Elephants roaming the parched plains of Africa’s national parks can get up to half their food by risky midnight raids into crop fields, according to scientists who tracked a herd by satellite monitoring. Conservationists hope that, by understanding the elephants’ behaviour, they can improve ways of protecting farmers against damage caused by the animals — and the elephants themselves.
The posters at the bus stops show either the Syrian flag or a large, simple portrait of the President, Bashar al-Assad. There are no words, for the message is well understood: support the regime. In shop windows, stickers show the flag, this time accompanied by a rallying cry such as ”Only for Syria” or ”Syria bows to no one but God”. The clamour for reform is drowned out by a tide of patriotism.
The Acropolis in Athens made it, as did Angkor Wat temple in Cambodia, China’s Great Wall, the Colosseum in Rome, the Inca temple of Machu Picchu in Peru, Stonehenge in England and the Moai — the Easter Island statues. Less immediately obvious choices in a final shortlist of 21 contenders for the New Seven Wonders of the World included the Kremlin in Moscow, the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty.
Preceding last week’s televised announcement of the 2005 matric results was a programme called Shift. One caller asked what school subjects she should take to prepare herself for a career as a model. The studio panel’s answer was that there aren’t any such subjects. This interchange put a finger very precisely on what has become a key question to ask of the matric exam: Who exactly is it for?
It must rank as one of the most awkward editorial conclaves ever held. On December 5, three senior personnel from The New York Times were summoned to the Oval Office by George W Bush to discuss an investigation the newspaper was conducting on surveillance of United States citizens.
International diplomacy’s game of musical chairs played again at midnight on December 31 when Britain’s G8 presidency came to an end and leadership of the world’s most exclusive political club passed for the first time to Russia. Will the Russian government will prove itself worthy of the status it has acquired or whether its G8 presidency is destined to be seen as an embarrassing anomaly?
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Three American mountain climbers were killed and another seriously injured along with four porters in a rockslide on Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro, an official and tour operators at Africa’s highest peak said on Thursday. Two groups were hit early on Wednesday by a cascade of falling rocks and boulders dislodged by a strong gust of wind.
Author Marjorie Kellogg, whose socially conscious plays and novels featured characters with mental and physical illnesses, has died. She was 83. Kellogg, best known for Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon, died on December 19 of complications from Alzheimer’s disease at her Santa Barbara home.
It could take a week before doctors treating Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, placed in a deep coma after suffering a massive brain haemorrhage, can assess whether he has suffered permanent damage, head surgeon Felix Umansky said on Thursday. Meanwhile, the era of Ariel Sharon in Israel and the region is over, analysts pointed out.