Nepal holds Cabinet meeting at Mount Everest

Nepal's top politicians strapped on oxygen tanks Friday and held a Cabinet meeting amid the frigid, thin air of Mount Everest to highlight the danger global warming poses to glaciers, ahead of next week's international climate change talks.

The government billed the stunt as the world's highest Cabinet meeting. The ministers posed for pictures, signed a commitment to tighten environmental regulations and expand the nation's protected areas, and then quickly flew away.

"The Everest declaration was a message to the world to minimize the negative impact of climate change on Mount Everest and other Himalayan mountains," Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal later said.

The prime minister, his two deputy prime ministers and the 20 Cabinet ministers were examined by doctors before boarding helicopters to Kalapathar, a flat area at an altitude of 17,192 feet next to Everest base camp, the jumping point for climbers seeking to scale the peak.

The Himalayan Rescue Association's Bikram Neupane said the politicians — bundled in thick jackets, windproof gear and woolen hats — all had adequate oxygen levels in their blood and they were in no immediate danger.