World Cup 2022: Far from the glitz of Qatar a migrant worker’s family grieves
To provide a living for his family, Kashiram Belbase joined the thousands leaving Nepal to build Qatar’s infrastructure to host the World Cup.
“We needed to build a house, send children to school, and manage the family,” recalled his wife, Dhankala.
“We had no money to manage everything. That’s why he went.”
And where he died.
In a Nepalese village, a son and daughter are now without their father.
Part of the vast low-paid migrant workforce from the Indian subcontinent in Doha, the 32-year-old was helping to build the metro transport system when he was found dead.
A premature death put down to underlying causes by Qataris. Respiratory failure his wife fears was caused by working in gruelling conditions in the desert nation.
“When I heard about the heart attack,” she told Sky News, “I felt it might be possible as it is extremely hot there.”
The anguish is deepened by the unanswered questions about her husband’s death and the lack of significant compensation from Qatar – effectively just the pay he was owed.
The 32-year-old had been helping to build Doha’s metro transport system
“Had we still been together, for example, it would not have been difficult for me to fulfil our children’s needs,” Dhankala weeps in the family home, where her husband’s picture hangs on the green walls.
“I feel they should have looked after us since Qatar is a rich country. No one from there provided us any kind of support.
“They only bore the cost of transportation of the body to Kathmandu from there.”
The sense of frustration – at times anger – is why in the weeks before the World Cup starts, European football federations, including the English and Welsh, are lobbying for a Qatari compensation fund.
As a family grieves far from the glitz of Qatar, the hope is the world’s biggest stars use their status to make an impact beyond the pitch.
“As they come to play there, they should appeal for providing support to the family of those who lost their lives while building the infrastructure,” 33-year-old Dhankala says.
“I wish they could support us and make an appeal. They could take care for the family.”
In fierce heat, the final touches are being made to ensure Qatar is World Cup ready
Government officials were not made available to speak to Sky News during a week-long visit in Qatar, where the UN’s labour agency assesses progress in improving rights and conditions for workers.
“We do need to have stronger investigations, whether they’re health investigations or labour investigations, to determine whether work could have played a factor in the worker’s death,” Max Tunon, head of the International Labour Organisation’s Doha office, told Sky News.
Mr Tunon recognises Qatar has made progress raising standards as the country has expanded since winning the FIFA World Cup vote in 2010.
The tournament is leaving a legacy with the introduction of a minimum wage and efforts to dismantle the Kafala system that ties workers to their employers.
“There’s greater labour mobility, greater freedoms, greater empowerment for workers,” he said.
“But we also know that there are huge issues that still exist, the full implementation of the Kafala reforms, it’s still a challenge for us, wage protection abuses are still too common and the rights of domestic workers you know, there’s new legislation protecting them in terms of working time, that right to the day off, but often we see a degree of non-compliance in these areas.”
With the tournament to start shortly, the window is closing for football to push for change
With the tournament opening on 20 November, the window is shortening for football to push for changes and ensure their presence in Qatar does not contribute to more suffering by workers.
“We’ve been trying to facilitate the role that football associations can play in doing their due diligence, but also engaging with worker management committees in their hotels, and also with the other contractors that they engage with during the World Cup,” Mr Tunon said.
“They need to talk to workers, talk to the worker representatives in the hotels to find out, what are the actual challenges or the issues that they face. Perhaps there are challenges, perhaps their success stories.”
Qatar has made progress raising standards, but ‘huge issues’ remain
Progress that is often undermined by the lack of clarity of why so many workers like Mr Belbase have died so young to ensure this tiny nation can cope with the influx of hundreds of thousands of fans for 64 matches in 29 days.
In the fierce heat, the final arduous touches are being made to ensure Qatar is World Cup ready.
The hope will be Qatar’s advances in labour rights continue after FIFA has left and there is no more unnecessary suffering.
Ukraine’s president is offering an olive branch to Donald Trump with a dramatic public message aimed at mending their relationship and ending Russia’s war.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy chose social media – the US leader’s favourite mode of communication – to make his point.
He did not go so far as to apologise for a fiery bust-up with Mr Trump at the Oval Office last Friday – a move that some members of the US administration have called for, even though it was the American president and his deputy JD Vance who laid into Mr Zelenskyy.
Instead, he described the encounter as “regrettable”, saying it “did not go the way it was supposed to be” and it was “time to make things right”.
Ukrainian forces fire a missile towards Russian troops near Chasiv Yar. Pic: Reuters
Most significantly though was his spelling out of a vision for the first stage of how Russia’s war with Ukraine could end.
Pushing back on false claims by Trump allies such as Elon Musk that Mr Zelenskyy wants an endless war, he said that Ukraine is committed to peace and is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible.
Crucially, he said: “We are ready to work fast to end the war, and the first stages could be the release of prisoners and truce in the sky – ban on missiles, long-ranged drones, bombs on energy and other civilian infrastructure – and truce in the sea immediately, if Russia will do the same.”
Appealing to the US president’s ego, he praised Mr Trump’s “strong leadership” and repeated his gratitude for past American support – again responding to criticism from the American commander in chief and his team that he is not showing enough gratitude.
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He also said Kyiv was ready to sign a key minerals deal with Washington – something else Mr Trump is seeking.
This message appears to be an attempt by Mr Zelenskyy to steer his relationship with Mr Trump back on track and to map out his idea for an end to the war – a conflict that Ukraine did not seek but which was brought to its land by Russia’s invading forces.
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday, before their Oval Office bust-up. Pic: AP
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Key now will be how the US president responds.
Will Mr Zelenskyy’s expression of regret and clear wish to end the war provide enough of an off-ramp for Mr Trump to defuse the row and – for the sake of Ukraine’s ability to defend itself – switch back on the flow of military assistance to the country?
Another major factor, of course, is how Vladimir Putin reacts and whether he could countenance a limited ceasefire in a war that he started and – unlike Mr Zelenskyy – appears to have no genuine desire to halt.
Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada have come into effect, as has an additional 10% on Chinese products, bringing the total import tax to 20%.
The US president confirmed the tariffs in a speech at the White House – and his announcement sent US and European stocks down sharply.
The tariffs will be felt heavily by US companies which have factories in Canada and Mexico, such as carmakers.
Mr Trump said: “They’re going to have a tariff. So what they have to do is build their car plants, frankly, and other things in the United States, in which case they have no tariffs.”
There’s “no room left” for a deal that would see the tariffs shelved if fentanyl flowing into the US is curbed by its neighbours, he added.
Mexico and Canada face tariffs of 25%, with 10% for Canadian energy, the Trump administration confirmed.
And tariffs on Chinese imports have doubled, raising them from 10% to 20%.
Canada announced it would retaliate immediately, imposing 25% tariffs on US imports worth C$30bn (£16.3bn). It added the tariffs would be extended in 21 days to cover more US goods entering the country if the US did not lift its sanctions against Canada.
China also vowed to retaliate and reiterated its stance that the Trump administration was trying to “shift the blame” and
“bully” Beijing over fentanyl flows.
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Mr Trump’s speech stoked fears of a trade war in North America, prompting a financial market sell-off.
Stock market indexes the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite fell by 1.48% and 2.64% respectively on Monday.
The share prices for automobile companies including General Motors, which has significant truck production in Mexico, Automaker and Ford also fell.
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Consumers in the US could see price hikes within days, an expert has said.
Gustavo Flores-Macias, a public policy professor at Cornell University, New York, said “the automobile sector, in particular, is likely to see considerable negative consequences”.
This is due to supply chains that “crisscross the three countries in the manufacturing process” and ” because of the expected increase in the price of vehicles, which can dampen demand,” he added.
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The Trump administration is gearing up to bring in other tariffs in the coming weeks.
On 2 April, reciprocal tariffs will take effect on all countries that impose duties on US products.
He is also considering 25% tariffs on goods from the EU “very soon” after claiming the bloc was created to “screw the United States”.
A truck has collided with a bus in southern Bolivia, killing at least 31 people, according to police – just two days after a deadly crash claimed at least 37 lives.
Officers said the bus rolled some 500m (1,640ft) down a ravine after the collision on Monday, which took place on the highway between Oruro, in the Bolivian Altiplano, and the highland mining city of Potosi.
The driver of the truck has been arrested, while the cause of the accident is under investigation.
Police spokesperson Limbert Choque said men and women were among the dead, and 22 people suffered injuries.
Rescue teams operating at the site of the crash. Pic: Bolivia’s attorney general/Reuters
Bolivia’s President, Luis Arce, expressed condolences for the victims on social media: “This unfortunate event must be investigated to establish responsibilities,” he said in a post on Facebook.
“We send our most sincere condolences to the bereaved families, wishing them the necessary strength to face these difficult times.”
The crash happened between Oruro and Potosi
On Saturday morning, a crash between two buses killed more than three dozen people in the same region.
It happened between Colchani and the city of Uyuni, a major tourist attraction and the world’s largest salt flat.
People stand near the wreckage of one of the two buses involved in a crash on Saturday. Pic: Reuters/Potosi Departmental Command
Coincidentally, one of the buses was heading to Oruro, where one of the most important carnival celebrations in Latin America is currently taking place.
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More than 30 people were also killed after a bus crash on 17 February.
In that crash, police said the driver appeared to have lost control of the vehicle, causing it to drop more than 800m (2,600ft) off a precipice in the southwestern area of Yocalla.
Bolivia’s mountainous, undermaintained and poorly supervised roads are some of the deadliest in the world, claiming an average 1,400 fatalities every year.
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