1 A4 SATURDAY, APRIL 10, 2004 THE HARTFORD COURANT NATION WORLD Lottery HIGH AMBITION SCALING MOUNTAINS, BREAKING BARRIERS -9 1 1 yi: m. act a s. FRIDAY, APRIL 9, 2004 Connecticut Mid-Day 3: 476 Mid-Day 4: 1507 Play Three: 889 Way Four 2694 Cash Five: 1.6, 12, 17, 24 Classic Lotto: 6, 19, 24, 29, 33,35 Tonight's estimated Powerball jackpot: $57 million New York Mid-Day Daily: 826 Mid-Day WinFour: 1991 Daily: 222 WinFour: 7629 Pick 10: 9, 10, 15, 17, 28, 29,32,36,37,39,46,51, 60,63,64,67,71,75,76, 80 Massachusetts Daily: 7079 Maine-Vermont-New Hampshire: Day. 120 and 4561 Evening: 172 and 0055 Rhode Island Daily: 1667 it a TONIGHT ON FOX 61: Easter Maneuvers National Guard troops just back from Iraq celebrate Easter weekend with their families. But for families with a loved one still in the war zone, it can be an emotional rollercoaster.
The story tonight on Fox 61 News At Ten. WOMEN PARTICIPATING in a pro-democracy protest Monday near the royal palace in Katmandu, Nepal, sit down between soldiers trying to control the demonstrators and members of the political coalition organizing the protest. PROTESTERS IN KATMANDU FOIL CLIMBERS' DOWNTIME bers from Connecticut, it has been devastating to those who depend on clinv bers for their living. Tourism accounts for 3.8 percent of the country's gross domestic product but provides 18 percent of foreign exchange. Amid declines in domestic industries and tourism, mountaineering is one of the few sustaining means of commerce, and even that seems to be chilling as the revolution heats up.
Ang Maya Sherpa, of the Solo Khum-bu, home to the most prosperous of the Sherpa people, was one of the sponsors of the Sherpa women's expedition to Mount Everest in 2000. At a party Sunday night honoring Lhakpa Sherpa of Hartford, and the Connecticut Everest Expedition, she said she couldn't provide that kind of support today. For the 2000 climb, she provided all the down clothes and sleeping bags, some of the climbing expedition's most expensive gear. But back then she had seven trekking and mountaineering shops throughout Nepal Today she estimates her business has plummeted 60 percent, and she keeps only her shop in Katmandu open. Yankila Sherpa, the only minister of Parliament who is both a Sherpa and a woman, is all too aware of the rapidly climbing poverty, unemployment and despair of Nepal's mountain peoples.
"Only tourism can address these problems," Sherpa said. "Here in Nepal, tourism is very important It creates jobs for the huge mass of wkilled people in the mountains." MICHAEL KODAS THE HARTFORD COURANT By the time we woke up Monday morning a day before a strike threatened to bring transportation to a halt half of the climbers' visas still had not been approved by the Chinese Embassy. Frantic negotiations by representatives from Asian Trekking broke the log- jam, getting the last of the Connecticut expedition members their visas. By 11 am we were cramming into a Land Cruiser for the 3-hour drive to Friendship Bridge, which spans the border between Nepal and the Chinese region of Tibet In the hills outside Katmandu, soldiers, some covered with face paint and camouflage mesh, guns at the ready, marched along the street But less than an hour up the road, three public buses burned by the rebels replaced the roadside patrols. A red hammer and sickle adorned a nearby wall When we arrived in Kodari, the Nepali town on the border, the crossing was already closed.
But we were close enough. We would have to cross the border on foot, anyway, and the rebels were unlikely to cause trouble so close to the Chinese military. Tuesday morning, as the strike crippled Nepal, we picked up our backpacks and hiked across Friendship Bridge to Tibet Courant journalist Michael Kodas is part of the seven-member Connecticut Everest Expedition that hopes to summit Mount Everest in May. Frequent updates on their journey are available at www.ctnow.comexpedition. To keep up to date with the expedition throughout its trip, visit www.ctnow.comexpedition.
might put us as many as 10 days behind schedule a delay that could prove impossible to make up. The race to complete our Chinese visas, procure the last of our supplies and pack, made what was supposed to be a few relaxing days in Katmandu seem more like a dash to escape a collapsing building. Weekend shopping was complicated as small cadres of protesters marched through the Thamel section of Katmandu chanting slogans, waving red flags, and bringing on an early start to the strikes. Traffic backed up through the narrow streets, and shopkeepers slammed the metal doors of their shops closed as the groups passed to keep their windows from being smashed a common method of enforcing the strikes. Two bombs exploded around the corner from our hotel, and protests near the royal palace again turned bloody.
Trekking and tourism operators pleaded in the papers for the Maoists to shorten the strike, which promised to hurt the people of the mountains worst of all Wlule the Maoist revolution is a frightening inconvenience to the clim By MICHAEL KODAS COURANT STAFF WRITER NYALAM, China The irony wasn't lost on a single member of the team. Not until the Connecticut climbers crossed into China, the nation where Mao Zedong led the world's most durable communist revolution, were we safe from the Nepali revolutionaries who fight in his name. After stepping off our flights in Katmandu, the Connecticut Everest Expedition was trapped between two factions: Maoists, who since 1996 have waged an increasingly violent revolution to unseat the monarchy in favor of a communist state; and a coalition of five political parties leading protests in the capital city, trying to force the king to reinstate the democratically elected government he dismissed two years ago. As the last of us was arriving at Katmandu airport a week ago, 25,000 political protesters were filling the streets near the royal palace. Eventually, the rally became a riot, sending more than 200 demonstrators to the hospital.
The bamboo canes, tear gas and gunshots of the police and military didn't deter the protesters, though. They returned for three more days. What worried us most was the Maoists' call for a nationwide strike Tuesday through Thursday. A strike would completely shut down the country and prevent the team from leaving Katmandu. There were rumors that it also would close the border to Chinese Tibet, which Central A health care chain has set up a new company to send food to several facilities, but the idea is not universally accepted.
CONTINUED FROM PAGE Al Healthcare has sparked a food fight between the chain and union officials over the quality of the food. "Army rations," sniffed Jennifer Smith, spokeswoman for the New England Health Care Employees Union, District 1199, which represents workers at seven of the Haven Healthcare homes in Connecticut "A homestyle buffet is the closest comparison," countered Termini. "The portions are bigger, hotter and better" than the meals that used to be served at his nursing homes, he said. At Rocky Hill, the meals are de livered trays stored Kitchen onto plates Things in When Foods was a Melvin Hill for hadn't would Rojas residents' supplied The want said. Galley the taco THE HARTFORD COURANT AND FOX 61 ARE NOW WORKING TOGETHER TO BRING YOU THE BEST NEWS COVERAGE.
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The Hartford Cour ant's twbrMy shaM be krmted to the amount pd by the advwtir for the first tsrtwn oory in no event shaH fhe Hartford Courant be table for consequential damages of any kind. Telephone 860-241-6200 or 800-524-4242 (Outside Hartford area) Plant Ships Meals To Homes benefits for dozens of workers. Smith at District 1199 said that cutbacks on hours worked by cooks and dietary aides amount to more than 110 hours per week at each union home where the new plan has been implemented. Also, full-time workers have lost benefits, she said. The union has filed a grievance against Haven Healthcare for contract violations.
Fatone said that nursing home operators have to make tough decisions as the costs of operating nursing homes continue to increase. Eighteen nursing homes have closed in Connecticut in the last two years, Fatone said, "and we are going to see more close if the funding crisis is not addressed." But, said Bedard, try ing to save money on meals should be taken off the table. "To me, this is almost sacred," he said. in large aluminum serving three times a week and in a walk-in freezer. staff heat them in a convection oven and ladle the food to be delivered to residents.
People are welcome to seconds. like toast and sandwiches and snacks are still prepared the kitchen. the change to Galley was made in January, "I little skeptical" said cook Rojas, who has been employed at Haven Health of Rocky two years. "But if we told the residents, they not have known the difference." did say there was a brief revolt over taco salads by the company. home's residents "didn't any part of them," Rojas Foods stopped sending salads and has accommo dated menu requests as well as patients' special dietary needs, Rojas said.
The home's administrator, citing medical confidentiality laws, declined a reporter's request to interview residents about the food. However, phone calls to residents yielded a mixed bag of reactions. One woman said the meals were cold and greasy, but added she thought the change to the new food company had happened more than a year ago, not in January. Another woman said she liked the food. A third said that "food doesn't interest me much anyway." The dwindling appetite of many frail elderly people is one reason critics say that off-site food preparation is a bad idea for nursing homes.
"Weight loss is a huge problem for us," said Karen Morton, vice president of food services at Apple Healthcare, which operates 21 homes in New England. "Our take on this is, let's make some good food that people want to eat" The ability of residents to cook for themselves in communal kitchens in their homes is one of Apple Healthcare's major marketing tools. "We are going to protect our culture and remember every day we are guests in the homes of our residents," Bedard said. He acknowledged, however, that nursing home operators are under tremendous pressure to cut costs because Medicaid reimbursem*nts, which pay for 60 percent to 70 percent of nursing home costs, have been essentially frozen by the state for the years 2003 through 2005. Termini said cost savings achieved by the off-site meal preparation differed home by home in his chain.
Union officials say the Galley Foods plan will cost jobs and 1 i I.
