Who strives to realise Congo wildlife dream at 83?

"I WAS already saying I'd go live in the Congo when I was nine or 10," says Willem Boulanger, who after satisfying that dream is embarking at age 83 on another – founding a game reserve near Kolwezi.

Tall and tough, with a white moustache but only the slightest stoop, the crew-cut settler is full of tales of the dramatic events that have taken place in the Democratic Republic of Congo since he made his home in southeast Katanga province 56 years ago.

Barely installed in his adoptive homeland, Boulanger was swept up in the unrest that followed independence.

He fought alongside Katangese forces trying to secede from the Congo in the 1960s, and in the 1990s witnessed the ethnic troubles that shattered Katanga, in the last years of Mobutu Sese Seko's long reign.

In Bermuda shorts and walking boots, Boulanger spices his tales with humour, recalling how as a boy in the Belgian city of Mons he was captivated as Roman Catholic missionaries recounted their adventures in Africa's exotic heart.

His African exploits began in 1959 when he took a job with the Mining Union of Upper Katanga (UMHK), a Belgian company exploiting the fabulous wealth of the copper belt. By September, he and his wife were setting up house in Kolwezi.
He learned Swahili fast. "You must take an interest (in local people), how to live with them, understand their customs, respect their beliefs," he says.

"I was in heaven!"

He spent his weekends in the bush, sitting by the fire "chatting about everything under the sun" with friendly tribal elders. "I was in heaven!"

But when the Congo won independence from Belgium on June 30, 1960, riots erupted against the nation's former masters, in the capital Kinshasa and elsewhere.
Boulanger was briefly evacuated to Northern Rhodesia (today's Zambia) but was barely back in Katanga when provincial leaders seceded from the newly born nation.

Their State of Katanga was supported by some Belgian politicians and foreign firms keen to keep a hold over the UMHK. Brussels never officially recognised an independent Katanga, but provided assistance and sent troops.

The United Nations urged Belgium to withdraw and sent its own peacekeepers to help the Congolese army.

A former paratroop officer, young Boulanger was tasked by the UMHK with "providing security" by blowing up bridges and fighting with Katanga's army against the UN troops.

Early in 1963, the rebel province's leader Moise Tshombe conceded defeat. "The government soldiers came as conquerors," setting up roadblocks and fleecing locals, Boulanger recalls.

Determined even then to relax at weekends, he founded a water-sports centre near Kolwezi that helped boost the local economy when wealthy Congolese poured in to water-ski.

By way of thanks, Boulanger was made a "mwami", acquiring the status of honorary tribal chief.

In May 1978, Katangese Tiger rebels opposed to Mobutu crossed from Angola to seize Kolwezi at the cost of several hundred civilian lives. "They wanted to take my Peugeot 504, but I had disabled it," Boulanger says.

"They took the Gecamines car," he adds, using the name given to the UMHK once it was nationalised in 1967.

Within days, the French Foreign Legion counter-attacked and claimed the mining town back from the rebels.

Boulanger was evacuated to Belgium but quickly returned – this time without his wife, who wanted nothing more to do with the Congo.

"Blessed land"

"Congo has been a blessed land for me," says Boulanger, who in time had a daughter with a Congolese wife and considers himself "one of the last old dinosaurs" to have stayed.

Parked in front of his home is his old Land Rover, which sports a logo for the Manika wildlife reserve, a pet project for Boulanger's latter years.

With a lease on 16,000ha of savanna, the white "mwami" plans to bring back a score of mammals that once roamed the region, including leopards, warthogs, giraffes, zebras, gnus and cheetahs.

A visitors' centre was completed in 2010 not far from Kolwezi airport, but much work remains. Boulanger is fencing off a 4,000ha part of the reserve with Guy Mukongi, a young businessman who should succeed him one day.

"We need US$100,000 (RM381,000) to finish the enclosure so the animals can be brought in," says Boulanger.

A small lodge to accommodate tourists had been built beside an artificial pond, but this guesthouse was recently razed in a suspected arson attack. Undaunted, Boulanger plans to start over with fireproof materials.

"We can do anything here," he says, imagining a terrace on stilts in the middle of the little lake where visitors might relax with a drink after a day in the bush.


Fired with enthusiasm, Boulanger even envisages offering guests hot-air balloon trips over the reserve. – AFP

LHC orders release of supermodel Ayyan on bail

LAHORE: Supermodel Ayyan Ali finally secured bail on Tuesday, some four month’s after she was arrested from Islamabad airport on charges of money laundering.
A division bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC), headed by Justice Anwarul Haq, ordered her release as it remarked that the accused was no more needed for investigation. “The case is apparently also not of money laundering as claimed by the investigators,” the bench noted.
Appearing before the bench, Ayyan’s counsel Sardar Latif Khan Khosa submitted that the Customs officials had arrested his client on fake charges of money laundering as part of a conspiracy and that Ayyan is an honourable girl.
He said under the Customs Act, an accused, if a woman, should be bailed out if the investigation is completed. “As investigations are done, my client should be released,” he added.
Khosa said there was a difference between laws dealing with ‘money laundering’ and ‘money smuggling’, adding that for money laundering it was necessary for the accused to be onboard a flight.
“But Ayyan had neither boarded a flight nor had the stamp of exit affixed to her passport. Therefore, she does not fall under the definition of a traveler and the allegations of money laundering against her are baseless,” he argued.
Appearing before the court, the Customs counsel submitted that the Customs officials arrested Ayyan under section 7 of Customs Act from the VIP lounge of the airport while she was going to Dubai.
“The court has already dismissed her bail application on merit,” he said, referring to the trial court and Custom court’s appellate bench’s earlier dismissal of her bail applications.
Customs officials had arrested Ayyan on March 14 after recovering US $506,800 from her luggage. Later, she was sent to Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail.

Tunisia hotel shooting

Vast stretches of sand were empty of people along the normally packed beaches of Sousse on Saturday. There were still a few tourists around; they had taken the entirely correct view that the place was safer now than it has ever been in recent times, having a heavy security presence in the wake of Friday’s massacre.
But even these hardy visitors said they would be gone as soon as their holiday finishes, and the gloomy hotel and restaurant owners do not expect a new wave of custom to follow this summer, or indeed anything like the same numbers for the next season either.
It is perhaps surprising that there were so many Western tourists around for the dreadful slaughter. They obviously had not thought that the attack at the Bardo Museum in Tunis three months ago, in which 20 foreigners died, meant that they, too, were potential targets. Or perhaps they simply decided to come despite the risks involved.
The front of the Marhaba hotel (Getty)
The fact is that Islamist extremists have very specific targets in Tunisia. The killer, Seifeddine Rezgui, was extraordinarily careful in his choice of victims, picking on obvious foreigners, deliberately sparing locals when he could, urging them to get out of the way. This is not seen as visceral hatred of kafirs (unbelievers) and altruism towards fellow Muslims, but part of a deliberate plan to destroy the tourist industry, the biggest revenue earners and the biggest source of employment, in the country.
Tunisia has not suffered over much from the arbitrary massacres of suicide bombs. The internal targets have been civic society figures, the security forces and politicians. The aim, it is felt, is to undermine fatally the structures which have made the country, arguably, the only one of the Arab Spring with a fledgling democracy and an election in which the main Islamist party, Enhada, was edged out of power.

Mayor de Blasio to Make Lunar New Year a School Holiday

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration is expected on Tuesday to add the Lunar New Year to the New York public school calendar, allowing the city’s Asian families to celebrate an important holiday with their children without tarnishing attendance records.
Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, pledged to make the change during the 2013 mayoral campaign, but by agreeing to the move now, he avoids a potentially political embarrassment. With a pending bill in Albany that would have added the holiday to the calendar, the mayor faced the uncomfortable prospect of the State Legislature’s enacting his own campaign pledge for him, without the imprimatur of City Hall.
The Lunar New Year is celebrated throughout many parts of Asia. When it falls on a school day, some city schools with large Asian populations have more than half their students absent that day.
“Finally, students of Asian descent will not be forced to choose between observing the most important holiday of the year and missing important academic work,” Councilwoman Margaret Chin, a Democrat of Lower Manhattan, said in a statement. “Lunar New Year is a deeply important cultural observance for nearly 15 percent of public school students, and this designation gives Lunar New Year the respect and recognition it has long deserved.”
This move comes just three months after the de Blasio administration added two Muslim holy days to the school calendar, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. Mr. de Blasio’s predecessor, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, had declined to do so, saying children needed more time in school.
In New York State, schools must have at least 180 days of instruction each year. To accommodate the new time off without losing time in the classroom, the de Blasio administration said it planned to convert two half-days to full days. The new schedule will go into effect this coming school year, with the holiday falling on Feb. 8.
State Senator Daniel L. Squadron, a Democrat whose district includes Manhattan’s Chinatown, said the inclusion of the holiday signaled, in part, the increased political presence of the city’s Asian community.
“There’s no question this reflects the changing city and the changing significance of the holiday to this city,” Mr. Squadron said.
New York is not the first city to add this holiday to its school calendar. Public schools in San Francisco, for example, have observed the holiday for several years.
The de Blasio administration made the announcement about Lunar New Year on Twitter on Monday evening, saying it was “working toward a more inclusive city.” The city also posted the news in Mandarin and Korean.

Enjoy today’s Easter eggs: they could soon become a luxury

Easter 2015 may be remembered as the end of the cheap chocolate era: cocoa prices are expected to double by 2020 as the world’s cocoa supplies run low.
According to David Guest, professor of plant pathology at the University of Sydney, the cost surge is inevitable. The squeeze is partly a result of farmers moving into higher-return crops such as coffee and maize, which are less susceptible to pests and diseases, but it is also linked to problems around the labour-intensive cultivation of cocoa trees.
“It takes about three years after you plant a tree to start harvesting,” said Guest. “You need to look after these trees properly, which requires labour. And labour shortages are a real problem in the cocoa-growing areas because of a drift of young people to the cities and people suffering from poor health.”
Another factor, says Guest, is that around 70% of cocoa beans come from west Africa, which has seen major political and social upheaval over the past couple of decades.
Demand is also growing rapidly in places that have not previously consumed a lot of chocolate – particularly China and India. In Asia, demand is now rising almost seven times faster than in Europe. Even recent bumper cocoa crops cannot keep up.

“All eyes are on Asia,” said Angus Kennedy, editor of trade magazine Kennedy’s Confection. “Demand there, and in Nigeria and Vietnam, has seen consumption increases of up to 230% a year. We are not making enough cocoa.”
Not everyone believes the picture is so gloomy. Raphael Wermuth, head of media relations at Swiss cocoa grinding group Barry Callebaut, which sold more than 1.7m tonnes of chocolate last year, says that prospects for the chocolate market are not quite as dire as some are suggesting. “The recent public announcement from the International Cocoa Association has claimed a much smaller cocoa deficit by 2020,” he said. “While we still think there will be a shortfall, we believe it will be smaller than expected as programmes aimed at increasing cocoa yields take effect.”
Other big international confectionery manufacturers, such as Mars, have forecast cocoa bean shortages of up to one million tonnes by 2020.
But for confectioners catering for in the niche chocolate market, the gloomy forecasts are of little concern. Lee McCoy, managing director of online retailer Chocolatiers, which focuses on selling speciality chocolate from around the world, said: “Although this is a big issue for large corporations, it will have little impact on retailers like us. Most people who buy cocoa for the niche market are already paying over the odds, so this will not affect our end of the scale.”
McCoy believes that, in any case, change in the industry is long overdue, and any price increase is to be welcomed. “This will be good for the people growing cocoa, because they earn next to nothing, and so the more money therer is to be passed down, the better,” he said. “At the moment, only a very small fraction of the price of chocolate actually goes to the growers and so in terms of giving people in Africa and Central America a good wage, this is an exceptionally good thing.”
He added: “It’s not just down to the industry to be aware of chocolate prices. Consumers should be looking to see where and how it has been grown.Fairtrade is a start, but directly traded is better. From our experience, going directly to growers, rather than using a middleman, means that growers get around four or five times the price.”

Hundreds march in London for equality on International Women's Day

Hundreds of women have marched in London to demand equality on International Women’s Day.
Celebrities leading the march included singers Annie Lennox, Paloma Faith and Made In Dagenham actress Gemma Arterton.
They were also joined by Dr Helen Pankhurst, the great-granddaughter of Suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst, and her 20-year-old daughter Laura.
Organisers said that at least 600 people had taken part.
Members of the crowd marched from near City Hall towards the Royal Festival Hall, with some dressed in the style of the Suffragettes.
Protesters carried banners with slogans calling for equal representation of men and women in parliament.
Faith told the crowd gathered outside the Royal Festival Hall that her mother considered being at the march more of an achievement than her recent gong for best British female solo artist at the Brit awards.
The 33-year-old later told reporters: “It goes to show how important it is that women stand together and fight for each other’s rights.
“Any one of the women over here could be any one of the women in a far-off land suffering from injustices.
“My mum was a child of the sixties and was one of the people who burned their bra and made a pact to herself never to be oppressed by a man in her life, and so wasn’t.
“She has brought me up with those beliefs, so this is way more important to her than anything.”
The singer added that she would have liked to see more men on the march.
“I think we have to acknowledge that women’s rights are human rights and it would be really good to see men and women go hand in hand on these things, because we’re all human,” she said.
Helen Pankhurst said that the most important issues facing women are gender violence and the lack of females in power.
The 50-year-old said: “The statistics on sexism through to violence of the most appalling type are still just awful.
“The other side of that is women in power – we need women on the boards, we need women in parliament, in all spheres of life to map and to show the world that a leadership with women involved in equal amounts will make a better world.”

How Does The World Celebrate Thanksgiving Day?

Thanksgiving Day celebrated in the USA in particular, is a well-recognized and popular holiday and is associated with spending time with the family, enjoying good food and of course relaxing and having fun. Families gathering to enjoy large, lavish meals are a hallmark of this holiday. Things that can be found on the dining table for the special Thanksgiving dinner include: turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy, some form of corn, assorted vegetables and side dishes, and pumpkin/pecan pie as dessert.

I look forward to Thanksgiving Day for many weeks before the actual big day. I love to cook, I am a total foodie, and Thanksgiving day is my time to shine in the kitchen. Of course they will not be cutting the turkey but they can do things such as: putting biscuits and crescent rolls in their baskets, placing the cranberry dressing in a pretty crystal bowl or setting the table. I like to set the table with mix and match types of settings.

I like to use an antique platter my grandmother gave me to place the turkey on. I only use this once a year and it is for Thanksgiving dinner. I also place large bowls of mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry dressing and stuffing in the middle of the table. What better way to bring friends and family together to share in the day of thanks than by hosting a Thanksgiving Day potluck.

The host is responsible for preparing the turkey, stuffing, and gravy, but your guests will be responsible for the side items and dessert. Thanksgiving Day revolves around the NFL's Thanksgiving Day Classic and their TV. The lucky few that have tickets to the game get to enjoy their Thanksgiving Day cheering on their team, front and center.

Long before any Europeans set foot in the Americas, native peoples sought to insure a good harvest with dances and rituals of Thanksgiving. Because of all this good fortune, colonists held a day of Thanksgiving and prayer on June 30. This 1623 festival proves to have been the origin of our Thanksgiving Day, because it combined both a religious and social celebration of thanks.