Perth...
Baby echidna Kai welcomed at Perth Zoo after latest breeding success
- From: PerthNow
- December 07, 2011
- 9 comments
NEW ADDITONI: 'Kai' the 85 day old Echidna at the Perth Zoo. Source: PerthNow
A PRICKLY new arrival made its first public appearance at Perth Zoo today.
Kai the echidna is the latest breeding success at the zoo.
He was weighed and inspected by keepers this morning before being placed back in its nursery burrow where it will spend the next two to three months.
DNA tests will be carried out soon to determine the sex.
Weighing in this morning at 526 grams Kai, which is Nyoongar for surprise, will continue to grow over the next three to four years before reaching a normal weight of 4kg.
Kai weighed less than one gram when it hatched in September and spent the first two months of its life in its mother's pouch.
Perth Zoo Australian Fauna supervisor Arthur Ferguson said today Kai was progressing well under the care of experienced mother, Elyan.
"Once Kai leaves the nursery burrow we will take a couple of small hairs for DNA sexing," Mr Ferguson said
"The previous five echidnas born at Perth Zoo were all females so we are hoping that Kai is a male."
Only 17 echidnas have been born in captivity in Australia with Perth Zoo having produced six of them.
UNITED STATES...
Oklahoma...
| 12/15/2011 1:05:00 AM Stripes stores are now Safe Places | ||
Stripes convenience stores are in the business to make money, but they also take their commitment to the welfare of local youth seriously. Representatives from the company met Wednesday at the Marie Detty Youth Family and Services Center, 2501 SW E, for a morning of learning and giving as part of an effort to reinforce their relationship with the youth organization. After a tour of the youth center, which Stripes Public Relations Manager Sharon Yon-Johansson said was "eye-opening," area manager Tom Hudson presented the shelter with boxes of winter coats, hats and gloves. The event officially marked the kickoff date of the company's community partnership with the Lawton Safe Place Program. The Safe Place Program was created in 1983 to offer youths in crisis an immediate place to seek assistance. If a child runs away from home, is being abused, neglected or bullied, he or she can walk into any facility donning the Safe Place logo and the personnel there will provide a means of transportation to a shelter. |
FRANCE...
"The Connexion" edition: December 2011 |
ADADA donkey charity has asked The Connexion to pass on its thanks to readers who kindly donated towards a recent urgent appeal in our online newsletter. |
GREECE...
| The soup kitchen | |||||
| |||||
   It is 10am on a small side-street in the Athens district of Omonia. Hundreds of people of Central Asian, Middle Eastern and African appearance are patiently queueing in the shade of a non-descript building. They are waiting their turn to receive a free meal from the charity Caritas, which feeds over 300 people every day. The centre has become a lifeline for the many people living in squalid conditions in the surrounding areas. Open for a couple of hours every day, the soup kitchen offers a meal a day and a brief escape from a life of unemployment, destitution and boredom. Academics in the field of geopolitics have coined the term “the arc of crisis” to refer to the many unstable states that occupy the land between northwest Africa and the Indian subcontinent. Many of these countries are synonymous with terrorism, political instability and conflict and these factors have triggered a wave of migration in the past decade. Because of the country’s geographical position, Greece sits at the forefront of Europe’s immigration problem. Figures released on September 16 reveal that 57,000 people have been detained for illegally entering Greece this year alone; with the economic crisis in full swing the new arrivals come to a destination with little on offer. President of the Caritas Athens Refuge Programme, Nikos Voutsinos, is a modest man and one would be surprised that he had once been the regional director of Xerox for East and Central Africa. Voutsinos has devoted his retirement to charity. He is a practising Catholic and has a picture of Pope Benedict hanging in his office. As he explained to the Athens News, “the people we have here today will not be here in a month, as they carry on their journey to other destinations,” while at the same time some are taking voluntary deportation. In the soup kitchen I get talking to an Afghan man named Husain. His story is representative of many Afghans residing in Greece. As Husain eats his spaghetti bolognese he tells that after leaving war-torn Afghanistan he initially made the perilous journey by land to Greece and then on to Austria. Husain stayed in Austria for six months before he got arrested. After having spent a month in prison, he was deported back to Greece - the first country he entered in the EU. Because of both the current difficulties facing Greece and suffering from an illness, Husain will be one of many taking advantage of the government’s scheme of voluntary return. Voutsinos said that “for years now we haven’t received money from the government” and Caritas has survived on donations from companies and the public. As many migrants end up staying in Greece because they lack proper documents to go on to a third country or are awaiting decisions about their status, the soup kitchen has consistently remained busy. Safety factors Besides acting as a source of food and support, the soup kitchen is also a safe haven for many. In surrounding Omonia, violent crime, drug abuse and prostitution are commonplace. Within the centre, though, the number of violent incidents is low, despite the environment outside. Voutsinos is obsessed with the safety of his guests. He instructs them to take main roads rather than side-streets to get to the centre, thus diminishing the chances of ending up as a crime victim. Another precaution taken is to close the building by 2pm, the time Voutsinos said the surrounding streets start turning hostile. The Caritas president likes to point out that since he took over as director in 2006 there have only been “three or four violent incidents” at the centre. He said that inter-ethnic violence does occur, in particular between Arabs and Africans, but that, on the whole, these fights rarely make their way into the soup kitchen. According to Voutsinos, most of the diners are unemployed and broke, and after their meal head for lodgings where they are often packed 20 or more to a room. They file out of the building as volunteers behind them clear up the tables and rush to make the 2pm deadline. | |||||
TAIWAN...
"Taiwan Today" Newspaper
Man circles Taiwan on old bike to commemorate late father
12/15/2011 (Liberty Times)
In April of this year, Chen Kun-jung of New Taipei City's Luzhou completed his circuit around Taiwan on his late father's bike in seven days, traveling some 180 kilometers a day. He later conducted the same trip at the end of September on another old bike in six days.
Chen says that his father was handicapped, with one foot that would not bend properly, but he was able to ride a bicycle to work. With six children to raise, his father was an amazing man. Unfortunately, before he died two years ago, he never had the chance to conduct a trip around Taiwan. To memorialize his father's life and spirit, Chen decided to ride his dad's 1951 Japanese bicycle around the island this year. He started out from home on April 26 , and passed through Danshui, Jinshan, Wanli, Toucheng, and Yilan before continuing around the island clockwise. He got up at 3 a.m. each day to ride and put in 15 hours in the saddle daily.
"I just wanted to finish the job!" says Chen. When he had just started, friends regarded his mission with doubt, wondering if he would be able to complete it. Some even tried to talk him out of it, or called him an idiot. But Chen stuck to his idea without wavering. He says that the toughest time of his trip was when he was heading down the Suao-Hualien highway. The old bike had worn parts, and the brakes wore out. Even worse, the bike shop said there were no parts available to fix such an old model, so he had to use his feet to brake the bicycle all the way around the island. Whenever he came to a slope, he would get off and push.
By the time he did his second circuit of the island, Chen had switched to a "younger" bicycle. This one was only 40 years old. The results were similar to his first trip, but with his previous experience, he was able to shave a day off his time, completing this trip in just six days. Chen has been collecting old stuff since childhood, including hand-cranked telephones, old scales, abacuses, and ice-shaving machines, and all of them are at least 40 years old, making his house a miniature museum nowadays.
Chen says that when he was a boy, he would go down to the water's edge to watch people wash clothes, or hang out by the irrigation channels, looking for lost coins in the water. At night, he would even dream of fishing for coins in this way. Later, he came to love anything that had the flavor of those days. He believes that antiques are a way to preserve and transmit culture from the past.
Chen plans to exhibit his collections for free from this Christmas Eve until the end of the year on the first floor of the Luzhou Government building.
(The Chinese version of this article was published on December 14, 2011.)
CANADA...
British Columbia...
Local parks offer a bit of adventure for free
Ranger Tyler Perrier-Ehrlick has walked across Lynn Canyon Park’s suspension bridge in North Vancouver more than a few times.
In Vancouver, parks are us, big-time. Unrivalled by any other Canadian jurisdiction, this city is blessed with an abundance of municipal, regional, and provincial parks, plus several wildlife sanctuaries. Thanks to tax dollars and private donations, admission to most of these green spaces comes free of charge—except for parking fees, of course, though those were thankfully rescinded in B.C. provincial parks earlier this year.
Thus, in the category of “best free features in local parks”, the restored free parking in West Vancouver’s Cypress and North Vancouver’s Mount Seymour provincial parks ranks those spots right behind the top three finalists.
Hands down, the winner in this category has to be Lynn Canyon Park’s suspension bridge, just east of Lynn Valley Road on Peters Road. Don’t confuse this with Vancouver’s top tourist attraction, the Capilano Suspension Bridge, located farther west on Capilano Road. Unlike its counterpart, Lynn Canyon’s swaying walkway allows access from both banks, between which Lynn Creek tumbles. Each year, between 750,000 and one million visitors cross the free bridge, which originally opened in 1912 in one of the North Shore’s first public green spaces.
Earlier this summer, the Georgia Straight met District of North Vancouver ranger Tyler Perrier-Ehrlick midway across Lynn Canyon’s 40-metre drooping span. The first-year Capilano University student said he had the best job in the world, one that dovetailed perfectly with his studies in outdoor-recreation management. “Four hundred people applied for this job,” the 19-year-old recounted. “I was lucky enough to be chosen. Now I’ve got summer employment for at least the next two years while I complete school.”
Perrier-Ehrlick’s boss, Andy Robinson, is North Vancouver’s head ranger and sole full-time park patroller. Born just up the road from Lynn Canyon Park, the 45-year-old gives credit to the half-dozen seasonal staff members who assist him in the “pretty vast” job of supervising the district’s 152 parks, beaches, and greenbelts. “We really focused on Lynn Canyon this year, offering public information and safety tips on what to see and where to go,” he said by phone, “especially as the suspension bridge is the best gateway in Metro for adventure tourists.”
UNITED KINGDOM...
Britain...
http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/lifestyle-news/your-life/2011/10/12/flying-flag-for-british-style-in-paris-92746-29584012/
Nuneaton fashion student flies flag for British style in Paris
No comments:
Post a Comment