Elusive yeti finally tracked down in Nepal?

Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: palashchandrabiswas@gmail.com
Strong quake jolts Indonesia, no tsunami
Jakarta: A powerful earthquake struck western Indonesia on Saturday, geological agencies said, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
The tremor had a preliminary magnitude of 6.2 and was centered 100 kilometers from Sibolga, a city on Sumatra island, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It struck 35 kilometers beneath the earth's surface. It earlier put the magnitude at 6.1.
The Indonesian geological agency put the quake's strength at 6.3 and said it hit at a depth of 18 kilometers. The agency did not issue a tsunami warning as the quake was too close to the coast line, said local meteorologist Ali Imron.
Elusive yeti finally tracked down in Nepal?
Kathmandu: More than 20 years after mountaineering legend Reinhold Messner became the butt of ridicule for saying he had sighted the legendary yeti in eastern Tibet, an American channel says it has come across extraordinary footsteps in north Nepal that could belong to the elusive beast.
American Sci-Fi Channel, which produces "Destination Truth" - a programme that goes on the trail of fabled birds, beasts and other creatures - returned to Kathmandu Friday after its quest for the yeti resulted in the discovery of three footprints in a river bed in Solukhumbu, the district known as the gateway to Mt Everest.
"We had been setting up infra-red cameras in different locations for three days when Tul Bahadur Rai (the crew's liaison officer) spotted the footprints," Brad Kuhlman, executive producer of the show, told IANS.
"My first reaction was, oh boy! I was amazed at coming across the pristine steps. It was like finding a needle in a haystack."
Embedded in the sandy bed of river Monju, at a height of nearly 3,000 metres, were three footprints measuring about 15 inches. The prints had five toes, in contradiction of a local legend that attributes the animal with only four toes.
"There were two rights prints and a left," Kuhlman said. "One right print is very clean with the heel dug into the ground. It was as if the animal that made the prints had jumped from the boulders surrounding the sand."
The triumphant explorers have made casts of the prints, which will be now taken to experts in the US to study and indicate what could have made them.
"We are not sure of anything," Kuhlman said when asked if he believed the prints were incontrovertible evidence that the yeti existed.
"We are only sure that what we found would be impossible to be made by humans. Though the prints do not definitively prove the existence of the yeti, they will at least raise questions and awareness," he added.
Four years ago, yeti believers were aghast when Japanese climber Makoto Nebuka triggered a fierce debate saying he had researched the yeti for 12 years and concluded that it was actually the endangered Himalayan brown bear or meti.
Messner, the daredevil Austrian mountaineer who has climbed all the 14 highest peaks in the world, however, is a champion of the yeti's existence and claims he has encountered the creature four times, once including a mother and child.
The yeti legend became known in the nineteenth century when the Sherpas' belief in an ape-like gentle creature that walked erect like man and lived in solitude among mountains reached the outside world.
The first search expeditions for the yeti, also known as the Abominable Snowman and Banmanchhe - meaning creature of the jungles in Nepali - started in the 1920s but none could ferret anything more than footprints.
The American team that could have made one of the most sensational discoveries of the year now heads for Zanzibar to track down the popabowa, a vampire like bat that is believed to come out at night and attack people.
US Democrats reach fuel efficiency deal, clearing way for vote
Washington: Congressional Democrats reached a compromise to boost automobile fuel economy by 40 percent, clearing the way for a House vote probably next week on an energy bill that Democratic leaders would like to send to President Bush before Christmas.
The agreement came late Friday after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reached an accord with Rep. John Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan who is a longtime protector of the auto industry that dominates his home state, to ease the impact of the new fuel economy requirements.
''A compromise has been reached on automobile fuel efficiency standards,'' Dingell announced in a statement.
Automakers would be required to meet an industry-wide average of 35 miles per gallon (15 kilometers per liter) for cars and light trucks, including SUVs, by 2020, the first increase by the U.S. Congress in car fuel efficiency in 32 years.
With oil prices hovering near $90 a barrel and gasoline above the relatively high price of $3 a gallon (79 U.S. cents or 54 euro cents per liter) in the U.S., Democrats have been eager to send Bush a package of new energy measures.
But Democratic leaders were stymied over disagreement on the auto fuel efficiency issues as Dingell, the longest serving member of the House and chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, insisted on some provisions to ease the transition for automakers.
Pelosi, a Democrat, said in a statement that the auto efficiency increases ''will serve as the cornerstone'' of the energy bill she intends to bring up for a vote next week.
Agreement among Democrats on the auto fuel economy issue was viewed as the key to getting the bill passed by the Senate, where opponents are sure to launch delay tactics, like prolonged debates, that would require 60 votes to overcome.
Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who strongly opposed the 35 mpg requirement when it passed the Senate in June, endorsed Friday's compromise. It ''will require new fuel economy standards that will be challenging for auto manufacturers,'' he said in a statement. ''But we got concessions on some of the most important issues.''
Under the agreement, the ability of carmakers to use production of so-called flex-fuel vehicles that run on 85 percent ethanol to offset some of the fuel efficiency increases would be extended five years, to 2014. Also, the new standards would be set on the basis of vehicle weight, giving manufactures greater flexibility to meet the requirements for SUVs and pickup trucks.
Still, the industry overall must achieve a 35 mpg average, counting all vehicles, by 2020, compared to the current requirement of 27.5 mpg (11.5 kilometers per liter) fleet average for cars, a level that has not increased since 1989, and 22 mpg (9 kpl) for SUVs, passenger vans and pickups.
Pelosi said the bill also will include a ramp up in the use of ethanol and other biofuels and a requirement for non-public electric utilities to use a minimum amount of renewable energy such as wind and solar to produce their power.
While details of those provisions were still being worked out, aides said the ethanol provision was expected to mirror Senate requirements for use of 36 billion gallons (136 billion liters) of ethanol a year by 2022, a sevenfold increase over today's productions.
Power companies would have to produce 15 percent of their electricity from renewable energy, aides close to the discussions said.
Both the Senate and House approved separate energy bills last summer, but Democratic leaders have struggled for weeks to try to work out a compromise acceptable to both chambers, and garner the 60 votes needed to survive a sure filibuster in the Senate.