Sudanese dictator welcomed by Libya, Chad regimes

This is a video about racist lynching of Libyans under the new regime because of the colour of their skins.

In the ‘new’ post-NATO war Libya, Libyans, African migrant workers and almost everybody else, including United States ambassadors, have to fear for their lives. The new rulers of Libya are allies of the NATO governments.

So is the dictator of Chad, Idriss Deby. He is a long time favourite of French governments, already under Sarkozy, predecessor of the present president Hollande.

From the Sudan Tribune:

Sudan: Bashir to Visit Chad, Libya Despite ICC Warrant

11 February 2013

Khartoum — The Sudanese president Omer Hassan al-Bashir will travel to Chad and Libya this weekend to attend two events, a government sponsored website reported today.

The state-linked Sudanese Media Center (SMC) quoting press sources said that Chadian president Idriss Deby invited Bashir to the Community of Sahel-Saharan (CEN-SAD) summit during his stop in Khartoum last week.

Chad is a signatory to the International Criminal Court (ICC) which has issued two arrest warrants for Bashir on ten counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide allegedly committed in Sudan’s western region of Darfur.

The ten-year Darfur conflict in western Sudan, on the border with Chad, has claimed 300,000 lives according to the United Nations. The Khartoum government puts the toll at 10,000.

…

Bashir’s previous visits to Chad in 2010 and 2011 were strongly criticized by the European Union and human rights groups in light of Ndjamena’s refusal to arrest Bashir.

During Chad’s thorny relations with Sudan, president Deby vowed to execute the arrest warrant against Bashir and rejected AU resolutions granting him immunity. However, as relations improved Deby reversed his position.

The AU summit that took place in Addis Ababa last month omitted the usual mention of urging its members to ignore ICC warrant against Bashir. A source told Sudan Tribune that African diplomats did not believe this was a pressing issue warranting discussion this time around.

SMC said that Bashir may head to Libya afterwards to attend the celebrations commemorating the outbreak of the revolution that toppled the regime of late leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The website noted that Bashir was invited by the Libyan leadership to attend but said that tensions in the North African country may not allow for the celebration to take place.

Ironically, Bashir was one of the very few leaders in 2009 who attended Gaddafi’s celebration of the coup which brought him to power forty years ago.

Following Gaddafi’s fall and demise in 2011 Bashir lashed out at Libya’s strongman saying that he was causing harm to Sudan through the years and revealed that Sudan provided support to rebels who launched a military campaign to unseat him.

Libya is not a member of the ICC and therefore has no obligation to detain Bashir. But it was the National Transitional Council (NTC), which took control of the country, that asked the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in 2011 to refer the situation in Libya to the Hague tribunal in order to investigate possible crimes committed following the uprising against Gaddafi.

This would mark Bashir’s second visit to Libya since Gaddafi’s removal.

African elephant using tool, video

This video says about itself:

Elephant using a stick to clean beneath its toe nails

RealAfricaVideos

Jan 22, 2013

This video was taken in Amboseli National Park in Kenya by one of our UK based consultants Lily. The elephants had been feeding in the marshes – you can see that the elephant is wet and in some of the distant shots has a waterline running along her body. When she got out, she noticed this stick and took some time using her foot and trunk to get it in exactly the correct position.

Once she had, she anchored it with her full weight on her left foot and used its sharp end to clean between the toes and under the nails of her right foot. Whether she had mud or maybe a small stone wedged there from the bottom of the marsh it was impossible to see, but she certainly knew exactly what she was trying to do, and succeeded in doing it.

Elephants have been recorded using sticks before, to scratch themselves with or using foliage to swat insects. We’ve never seen one clean their toe nails before. If you have, let us know.

February 2013. The BBC was criticized in some (short-sighted) quarters recently for showing the death of a baby elephant during a drought in Kenya’s Amboseli National Park. New research has shown that this is not an uncommon event as young elephants are twice as likely to die during a hot dry spell as normal: here.

March 2013. At least 89 elephants have been killed by poachers in Chad, according to local officials, in one of the region’s worst poaching incidents since the massacre of more than 300 elephants in Cameroon’s Bouba N’Djida National Park in February 2012: here.

Baby elephant rescued after anti-poaching flight in Kenya: here.

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New natural World Heritage Sites

This is called Great Pied Hornbill, Birds, Nature, Wildlife, Western Ghats, Kerala, India; Video Suresh Elamon.

From Wildlife Extra:

Six natural wonders declared World Heritage Sites

Saharan lakes and Western Ghats amongst new World Heritage Sites

July 2012. Sangha Trinational – shared between Cameroon, the Central African Republic and the Republic of Congo; Lakes of Ounianga in Chad and Chengjiang fossil site in China have been inscribed on the World Heritage List, following the recommendations of IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature). Lena Pillars Nature Park in Russia and Western Ghats in India were also added to the prestigious list by the World Heritage Committee, a 21-nation panel.

IUCN, the official World Heritage advisory body on nature, presented the findings of its comprehensive evaluations of the natural values of nine sites to the World Heritage Committee. Chad is joining the World Heritage family for the first time.

Sangha Trinational

Sangha Trinational is a chain of national parks shared between Cameroon, the Central African Republic and the Republic of Congo. Forming a broad network of well preserved and diverse landscapes, the forests and rivers are home to an outstanding diversity of plants and animals. The area hosts the largest intact populations of forest elephants and great apes, including the critically endangered Western Lowland Gorilla and the endangered Chimpanzee.

“Sangha Trinational is not a fragment but part of a much larger intact environment with good conservation prospects, and harbouring critically endangered species,” says Tim Badman, Director of IUCN’s World Heritage Programme. “We welcome the fact that this globally significant forest landscape has been recognized by the World Heritage Committee.”

The Lakes of Ounianga

The Lakes of Ounianga consist of a series of 18 mostly freshwater lakes in the heart of the Sahara desert in northeastern Chad. Relics of a single, much larger lake occupying the basin less than 10,000 years ago, these lakes are an exceptional example of permanent lakes in a desert.

“The Lakes of Ounianga are a jewel of the Sahara, not only of overwhelming natural beauty, but a testimony to the fragile and unique equilibrium of life on earth,” says Youssouph Diedhiou of IUCN’s Protected Areas Programme in Central and Western Africa. “IUCN is delighted that Chad’s first outstanding natural area is joining the prestigious World Heritage list.”

Chengjiang Fossil Site

The rocks of the Chengjiang Fossil Site, near the city of Kunming in the Yuann Province of China, are evidence of the rapid appearance and diversification of species and evolutionary development, also known as the Cambrian explosion, which took place over 530 million years ago. The exceptional remains of species recorded at Chengjiang are key to understanding the early evolution of life on Earth.

“The inscription of the Chengjiang Fossil Site on the World Heritage List recognises this iconic site, which provides direct evidence of the origin of animal diversity,” says Tim Badman, Director of IUCN’s World Heritage Programme. “The preservation of this exceptional window on the earliest stages of the evolution of biodiversity on our planet is of great scientific importance for the future.”

Lena Pillars Nature Park

Lena Pillars Nature Park, known for the spectacular natural rock formations along the Lena River, are home to a wide range of rare plants and animals, including the Siberian Musk Deer, the Red Deer, the Siberian chipmunk, and 99 species of nesting birds. Located in the central part of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia), it is an area with an extreme continental climate with an annual temperature range of almost 100º C, from around -60º C in winter to approximately.+40º C in summer.

Western Ghats

A series of protected areas across the Western Ghats in India were added to UNESCO’s list of iconic places after a persistent campaign for World Heritage status by the Indian government. Mountains, rainforests, rivers and waterfalls are all part of the 160,000 km² area, recognised as a global biodiversity hotspot. The Western Ghats are home to a number of flagship mammals including the endangered endemic lion-tailed Macaque, the endangered Asian elephant and Tiger.

Chad teachers strike against dictator Deby

This video is called Bodies, Debris Litter Chad‘s Capital, N’Djamena.

From IRIN:

Chad: Prices Hike, Teachers Strike

17 February 2010

N’djamena — Teachers demanding more pay to face higher food prices entered the third day of a nationwide strike. The government has called their demands “illegal” and “unjustified”, because the “high cost of living is a general problem that does not concern only [the teachers' union]“, said Employment Minister Fatimé Tchombi.

Primary school teacher Aubin Golmbaye told IRIN his US$200 monthly salary was not enough to feed his family. “In addition to food I need to pay for the house, medical care, school fees – even if I spend $4 a day on food, what would I have left for our other needs, and transport to get to work?” …

Poor families, who often barter livestock for other foodstuffs, find that their animals are buying them less. High prices and below-normal pastoral income due to disease and animal malnutrition are depleting what little food stock families saved from the last growing season, and “steep” food price hikes, starting in April, were predicted in FEWS NET‘s most recent report on food security in Chad. …

Among primary school-age children, 30 percent of girls are enrolled and 40 percent of boys; by the time they reach secondary school, only five percent of girls and 13 percent of boys in that age group still attend school.

What this IRIN report does not mention is that Chad is a bloody dictatorship.

You don’t read much about that in the corporate mainstream media. As Chad’s dictator Idriss Deby is “pro Western“, pro capitalist, and a crony of French President Sarkozy.

I bet hunger is not the same problem for Employment Minister Fatimé Tchombi and the rest of the dictatorship’s ruling clique as for the teachers and the rest of the people of Chad.

Chad update April 2011: here.

On November 8, 1910, a force of some 600 French officers and their Senegalese tirailleurs suffered a defeat in the Battle of Doroté in eastern Chad at the hands of an estimated 5,000 African soldiers of the sultanate of Quaddai, who were armed with rifles. After the battle, the Quaddai forces retreated to British-held Sudan: here.

The most brutal U.S.-backed dictator you’ve never heard of – Hissène Habré of Chad – is facing a trial before a unique court set up in his Senegalese exile: here.

Nicholas Sarkozy’s siren cries to the far-right ahead of France’s regional elections: here.

Related articles

• Items from Chad: N’djamena Mayor Arrested, Public Sector Workers’ Strike Continues (sahelblog.wordpress.com)