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Showing posts from November 23, 2006

Nepal - A Beautiful Country

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Nepal is a small developing country in South Asia sandwiched between two Asian giants, China and India More than 80% of its people follow Hinduism. For a small country, the Nepali landscape is uncommonly diverse, ranging from the humid Terai in the south to the lofty Himalayas in the north. It is notable that within a very small width the elevation of Nepal increases from the plain terrain to the tallest Himalayas leading to great vegetation. Nepal boasts eight of the world's ten highest mountains, including Mount Everest on the border with China. Kathmandu is the capital and largest city. The other main cities include Biratnagar, Birgunj, Janakpur, Pokhara, Nepalgunj, and Mahendranagar etc. The origin of the name Nepal is uncertain, but the most popular understanding is that it derived from Ne (holy) and pal (cave). The Hindu culture of the Indo-Gangetic plains and the Buddhist culture of the Tibetan plateau have intermingled in Nepal to create a complex, fascinating mosaic. Nepa...

124-pound Blue Catfish dies

KANSAS CITY: A record 124-pound blue catfish caught earlier this week by an Illinois man fishing in the Mississippi River died on its way to the Cabela’s Outfitter store where it was to go on display. Tim Pruitt, 33, of Godfrey, Ill., caught the world-record blue catfish early Sunday near Alton. The fish, measuring 58 inches long and 44 inches around, was kept alive and was to be displayed in a tank at Cabela’s in Kansas City, Kan., but it died en route to the store. “We’re baffled by this,” Fred Cronin, a fisheries biologist for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, told The Kansas City Star. “We took a lot of precautions to see that the fish was comfortable. “But we’re talking about a fish that was very old, very heavy,” he said. “The stress of being transported like that could have been too much.”