I love to travel, mainly to Africa where I was born, I enjoy reading and playing bridge. I go for rambles in the countryside. I collect stamps and go to T'ai Chi classes. I love my two cats and my garden birds. I adore the African wildlife and try to help Conservation groups.
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Astronomers detect '10th planet' .
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Astronomers in the United States have announced the discovery of the 10th planet to orbit our Sun. The largest object found in our Solar System since Neptune was discovered in 1846, it was first seen in 2003 but has only now been confirmed as a planet. Designated 2003 UB313, it is about 3,000km across, a world of rock and ice and somewhat larger than Pluto. Scientists say it is three times as far away as Pluto, in an orbit at an angle to the orbits of the other planets. Astronomers think that at some point in its history, Neptune likely flung it into its highly-inclined 44-degree orbit. It is currently 97 Earth-Sun distances away - more than twice Pluto's average distance from the Sun. Its discoverers are Michael Brown of Caltech, Chad Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii, and David Rabinowitz of Yale University.
David Rabinowitz told the BBC News website: "It has been a remarkable day and a remarkable year. 2003 UB313 is probably larger than Pluto. It is fainter than Pluto, but three times farther away. "Brought to the same distance from the Sun as Pluto, it would be brighter. So today, the world knows that Pluto is not unique. There are other Plutos, just farther out in the Solar System where they are a little harder to find." It was picked up using the Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory and the 8m Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea. Chad Trujillo told the BBC News website: "I feel extremely lucky to be part of a discovery as exciting as this. It's not every day that you find something Pluto-sized or larger!" "The spectra that we took at the Gemini Observatory are particularly interesting because it shows that the surface of 2003 UB313 is very similar to that of Pluto." The object was first observed on 21 October 2003, but the team did not see it move in the sky until looking at the same area 15 months later on 8 January 2005. The researchers say they tried looking for it with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is sensitive to heat radiation, but failed to detect it. This gives them an upper limit of its size of 3,000 km, they say. The lower limit still makes it larger than Pluto. The discovery of 2003 UB313 comes just after the announcement of the finding of 2003 EL61, which appears to be a little smaller than Pluto.
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Stray Nigerian cows face arrest .
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Officials in a northern Nigerian city have announced they will arrest stray animals after a number of accidents. The animals' owners will also be fined by the mobile squad set up in Kaduna. A Kaduna official said any owners who did not pay the fine will see their beast auctioned off. The fine for a stray cow will be $15. In July, an Air France plane ploughed into a herd of cows as it landed. In May, 25 people died when a lorry swerved to miss a cow and hit a bus. Kaduna state's environment commissioner, Mohammed Musa Baba, told AFP news agency that strays were "a serious menace and a health hazard". "The state government has established mobile courts, backed by law, to arrest and detain any animals seen roaming the streets, especially cows, sheep and goats, which move in herds," he said. |
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Animal neglect cases 'up by 78%' .
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The RSPCA is calling on the government to strengthen animal cruelty laws after it recorded a rise of more than 70% in cases of owners neglecting animals. In the last 12 months, inspectors saw 68,732 animals whose basic food, water and shelter needs were being ignored - up 78% from 38,514 in 2003-4. This included 19,352 animals who were not given access to water, up 96%. It is only the second year the details have been recorded and the charity said that may have influenced the increase. The charity said dogs were most at risk with nearly 20,000 lacking basic care. Across all species, close to 3,000 animals were suffering because owners were ignoring care advice - an increase of 90% compared with the year before.
RSPCA director Jackie Ballard said: "These statistics are truly shocking and we must ask the government to take notice and act now. "It is staggering that nearly 20,000 animals have not been getting access to water. "What does this say about society when even the most basic need of a living creature is denied? How do people still not understand that every animal needs water?" The charity wants the government to change the law to give owners a legal obligation to provide animals with basic care, such as food, water, shelter and veterinary care. A catalogue of abuse has come before the courts in the past 12 months including a puppy which had its ears cut off with a knife and a dog with a tumour so large it dragged on the ground. Another case involved three horses found living in piles of manure in derelict stables with hooves which had been allowed to grow so long they curled like rams' horns. RSPCA spokesman John Rolls said the rise in cases was partly down to an improvement in the way the charity assessed cases of neglect. He told BBC News: "This year we've been able to detect more cruelty that has been going on."
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Why 'never again' keeps happening
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Debt relief and the alleviation of suffering will be high priorities at the G8 summit, but it seems another crucial issue has been left off the agenda. Fergal Keane reflects on how the international community fails to learn lessons when it comes to reacting to genocide and crimes against humanity.
To be honest it was a crisis to which I came late. I had been preoccupied with Rwanda. Ten years had passed since the genocide and I had travelled back to report on the anniversary. And perhaps, after the experience of Rwanda, I was also wary of becoming entangled in the horrors and complexities of another epic tragedy. Because, be assured, Darfur is an epic story. More than two million people have been uprooted. Hundreds of thousands, nobody really knows how many, have been killed. Thousands of women have been raped. And yet for all the epic quality of this tragedy, it feels like a very old script. We have been here before. A government threatened by rebellion turns on a segment of its own people. It uses militia, as well as its own military, to do the killing.
There are mass graves and there is mass rape. Men and boys are taken away to be killed. Then the government denies the scale of the violence. It keeps journalists out, blocks aid workers. Many more die from hunger and disease. The world expresses concern but does too little, invariably too late. A handful of foreign troops are allowed to deploy, but they are too few and their mandate is too restrictive to allow them to intervene and fight the killers. Yes, we have been here before. Bosnia, Rwanda and those are only the ones that have happened in our own time. I gave up having any faith in the phrase "never again" after Rwanda. I now add another verbal formulation to the list of redundant phrases. It is the sentence "We must learn the lessons." It is of course invariably the precursor to the words "never again." "We must learn the lessons of the Holocaust, or of Cambodia, or of Bosnia, or of Rwanda... and make sure that things like this..." and you know how this sentence ends, ..."things like this never happen again." Refugees attacked
They wanted to shift the displaced people to another camp where they would be easier to control. Many of these people had been driven from their villages by Sudanese soldiers and tribal militia. They had seen their fathers, brothers, sons murdered, their mothers, wives and sisters raped. The police beat and tear gassed them. The clubs and staves smashing into bodies already made weak by hunger. Stinging, choking gas sending infants into convulsions of coughing. The world knew about this. There were observers present from the United Nations and international aid agencies. At one point, as plastic bullets were being fired, the UN security advisers told their staff to leave. The situation was no longer safe. To their credit the UN staff stayed. But the Sudanese police regarded us all - unarmed Westerners with our notebooks and expressions of outrage - with contempt. They looked like men who knew that whatever I might report back on television, and whatever the UN workers would say to their bosses, none of it would be enough to bring the international cavalry charging over the hill to save the beaten down, terrorised people of the camp. Since that visit, the UN Security Council has voted to forward the names of 51 Sudanese to the International Criminal Court. Many are thought to be senior figures in the military regime.
But that move came nearly two years after the violence erupted. The five permanent members of the Security Council - the US, Britain, France, China and Russia - collectively failed to act in time. Each had different reasons. The US and Britain did not want arguments over Darfur to get in the way of securing a peace deal for Sudan's other tragedy, the civil war in the south which had run for 30 years and claimed two million lives. And they were preoccupied with Iraq and in no mood for military adventures elsewhere, let alone an Arab state like Sudan. Sudan also had allies on the council, like the Chinese who resisted putting Darfur on the agenda. These are the diplomatic details but they speak to a fundamental crisis that has dogged the United Nations from its birth 60 years ago. The national interests of member states will usually take precedence over the suffering of people in Africa. I have no doubt that in a few years time there will be investigations by the United Nations and the EU and several others into why the world failed the people of Darfur. We already know why, just as we did in Rwanda.
We cared, but we did not care enough.....................
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The Wimbeldon semi-finals were not up to scratch this year as far as I am concerned. Best part of today's coverage was the rain delayed coverage with Sue Barker and her discussions with Jimmy and Mac of their games in the past with Bjorn Borg. Excellent stuff! We were given some great tennis to watch again.
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Hedgehog numbers 'in nose-dive' .
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Hedgehog numbers across the UK are falling, particularly in the east of the country, a survey has found. According to the Mammals Trust UK, hedgehog numbers have dropped steeply since 2001, when a survey to spot animals on roads began. The idea behind the study is that the quantity of hedgehogs on roads can indicate the size of the UK population. Experts say that, amongst other factors, tidier decked gardens are responsible for the animals' decline.
Dr Valerie Keeble of the Mammals Trust UK (MTUK) said people should leave their gardens a bit haphazard to encourage the animals' return. "Don't be too tidy in your garden," she told BBC News. "Leave some rough areas and leave a few bushes and hedges, and twigs on the ground. "Make sure there is plenty of stuff for them to make their nests with; leave leaves and twigs lying about, that kind of thing." |
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It's not every day that you find something Pluto-sized or larger! 
