Mount Everest
Covid precautions: China said this week that it was putting up a “line of separation” at the summit of Mount Everest to keep climbers scaling the Covid-ravaged Nepalese side from mingling with and infecting climbers from the Chinese side. Nepal has issued a record 408 expedition permits to climb Everest this year, even as coronavirus cases have surged in the Himalayan nation, with some 9,000 new infections being registered every day. That’s likely a severe undercount, because many sick people simply can’t travel to get a test. Several climbers on the more heavily trafficked Nepal side were evacuated from base camp last month with symptoms of Covid-19. China has approved only 21 summiting permits for this season, and climbers returning on the Chinese side will have to undergo temperature checks and likely quarantine. The summit was closed off last year because of the pandemic.
Shwebo, Myanmar
Organ harvesting? The body of a poet who was killed by
Myanmar’s security forces was returned to his family this week— with his heart removed. The grim revelation has led to speculation that the country’s cash-short military regime is harvesting dissidents’ organs. Khet Thi, 45, had spoken out against the February coup that deposed Myanmar’s elected government, and criticized the military’s slaughter of protesters, writing, “They shoot in the head, but they don’t know the revolution is in the heart.” Last week, he and his wife, Chaw Su, were taken in for interrogation; she was released, he wasn’t. Rights groups said Khet Thi was tortured to death. The junta claimed he died of a heart attack, but when Chaw Su recovered his body, she found it stitched up and apparently missing the heart. At least 800 civilians have been killed by the junta.