ISLAMABAD/WARSAW: Efforts to rescue a Polish man and a French woman stuck on a treacherous peak in northern Pakistan known to mountaineers as “Killer Mountain” are set to begin on Saturday, officials said.
Tomasz Mackiewicz from Poland and Elisabeth Revol of France were attempting to ascend 8,126 meter (26,660 feet) Nanga Parbat in Pakistan’s Himalaya mountain range.
Four members from a team of Polish climbers attempting the first winter summit of nearby K2, the world’s second highest mountain, will assist in the rescue operation after a Pakistan Army helicopter picks them up from their base camp and flies them to Nanga Parbat.
“They will be brought from K2 to Nanga Parbat and then the operation will begin,” Asghar Porik of Jasmine Tours told Reuters on Friday.
Mackiewicz and Revol got stuck at the 7,400 meter mark from where they used a satellite phone to call for help, spokesman for the Alpine Club of Pakistan Karrar Haidri told Reuters.
“We have no contact now with Tomasz,” said Janusz Majer, who helped prepare the Polish expedition team currently scaling K2, adding that messages sent by Revol said Mackiewicz was suffering from snow blindness and frostbite.
“We do not know in what condition he is in. He hid himself in a crevasse to seek protection from wind. Tomasz in the past has spent a couple of nights above 7,000 meters, but with all the needed equipment ... Now he has no tent,” Majer said.
Mackiewicz has made six previous attempts to scale Nanga Parbat in winter. The first successful winter ascent of the mountain was made as recently as February 2016.
A GoFundMe web page set up to raise the estimated 50,000 euros ($62,000)required to pay for the rescue operation costs reached its target in four hours.
Pakistan rivals Nepal for the number of peaks over 7,000 meters (23,000 feet).
Iqbal Hussain, the head of the tourism department for Pakistan’s Gilgit region, where Nanga Parbat is located, told Reuters that the rescue operation would begin on Saturday.
The Polish foreign ministry said on Twitter that it would assist with the rescue operation, and “on the ground efforts are being coordinated by the Polish Embassy in Islamabad.”
In June a Spanish man and an Argentinian perished in an avalanche while trying to scale Nanga Parbat.
Bid to rescue Polish man, French woman on Pakistan 'Killer Mountain' starts Saturday
Bid to rescue Polish man, French woman on Pakistan 'Killer Mountain' starts Saturday
Trump vows ‘turnaround for the ages’ in State of the Union
- “As president, I will make peace wherever I can — but I will never hesitate to confront threats to America wherever we must”
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump boasted Tuesday of a “turnaround for the ages” in a State of the Union speech, seeking to reverse his dismal polls and see off mounting challenges at home and abroad ahead of crucial midterm elections.
Arriving to address a joint session of Congress, Trump was welcomed with cheers and a standing ovation from Republicans — while Democrats remained seated in protest.
“My fellow Americans, our nation is back bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever before,” Trump said.
The 79-year-old hoped the primetime stage will help him to sell voters on the achievements of a breakneck and deeply divisive first year back in power.
Trump is deep underwater in opinion polls and Republicans fear they could lose their tiny majority in the House to the Democrats — paralyzing the rest of Trump’s second term and exposing him to a possible third impeachment.
The Republican however struck a defiant tone in the first official State of the Union of his second term.
“Tonight, after just one year, I can say with dignity and pride that we have achieved a transformation like no one has ever seen before, and a turnaround for the ages,” Trump said.
And he sought to seize on national enthusiasm over Team USA’s gold medal winning Olympic ice hockey performance, inviting the players to join him on the floor of the Chamber to massive cheers and chants of “USA.”
He then announced he was awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the highest civilian honor — to the team’s goalie.
The New York Times said at least 40 Democrats were set to skip the speech.
‘Confront threats to America’
As US naval and air forces massed around Iran, Trump struck a tough posture.
There was intense scrutiny over whether Trump would use the speech to announce his next moves in Iran, where he has threatened to use force to crush the country’s nuclear ambitions.
“As president, I will make peace wherever I can — but I will never hesitate to confront threats to America wherever we must,” Trump was to say, according to the excerpts.
He also boasted that Venezuela, where US forces toppled longtime strongman Nicolas Maduro in January, was now shipping oil to the United States.
Long speech
Speculation mounted that the speech could be as long as three hours — far outstripping the hour and 40 minutes that Trump gave in the longest ever speech to lawmakers last year.
The annual speech to Congress is a rare chance to appear on all the major television networks simultaneously — and Trump is hoping to take advantage to shift the country’s mood ahead of November’s Midterms.
Trump has been battered by a series of blows in the second year of his second term, most recently with the Supreme Court’s striking down of his trade tariffs policy.
Trump, who earlier branded the court’s justices “fools and lapdogs” over the tariff ruling, briefly shook hands with several of the justices in attendance but went on in his speech to declare their ruling “very unfortunate.”
The billionaire has also been rocked by a backlash by the killing of two US citizens in immigration raids in Minneapolis, the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, and a new partial government shutdown.
A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll published on Sunday showed his approval rating at 39 percent. Only 41 percent approved of his handling of the economy overall, and just 32 percent on inflation.
Hockey players, Epstein victims
Adding to the interest were guests that both Republicans and Democrats brought to watch the address from the gallery, part of a long tradition.
In addition to inviting the men’s ice hockey team, Trump announced that the women’s team — which also won gold at the Olympics — would be coming to the White House.
This came after the team said it would not attend the State of the Union amid controversy over Trump’s public joke to the men’s team about having to bring the women too.
Two Democratic members of the House of Representatives said they were bringing as guests the family members of a victim of Epstein’s alleged sex-trafficking ring.
