This video is about giraffes in South Africa.

From Associated Press:

KOURE, Niger, Nov. 7, 2009

West African Giraffes Defy Extinction

Numbering Only 50 in 1996, Niger Subspecies of Giraffe Swells to 200 Today Thanks to Conservation Efforts

A crisp African dawn is breaking overhead, and Zibo Mounkaila is on the back of a pickup truck bounding across a sparse landscape of rocky orange soil.

The tallest animals on earth are here, the guide says, somewhere amid the scant green bush on one side, and the thatched dome villages on the other.

They’re here, but by all accounts, they shouldn’t be.

A hundred years ago, West Africa’s last giraffes numbered in the thousands and their habitat stretched from Senegal’s Atlantic Ocean coast to Chad, in the heart of the continent. By the dawn of the 21st century, their world had shrunk to a tiny zone southeast of the capital, Niamey, stretching barely 150 miles long.

The numbers of the Western subspecies dwindled so low that in 1996, they numbered a mere 50.

Instead of disappearing as many feared, though, the giraffes have bounced miraculously back from the brink of extinction, swelling to more than 200 today.

It’s an unlikely boon experts credit to a combination of concerned conservationists, a government keen for revenue, and a rare harmony with villagers who have accepted their presence - for now.

There are nine subspecies of giraffes in Africa, each distinguished by geographic location and the color, pattern and shape of their spotted coats.

The animals in Niger are known as Giraffa camelopardalis peralta, the most endangered subspecies in Africa. They have large orange-brown spots that fade into pale white legs.

Ten years ago, an estimated 140,000 giraffes inhabited Africa, according to Julian Fennessy, a Nairobi, Kenya-based conservation expert. Today, giraffes number less than 100,000, devastated by poaching, war, advancing deserts and exploding human populations that have destroyed and fragmented their habitats. Around half the giraffes live outside game parks in the wild, where they are more difficult to monitor and protect, Fennessy said.

Giraffe hunting is prohibited in many countries. And some, like Kenya, have taken giraffe meat off the menu of tourist restaurants that once served them up on huge skewers. Even so, Fennessy said the plight of giraffes has largely been overlooked in conservation circles.

“We’re trying to increase awareness, educate people, help governments put conservation practices in place,” said Fennessy, who founded the Giraffe Conservation Foundation to draw attention to the animals’ plight. “If we don’t, giraffe numbers are going to continue to drop.”

From BuzzFlash in the USA:

Sarah Palin “Going Rouge” Coloring Book: Receiving National Attention as a Great Comic, Hands-On Parody of Palin’s “Going Rogue” Book

By Julie Sigwart and Michael Stinson

This video is called Scores killed in Nato air strike in Afghanistan - 4 Sept 09.

From The News in Pakistan:

7 Afghan security forces killed in NATO air strike

Updated at: 1845 PST, Saturday, November 07, 2009

KABUL: Seven members of the Afghan security forces were killed in a NATO air strike that also injured international forces in remote western Afghanistan, the Afghan defence ministry said on Saturday.

The Afghan statement comes as NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said it was investigating an incident in Badghis province Friday in which more than 25 international and Afghan forces were wounded.

Five of the 25 wounded were US soldiers injured in what a Western military official, speaking anonymously, said was friendly fire. …

The incident is believed to have taken place during a clash involving ISAF and Afghan soldiers searching for two paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division who went missing Wednesday during a routine supply mission.

Local police said a party looking for the two missing soldiers clashed with Taliban and that alliance aircraft were called in to provide support.

The defence ministry made no reference to a clash between the joint forces and Taliban militants.

Police said the casualties occurred when the air strike mistakenly targeted international troops.

See also here.

Prospect of More U.S. Troops Worries Afghan Public: here.

Returning veterans often have a hard time adjusting to civilian life and the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) Foundation is helping them find an outlet to tell their stories: here.

It was by Robert Kwak of BirdLife in the Netherlands.

(The name Kwak means in Dutch “black-crowned night heron“. Wild birds of this species breed in or near the zoos of Amsterdam and Rotterdam cities).

Robert Kwak’s subject was the situation of birds in urban environments in the Netherlands.

Some species, he said, were doing well, like ring-necked parakeet, goldfinch, and greenfinch.

However, breeding bird numbers of most species are going down in urban environments, compared to the countryside.

More and more buildings are built. Yet, species depending on buildings for their nests, like swift, starling, house sparrow, and black redstart, are not doing well. Because builders often do not take birds’ needs into account.

Also, dunnocks, which nest in bushes, are going down in cities. Because of predation by cats?

This is a video about crested larks near a petrol station in Amersfoort, the Netherlands.

A pioneer species like the crested lark, which likes open sandy spaces where building often starts, is in trouble as well.

So, the situation for most urban breeding birds is not so good. However, as far as wintering birds are concerned, they are doing better in cities and towns than in the countryside. This is especially true for waterbirds (water in cities often does not freeze as soon as in the countryside).

After Robert Kwak’s lecture, Nico de Haan, well known from Dutch radio and TV programs about birds, received the golden spoonbill award.

Leiden city received the Stadsvogelprijs, the award for local authorities which had done most for urban birds.

Australia’s average surface temperature has risen more than 1 Fahrenheit degree since 1900. During roughly the same period, the body size of Australian passerine (perching) birds has declined by as much as 3.6 percent. Zoologist Janet L. Gardner of the Australian National University in Canberra and colleagues, who detected the shrinking trend in birds, suspect the two changes are no coincidence: here.

Tunisian blogger detained

Riahi has reportedly not been released, nor granted access to her lawyer who is unaware of the charges

A Tunisian blogger and drama teacher, Fatma Riahi, known online as Arabicca, has been arrested by the country’s police, Al Jazeera has learned.

Riahi was summoned to appear before the Criminal Brigade of Gorjani in Tunis on Monday, where she was questioned about her online activities, sources said.

Riahi was then released in the evening, only to be summoned again the following day and escorted by police officers to her home in Monastir, 160km from the capital, Tunis, for a house-search, the sources said.

Police confiscated her computer as evidence, and gained access to her online social-network accounts.

Riahi has neither been released from custody in Gorjani police station, nor granted access to her lawyer, Laila Ben Debba, who has spoken to her only for a few minutes, Al Jazeera has learned.

…

If prosecuted, Riahi could face criminal defamation charges that potentially carry a prison term of to up to three years.

Political satire

Authorities are investigating whether Riahi is hiding behind the pen-name of Blog de Z, a controversial Tunisian cartoonist blogger whose political satire has enraged the government.

Blog de Z’s most recent post was published three days after Riahi was first taken into custody.

RSF said on Friday: “Since her arrest, Fatma’s rights have been violated. The Tunisian authorities are using the pretext of her arrest in an attempt to discover the identity of anonymous Tunisian bloggers.

“We demand the authorities drop the charges against Fatma Arabicca and release her immediately.”

Riaihi deleted her blog three days before her arrest and her Facebook account has been removed.

‘Free Arabicca’ campaign

Lina Ben Mhenni, a friend of Riahi, told the Los Angeles Times in an email on Friday: “We talked about the Criminal Brigade [summoning] her, her worries, but we were optimistic as we know that she didn’t do something wrong.”

A “Free Arabicca” campaign blog has been launched by fellow Tunisian bloggers in support for Riahi, as well as a facebook page.

Global Voices, a blogger advocacy website, ranks Tunisia just behind Iran as one of the most repressive countries towards bloggers and online activists.

Zouhair Yahyaoui, one of Tunisia’s most famous imprisoned former bloggers, was arrested in 2000 after inviting readers to vote on whether Tunisia was a “republic, a kingdom, a zoo or a prison”.

Yahyaoui died of a heart attack in 2003 after reportedly being severely tortured.

Journalist jailed

In another development, France voiced concern on Friday over the fate of a Tunisian journalist and vocal critic of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the Tunisian president, who was arrested last week for allegedly assaulting a woman and faces trial.

Taoufik Ben Brik was detained on October 29 and is being held in a town outside Tunis pending trial later this month.

RSF said in a statement last week that the charges were bogus and that Ben Brik was too ill to stand trial.

This Reuters video from Germany says about itself:

Nov 5 - Thousands of German Opel workers go on strike to protest against GM’s decision to keep European unit Opel.

France: A decades-long series of corruption scandals, bound up with oil and arms deals, constitute the essential legal background to the Clearstream Affair: here. And here.

In this music video from Austria:

ANTI-FLAG’s Justin Sane joined the international student protests for a free and better education in Vienna, Austria, by performing a version of The Clash - Should I Stay Or Should I Go at the occupied Auditorium Maximun of the University of Vienna. Join the INTERNATIONAL PROTESTS at unsereuni.at (German), http://unsereuni.at/?lang=en (English) or get more information on it at zurPolitik.com (German).

This video from the USA is called Rethink Afghanistan (Part 4): Civilian Casualties.

From British daily The Morning Star:

Afghan villagers take to street over NATO airstrikes

Friday 06 November 2009

Hundreds of Afghan citizens have taken to the streets after NATO airstrikes and rocket attacks killed 10 people, including at least three children.

In the village of Korkhashien in Helmand province, angry villagers said that an overnight rocket strike killed nine civilians, including at least three children, as they harvested corn in their fields.

A convoy of vans and station wagons carrying the corpses drove from the governor’s office to a central market, where villagers condemned Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Western occupation forces that are propping him up.

“Death to Karzai - death to the foreigners,” they yelled as passers-by looked through the car windows at the blanket-covered bodies.

NATO insisted that the target of the strike was a group of people believed to be planting a bomb and that it was investigating the allegations.

In Khost province, hundreds demonstrated on Thursday against an overnight airstrike that killed a resident of Baramkhil village.

Mandozayi district government head Walishah Hamat said that the dead man was innocent.

Meanwhile, the top UN official in Afghanistan Kai Eide urged Mr Karzai to crack down hard on corruption or risk losing the support of the West.

Mr Eide said: “There is a belief among some that the international commitment to Afghanistan will continue whatever happens. That is not correct - it is the public opinion in donor countries that decides the strength of that commitment.”

This video is about “Thylacoleo carnifex, the marsupial lion, Australia’s lost predator. ”

From ScienceDaily:

Discovery Of The Oldest European Marsupial In SW France

(Nov. 6, 2009) — Remains of one of the oldest known marsupials have been recovered in Charente-Maritime by a palaeontologist team from the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (CNRS) and the University of Rennes 1. This discovery raises a new hypothesis about the dispersal route of the earliest marsupial mammals.

In the history of the first modern mammals (i.e., marsupials and placentals), during the Cretaceous, Europe is almost a Terra incognita. No fossils are known between 125 and 84 million years (my), and very few up to the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary (65 my). In the Cenomanian (99 my) of Charente-Maritime, the discovery of the scientist team from the Muséum1 (CNRS) and the University of Rennes 12 thus provides important information on the early history of these mammals in Europe. The discovery consists of a few teeth, collected after screenwashing of 5 tons of sediment. They belong to a new tiny mammal, named Arcantiodelphys marchandi, which is one of the oldest and most primitive marsupial known in the world. It is also the oldest known representative of the modern therians in Europe.

This discovery is the result of a research program of the University of Rennes 1 on the vertebrates from the Cretaceous of Charentes, in collaboration with the MNHN.

Arcantiodelphys marchandi improves our knowledge of the earliest stages of the marsupial history, so far known mostly from North American fossils. Its main significance is that the beginning of the marsupial history also involved Europe. Furthermore, it confirms faunal links between North America and Europe during the mid-Cretaceous. It is from these primitive marsupials from the “Euramerican” Cretaceous that the modern marsupials colonized the southern landmasses, South America and mainly Australia where they are nowadays well diversified. Opossums and kangaroos are extant representatives of this very old northern origin of the marsupials.

This is a National Geographic video about butterflies.

At the urban birds conference, there was also a lecture about insects.

It was by Kars Veling, about Butterflies and dragonflies in cities: more than food for birds.

There are quite some butterfly species in Dutch cities and towns. For one category of butterflies, that is not surprising. These are the species who are not so selective about environments. Caterpillars of species like red admiral, peacock, and small tortoiseshell are dependent on stinging nettles, plants which grow even in city centres.

With some luck, one may also see more selective butterfly species in urban environments, like the comma, and meadow brown.

There are also some really specialized species in Dutch cities. As far as we know, the white-letter hairstreak in the Netherlands lives only in Heerlen city. The brown hairstreak numbers are going down in the countryside, but are stable in cities like Wageningen and Zwolle.

Kars Veling once saw 700 common blue butterflies in the ancient town Naarden. He had never seen so many together. Their caterpillars eat bird’s-foot trefoil, abundant in Naarden.

Essex skipper butterflies may also flourish in urban environments. Provided that lawns are not mown, destroying the eggs.

Brown argus butterflies also thrive in cities sometimes, especially on temporarily fallow land.

In an oak tree, there may be 50-70 butterfly or moth caterpillar species.

Plants which attract butterflies: here.

Dragonflies and damselflies in cities, like elsewhere, are dependent on clear water. In muddy water, their larvae will not be able to see far enough, and will die. If you want willow emerald damselflies in your city, you need trees as well as clear water: because the adults deposit their eggs in autumn in trees standing close to water. If the larvae hatch in spring, they drop straight into the water. So, don’t cut down all trees near the water. But also don’t let big trees grow all along the water, for then the water becomes too shady. Try to find a balance.

What’s a city-dweller to do — you want to help fight climate change, but does planting trees in the city really make a difference? Can urban forests help sequester carbon and offset emissions? Here.