Kathmandu: Nepal has begun measuring the world’s highest mountain, Mt. Sagarmatha or Everest (also called Qomolangma).
This is the first time that Nepal is carrying out the measurement of the world”s highest peak on its own, the Xinhua news agency reports.
The measurement work will begin taking the Kolkata port of India as the sea level for the measurement and is expected to be completed within two years, according to the Ministry of Land Reform and Management.
The measurement work has been initiated after Nepal became technologically capable of measuring the mountain.
According to Tuesday”s National News Agency RSS report, the height of Mt. Qomolangma has been mentioned as 8,848.13 meters in the Nepal-China border treaty.
During the border related dialogue held with Nepal, China has been stating that a unilateral inspection carried out by the government of China has found that the mountain”s rock height was 8,844.42 meters and 8,847.933 meters when measured with snow deposit.
In 1990, American geologist Wash Borne had claimed that the mountain measured 8,850 meters.
Nepal”s Tenzing Norge Sherpa and Edmund Hillary of New Zealand were the first to reach atop Mt. Everest on May 29, 1953. (ANI)
Text messages go public in Russia after glitch
Moscow: Thousands of mobile phone text messages went public in Russia after an error occurred at one of the country’s top mobile operators.
About 8,000 text messages – complete with their telephone numbers – were detected by a search engine after being sent from Megafon’s website.
Megafon, which has 57 million customers across Russia, said the mass leak occurred because of a technical glitch with the site’s external administrator.
Russia’s Investigative Committee was looking into the incident. (IANS)
Britons may soon fly cars!
London: A flying car which usually finds its mention in children books or animated cartoon movies, may soon become a reality in Britain.
Aviation experts are saying a flying car could be in regular use in Britain within five years after a model was formally approved by US authorities, Daily Mail reported Monday.
The $250,000 Terrafugia Transition is a two-seater aircraft, which has a top speed of 115 mph, a range of 500 miles on a tank of fuel and requires just 20 hours training to fly.
The car, at the touch of a button, takes just 15 seconds for its wings to fold up automatically and the power to be re-routed from the propeller to the rear wheels.
It can then be driven at up to 65 mph and will comfortably fit in a standard size garage.
“It’s like a little Transformer,” said Terrafugia founder Carl Dietrich, referring to the children’s toys that were turned into a blockbuster movie franchise.
Although aimed primarily at buyers in the US where there are plenty of airstrips and 600 ‘fly-in’ communities – Boeing 707 owner John Travolta being the best-known fan – more than 20 Britons have already declared an interest in the carbon-fibre vehicle. (IANS)
This woman craves for furniture polish
London: A pregnant woman in Britain has a strange craving for furniture polish.
Emma Veness, 26, ingests the spray at least thrice a day, The Sun reported.
Emma, who is seven months pregnant, has been diagnosed with a rare disorder that sees sufferers with a craving for non-food items.
“I can’t explain why I like it so much. I think it has a lot to do with the texture. I normally spray a bit on my fingers and lick it off or spray it on the duster and suck,” she was quoted as saying. (IANS)
Man to die for keeping sex slaves
Beijing: A Chinese court has upheld the death sentence of a man who kidnapped two girls, kept them as sex slaves and raped nine others, the China Daily reported Tuesday.
The court ruling came in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei province.
Zeng Qiangbao, 40, was convicted of illegally holding the women, rape, robbery and forcible seizure.
He caged the two girls for 570 and 317 days respectively, from 2008 until they were rescued on May 14, 2010. He also raped nine other women from July 2007 to May 2010. (IANS)
China’s internet population is 485 million
Beijing: The number of China’s internet users reached 485 million by the end of June 2011, an increase of 27.7 million from the end of 2010, the China Daily reported Tuesday.
China’s population of micro blog users has seen an explosive growth of 208.9 percent, from 63.11 million to 195 million, it said.
The statistics came from the 28th Statistical Report on Internet Development in China.
About 65.5 percent of China’s Internet users, or 318 million people, use mobile phones to surf the Web, an increase of 14.94 million from the end of last year.
In the first six months of 2011, 217 million internet users were attacked by a virus or trojan horse programmes. (IANS)