... of land reclaimed from the sea. Only about 12 percent is forested, but small tropical and subtropical plants are abundant elsewhere. Hong Kong's small amount of fertile soil is concentrated in the mainland portion of the New Territories, near Deep Bay. Few large wild animals inhabit the dependency. Climate Although within the Tropics, Hong Kong has a subtropical climate because of the southwestern monsoon, a moist, warm, equatorial wind that brings a rainy season between May and August. The mean annual temperature is 22.2° C (72° F), with a range from 15° C (59° F) in February to 27.8° C (82° F) in July. Typhoons occasionally cause great destruction. Peop ...

... line, killing 151 people. The main volcanic hazards of the volcano are laharic flows - matrix-rich flows formed when hot pyroclastic material comes into contact with external water (from the crater lake, melted snow or ice and heavy rainfall), pyroclastic flows - collapse of eruption column causes a hot concentrated flow of debris and gas, and Ash fall - fine volcanic particles held in suspension. Other hazards include the remobilisation of ash, volcanic tremors and avalanches. A future eruption would effect population, buildings, transport, water supply, livestock and crops. In the event of an eruption many of the surrounding villages (especially in the valleys) wo ...

... acreage."1 Soil deficiencies and the intense heat and sunlight allow continued cultivation only by expensive underground pipe-fed irrigation or by hydroponics. Ordinary irrigation under these conditions results in gradually increasing soil salinity. this phenomenon has been the cause of the estimated 1% annual decrease in arable land for the region as a whole. Hence, development of traditional agriculture is severely restricted. 1El Mallakh, Ragaei (Kuwait, Trade and Investment. Boulder, Westview Press Inc., 1989) pg 117 Kuwaitis are under no illusion that self-sufficiency will take less than 20 to 30 years to attain and even then it cannot include ...

... San people, or “Bushmen”. Some San are hunter-gatherers, and some are farmers. Several thousand whites are also included in Botswana's population. Most are of British descent. Most whites earn more money then the blacks, and this causes some racial tension. Although English is the official language of Botswana, most people speak Setswana, a Bantu language. Eighty-five percent of Botswana's people practice traditional African religions, while the rest are Christian. Most Botswanan children attend elementary school, but only fifteen percent will go on to high school. The small percent of people that go to college attend the University of Botswana in Gaborone, the na ...

... descendants of the Aja (Fons, or Dahomey) who had established the early kingdom. Trained for civil service by the French, they are the best educated; literacy is 25% among school-age children. In the N are the nomadic Fulani and the Somba tribe, hunters with no political organization; E are Baribas. 90% of the population is rural, and 65% practices animist religion. French is the common language. Government. Benin has been under military rule since 1970. The constitution of 1977 instituted a national assembly, whose members belong to the sole legal political party, the Benin People's Revolutionary Party. History. Benin's history dates back to three principaliti ...

... According to the legend surrounding Plato's dialogues, the island of Atlantis was violently thrown into the sea by the forces of nature, and its few survivors managed to swim ashore and relate their story. (3) There the legend was passed by word of mouth until an Egyptian priest related the story to Solon, a character in Timaeus. The priest admired the achievements of prehistoric Athenians, because when the rulers of Atlantis threatened to invade all of Europe and Asia the Athenians, on behalf of all Greeks, defeated the Atlanteans to avoid enslavement. (4) The works of Plato opened the floodgates to endless speculation on whether the continent described ...

... Venezuelan troops won the battle of Boyacá in on Aug. 7, 1819 which gave the rebels victory over the royalist. The Republic of Gran was established with Cucuta as its capital. Simon Bolivar became the first president of the new republic of Gran which included present day Panama, Venezuela and Ecuador in 1822. Francisco de Paula Santander was elected Vice-President. The United States recognized the republic of the Gran in 1822 and other nations followed suit. The Gran existed only briefly, Venezuela seceded in 1829 and Ecuador followed in 1830. The remaining province, consisted most of modern day and Panama was named the Republic of Nueva Granada in 18 ...

... reached 86 degrees Fahrenheit or 30 degrees Celsius. The low temperature in Tokyo, Japan occurs in the months of January and February when temperatures only reach 30 degrees Fahrenheit or –1 degrees Celsius. The language spoken in Japan is Japanese. The other languages are minority languages. The religion in Japan is made up of 85% of Shinto and/or Buddhism and the other 15% are made up of others such as Shinko Shakyo (new religions) and Christianity. People in Japan have the ethnic backgrounds of 99% Japanese. The other 1-% includes Koreans, Chinese, and Ainu. The food and drink that is eaten here is mostly rice. The drink is sake, which is a s ...

... and abundant bird life such as toucans, herons and kingfishers. The climate in varies between the mountainous interior and the coastal lowlands and between the Pacific and Caribbean coasts. The interior is much cooler than the humid coast, and temperate Tegucigalpa has maximum temperatures varying between 25 and 30 degrees Celsius. The rainy season technically begins in May and lasts until October. This means that the interior and Pacific coast are relatively dry between November and April, but on the Caribbean coast it rains all year. The wettest months on the Caribbean coast are from September/October to January/February. The tourist season on the Caribbean coas ...

... surroundings, trying to figure out if there is an end to the lake. However, all they can see is the blue water that seems endless, where in the middle there is a mountain where most of the boats are headed. As they get near the mountain, other people are already climbing and others walking through the path other villagers had made long ago. Once off the boat, the first steps to the path are few feet away from the shoreline. The steps they take are considered sacred and the people are supposed to go on them bear footed. These steps are made up of little rocks, some of them smoother than others. The first few steps up the mountain are relatively simple to climb. ...