Lakpa Tsheri Sherpa. Their dream to complete the Ultimate Descent—climbing Mount Everest, paragliding down, then kayaking to the sea—truly embodies the spirit of adventure.
Babu, 28, a kayaker and paraglider, and Lakpa, 39, a mountain guide, combined their skills to persevere in extreme conditions. Babu had never done a high-altitude mountaineering expedition like this before. Though he had three Everest summits to his name before the expedition, Lakpa didn’t know how to swim, let alone kayak the Class V rapids they would encounter. Through teamwork and tenacity—and without the support of corporate sponsors or big budgets—they did something no one had ever done before.
Sports News
One step closer to 2011 SAFF Championship semi-finals
A dying moment goal from skipper Sagar Thapa steered Nepal to 1-0 win over Bangladesh on Sunday to strengthen Nepal’s hope of making it to the semifinal of the SAFF Championship being held in New Delhi, India.
Defender Thapa made a superb freekick from long range (near from center line) to score his career’s first international goal to stun Bangladesh a few seconds ahead of the final whistle at the JLN Stadium. Nepal was awarded with the freekick after Mamun Miyah fouled defender Rabin Shrestha.
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Nepal qualifies for ICC U19 World Cup 2012
On a day when rains affected all but one game, plenty of action was witnessed as the jostling for the final six spots to qualify for the ICC U19 Cricket World Cup to be held next year in Australia heated up.
With this win, Nepal has qualified for the U-19 Cricket World Cup 2012. Nepal had failed to qualify for the 2010 World Cup after losing to Afghanistan in the semifinals of the ACC Elite Cup 2009.
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Sweet victory for Nepal at ICC U19 Cricket World Cup Qualifiers
Nepal has taken a sweet revenge against Namibia with 8 runs victory in the ICC U-19 World Cup Qualifiers on Friday. Nepal had lost a practice match against Namibia by 17 runs ahead of the tournament.
In the match played at Drummond Cricket Club, Northern Ireland, Nepal won the toss and scored 217 runs losing all wickets in 49.4 overs. Nepal restricted Namibia in 209 runs for nine wickets in 50 overs. This is the second best score of Nepal in the ongoing tournament. Nepal had earlier scored 250 runs against Vanuatu.
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ICC U19 Cricket World Cup Qualifiers 2011 Standings
As of August 02, 2011:
Check out the teams
Nepal defeat Vanuatu in ICC U19 World Cup Qualifiers
Nepal defeated Vanuatu by 159 runs in the ICC Under 19 World Cup Qualifiers here at YMCA Cricket Club, Dublin today (08/01/2011).
Nepal managed to make a good total of 250 runs loosing all the wickets in the third ball of the last over.
Chasing the target, Vanuatu made a good start. But the wickets couldn’t continue on hold and C Blake went for a duck in his 19th ball in the 8th over. Five batsman went without managing to make even a single.
Man of the match Krishna Karki took 3 wickets with a good figure of 10-1-23-3, while Rahul Vishawakarma took 4 wickets to make his tally reach 10. Bhuwan Karki grabbed 2 wickets while Prithu Baskota managed to take one for Nepal to resist Vanuatu to the lowest total of 91 runs in the 32nd over.
Nepal will play against Canada on Wednesday (08/03/2011).
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Nepal defeat Kenya in ICC U19 World Cup Qualifiers
Nepal defeated Kenya by six wickets to register their second win in the ICC Under-19 World Cup Qualifiers at the Railway Union Cricket Club grounds in Sandymount, Dublin today.
Man of the match – Karn was thrilled to have played a part in the win: “Unlike in the subcontinent, the pitches here offer some assistance. It swung a bit and seamed off the surface for me. We wanted to get them for as low a target as possible. It was a tricky chase but the captain got us through”.
Nepal will play against Vanuata on Monday, with an eye to make a third win. So far, Nepal has won two games against Afghanistan and Kenya while losing two against Namibia and Scotland.
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Rohit Chand – is EPL next for him?
Arsenal and Tottenham have their eyes on the young Nepalese defender Rohit Chand. These Premier League teams sent their scouts to Jordan to watch the defender in action when Nepal faced Jordan in the 2014 World Cup qualifiers.
Listen to Nepalese national team coach Graham Roberts talk about the team and Rohit Chand:
According to Roberts “Rohit is by far the best center-half I have ever coached. He is an extreme talent who will play at the highest level.”
Chand, a former player of Machhindra FC in Nepal, has been winning coach Roberts’ praises since the latter took charge of the Nepali national team. “I have a world class defense line-up with a talent like Rohit Chand,” Roberts often says about the best defender of the Martyrs Memorial League last year.
Chand plays for Indian First Division side Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) SC at present. He is a product of ANFA Academy and has played for Nepal in U-17 and U-19 age group tournaments. Chand has won 12 caps for the national team since his debut on March 23, 2009 against Palestine in the AFC Challenge Cup.
More about Rohit Chand >>
Nepal climbs up in FIFA rankings
Nepal has climbed 12 spots in the latest FIFA rankings released on Wednesday. With the new release, Nepal, ranked 136 in the world, leads the South Asian region followed by Bangladesh at 147. India is now ranked third in South Asia after it slipped six places to 153 in the world rankings. The rankings are released every month by football’s world governing body FIFA.
Nepal and Bangladesh are the only two countries to improve in the FIFA rankings among eight in the South Asian region. All other countries have fallen back except Bhutan, which remains unchanged at the bottom, ranked 201.
Nepal’s new ranking is the second best in its history. The highest ranking Nepal had ever achieved was from December 1993 to February 1994 when the national team was placed at 124. The lowest ranking was in February 2008 when Nepal slumped to 188.
Nepal ranks 20 among the 46-member nations of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). In the last release, Nepal was ranked 28 in Asia. Japan slipped two points to 16 in the world ranking but remains unmoved at the top of the AFC rankings.
Nepal’s new ranking is based on three international matches played recently within a month. Although Nepal lost against Jordan with a huge margin, it was able to defeat East Timor 2-1 and 5-0 in two legs of the first round of 2014 World Cup Asian zone qualifying matches.
Check the rankings >>
Nepal qualifies for the AFC Challenge Cup finals
Nepal held Sri Lanka goal-less to qualify for the 2012 AFC Challenge Cup finals behind DPR Korea on Monday. DPR Korea downed Afghanistan 2-0 to top the group with nine points while Nepal, who had three points going into the final game, finished with four.
Nepal dominated the proceedings but their attacks were thwarted by a spirited Sri Lankan defence. Nepal coach Graham Roberts, however, said that his side didn’t play for a draw. “We didn’t play the match for a draw. We wanted to win the match by a clear margin. We were playing an attacking game and had to change to defensive formation in the last 20 minutes,” he told reporters. “It was a hectic schedule and the boys are tired but I am happy the way my players played in these matches.”
DPR Korea and Nepal joined Palestine, Philippines, India, Turkmenistan, Maldives and Tajikistan in the eight-team finals.
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Nepalis in News
s3space: Are you a semantic web geek?
The next piece of news might be of interest to you if you are into semantic web. An article titled “s3space: Stepping Stone To Working With Linked Data” was published on semanticweb.com about a website called s3space.
The brainchild of Amit Krishna Joshi, a PhD student in the College of Engineering and Computer Science at Wright State University, where he does research at the Kno.e.sis Center, s3space is billed as a social lab for querying Linked Data. While the site isn’t for complete Linked Data neophytes – users do need to know something about RDF and how to write a basic SPARQL query and test it – s3space takes care of implementing and consuming data-set web services for querying SPARQL endpoints. It uses the Google App Engine at the back end to scale. Read More >>.
Rohit Chand – is EPL next for him?
Arsenal and Tottenham have their eyes on the young Nepalese defender Rohit Chand. These Premier League teams sent their scouts to Jordan to watch the defender in action when Nepal faced Jordan in the 2014 World Cup qualifiers.
Listen to Nepalese national team coach Graham Roberts talk about the team and Rohit Chand:
According to Roberts “Rohit is by far the best center-half I have ever coached. He is an extreme talent who will play at the highest level.”
Chand, a former player of Machhindra FC in Nepal, has been winning coach Roberts’ praises since the latter took charge of the Nepali national team. “I have a world class defense line-up with a talent like Rohit Chand,” Roberts often says about the best defender of the Martyrs Memorial League last year.
Chand plays for Indian First Division side Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) SC at present. He is a product of ANFA Academy and has played for Nepal in U-17 and U-19 age group tournaments. Chand has won 12 caps for the national team since his debut on March 23, 2009 against Palestine in the AFC Challenge Cup.
More about Rohit Chand >>
Nepal climbs up in FIFA rankings
Nepal has climbed 12 spots in the latest FIFA rankings released on Wednesday. With the new release, Nepal, ranked 136 in the world, leads the South Asian region followed by Bangladesh at 147. India is now ranked third in South Asia after it slipped six places to 153 in the world rankings. The rankings are released every month by football’s world governing body FIFA.
Nepal and Bangladesh are the only two countries to improve in the FIFA rankings among eight in the South Asian region. All other countries have fallen back except Bhutan, which remains unchanged at the bottom, ranked 201.
Nepal’s new ranking is the second best in its history. The highest ranking Nepal had ever achieved was from December 1993 to February 1994 when the national team was placed at 124. The lowest ranking was in February 2008 when Nepal slumped to 188.
Nepal ranks 20 among the 46-member nations of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). In the last release, Nepal was ranked 28 in Asia. Japan slipped two points to 16 in the world ranking but remains unmoved at the top of the AFC rankings.
Nepal’s new ranking is based on three international matches played recently within a month. Although Nepal lost against Jordan with a huge margin, it was able to defeat East Timor 2-1 and 5-0 in two legs of the first round of 2014 World Cup Asian zone qualifying matches.
Check the rankings >>
US honors Nepali woman for heroic act
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday honoured Nepali anti-trafficking hero, Charimaya Tamang, with the 2011 Hero Acting to End Modern-Day Slavery Award.
Tamang was honoured during the release of 2011 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report at the State Department in Washington.
Born into a poor family, made poorer by the death of her father, Charimaya was 16 years old when she was trafficked to India.
She spent 22 months in a brothel before the Indian government rescued her along with over 200 other Nepali women in 1996. Upon her return to Nepal, Tamang was ostracised by her community.
However, she filed a case against her traffickers, becoming the first person to file personally a trafficking case at the district police. In 1997, the District Court—in a landmark decision – convicted and sentenced eight offenders involved in her case.
Later in 2000, Tamang and 15 other survivors established Shakti Samuha, an anti-trafficking NGO.
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Woman fighting sex slavery named CNN Hero of the Year
A woman whose group has rescued more than 12,000 women and girls from sex slavery has been named the 2010 CNN Hero of the Year.
Anuradha Koirala was chosen by the public in an online poll that ran for eight weeks on CNN.com. CNN’s Anderson Cooper revealed the result at the conclusion of the fourth annual “CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute.”
“Human trafficking is a crime, a heinous crime, a shame to humanity,” Koirala said earlier in the evening after being introduced as one of the top 10 CNN Heroes of 2010. “I ask everyone to join me to create a society free of trafficking. We need to do this for all our daughters.”
Read more >>
Image via Wikipedia
Apa Sherpa climbs Everest for the 21st time
Apa Sherpa on Wednesday broke his own record for most climbs of Mount Everest by scaling the world’s tallest peak for the 21st time. Apa is leading an environmental expedition that plans to carry down tons of garbage left behind by past climbers, took advantage of good weather to reach the 29,035-foot (8,850-meter) summit with a group of other climbers.
Apa, who like many in the Himalayas’ Sherpa community uses only one name, grew up in the foothills of Everest and began carrying equipment and supplies for trekkers and mountaineers at age 12. He first climbed Everest in 1989 and has repeated the feat almost annually.
The 50-year-old Apa and his team climbed all night Tuesday and Wednesday morning before reaching the summit at 9:15 a.m. local time (0330 GMT).
Before leaving for the mountain in April, Apa had said his team planned to clear 8,800 pounds (4,000 kilograms) of garbage from the lower part of the mountain and another 2,200 pounds (1,000 kilograms) from near the summit.
Apa has long campaigned about the degradation he has seen on the Himalayan peaks due to global warming and other issues.
A flash mob in Nepal
Watch a historic flashmob by “concerned citizens” and residents of Kathmandu valley. Why “concerned”? Children as young as six can be found working full time in the brick factories around Kathmandu. Working in the brick factories exposes all workers especially children to irreparable health damage including acute respiratory infections, back injuries, lung cancers. Black carbon released by the chimneys is a mass killer and is highly toxic. It is estimated that air pollution results in 1600 premature deaths per year in Kathmandu alone. Every year 837’600 tons of carbon dyoxide are released by the Valley’s brick kilns. Workers are exploited and animal abuse is prevalent. You can change this situation by using and promoting the use of clean and green bricks.
More information here: www.brickclean.net
Nepal qualifies for the AFC Challenge Cup finals
Nepal held Sri Lanka goal-less to qualify for the 2012 AFC Challenge Cup finals behind DPR Korea on Monday. DPR Korea downed Afghanistan 2-0 to top the group with nine points while Nepal, who had three points going into the final game, finished with four.
Nepal dominated the proceedings but their attacks were thwarted by a spirited Sri Lankan defence. Nepal coach Graham Roberts, however, said that his side didn’t play for a draw. “We didn’t play the match for a draw. We wanted to win the match by a clear margin. We were playing an attacking game and had to change to defensive formation in the last 20 minutes,” he told reporters. “It was a hectic schedule and the boys are tired but I am happy the way my players played in these matches.”
DPR Korea and Nepal joined Palestine, Philippines, India, Turkmenistan, Maldives and Tajikistan in the eight-team finals.
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Demi Moore in Nepal
Demi Moore has just spent five days in Nepal where she is filming a documentary for CNN on the sex trafficking trade.
She visited Maiti Nepal, an organisation aimed to protect women and girls from the crimes related to the sex trafficking industry and she met with Anuradha Koirala, the charity’s founder.
The 62-year-old former school teacher last year won the coveted CNN Hero Of The Year Award for her work through the charity.
The two women took part in a press conference raising awareness of the charity and its work.
Demi, 48, and Anuradha posed for pictures together and met with dozens of the women and girls helped by the organisation which, to date, has rescued over 12,000 women from sex slavery.
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Gurkha who repelled Taliban attack gets bravery medal
A Gurkha who single-handedly fought off an attack by at least a dozen Taliban insurgents has been awarded Britain’s second highest medal for bravery.
Acting Sergeant Dipprasad Pun used up all of his ammunition and resorted to using his machine gun tripod to repel the attack in Afghanistan in September.
The Gurkha, 31, of Ashford, Kent, said he was a “lucky guy” and very proud to get the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross.
A total of 136 UK servicemen and women are being honoured, four posthumously.
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