Slashdot Mirror
First Video Broadcast From Mt. Everest Peak Outrages Tourist Ministry of Nepal
hutsell writes "On May 19th, Daniel Hughes spoke to BBC News live from the world's highest peak using his smartphone, making it the first live broadcast from Everest. (The actual video — showing the importance of oxygen along with his panoramic view — on the BBC page, is bookend with talking heads and a front-end advert.) However, since he and his team failed to get a commercial broadcast permit (costing about 2 grand) without the Nepali Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Aviation's knowledge, officials want to impose the penalty of having them banned from obtaining climbing permits for 10 years or from entering the country for 5 years. From the article, a quote from Dipendra Poudel, an official of the Ministry's mountain branch: 'The mountaineering rules say if you want to make a live telecast from the mountain, which is a restricted area, you have to get a permit first and inform us early about what you're going to do.' Those protesting against the decision feel the intent of the law is being misinterpreted; it's failing to keep up with the recent fundamental changes in technology. A permit that was meant to deal with ecological repercussions, doesn't seem to apply in this case. If it doesn't, is it really about disrespect, money, a tourism copyright angle, or all of the above? Then again, should the Nepal government ignore outsiders questioning their motives?"
They weren't in Nepal, they were on the other side of the mountain (and hence the other side of the border), in China.
Sure, they entered China without permission, and so might get into trouble there...
Alternatively, they could just say, "fuck you Nepalise stupid Maoist governments" and fund a revolution to bring about equality and freedom. Oh wait.
From this article, (well worth the read, BTW)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22680192
"Westerners can pay anything from $10,000 (£6,600) to $100,000 (£66,000) for permits to climb the mountain and guides to accompany them..."
So, $2k extra seems modest. I'm sure this argument could be quickly solved by an apology and payment of the $2k retrospectively.
Reminds me one time I was skippering a ship for some friends in the Caribbean; the mooring fees seemed pretty high to me, (just to tie up to a small buoy for the night; no other amenities).
When I commented on this to the official, he said "you've got a yacht, you can afford it".
I looked out of the window of his grubby shack at our (rented) 42' boat. Yeah, he was right.
The rules were written to cover the situation of people setting up something at least roughly like a largeish array of a videotape holding camera, a boom mike, a foldable dish, battery packs and such to transmit commercial video from a remote location. It's the kind of thing where Everest expeditions tended to leave extra clutter and junk behind, and that's part of the justification for the fees. The rules, as read, spell out some specific situations, and are so 'established' - if you take those rules, ignore some parts, and maybe put in some verbal only interpretations that let some minor government official stretch those rules to cover technologies that didn't exist when those rules were written, you get this situation, where a lot of things have not have been legally 'established'.
The rules are also being used to give the government heads up before any image can be sent, which makes a good backdoor way of knowing when to put persons in place to censor what gets sent out. Yeah, they're probably just trying to make sure it looks good to attract more tourists, not stifle political dissent. Still, why encourage that?
Who is John Cabal?
Here is the listing of fees:
http://www.nps.gov/grca/parkmgmt/upload/GRCA-2007change-in-FilmingFees.pdf
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.