₦airaland Forum

Rare sighting of a leopard.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-42993333


The world's rarest chimpanzee has been captured on camera in the remote forests of Nigeria.

The Nigeria-Cameroon chimp was seen at various locations within Gashaka Gumti National Park, raising hopes for its future survival.

Conservationists also recorded the first sighting in the country of a giant pangolin.

The park is regarded as a national treasure, but its wildlife is under threat from pressures such as poaching.

Researchers from Chester Zoo, working with the Nigeria National Park Service, surveyed over 1,000 square kilometres of the national park.

Known for its mountain rainforests, savannah woodlands and rolling grasslands, it is home to some of West Africa's most endangered animals.

The cameras spotted some animals that have never been recorded before in the area and others, like chimps, which are rarely seen.
Image copyright Chester Zoo
Image caption Gashaka Gumti National Park is regarded as one of Nigeria's last wildernesses

Stuart Nixon, the Africa Field Programme Co-ordinator at Chester Zoo, said confirmation of the locations of chimps was an important discovery.

"Gashaka's been regarded for many years as having the biggest population of this Nigeria-Cameroon chimp, which is the rarest chimp subspecies," he said.

"We consider it the most important population - that's really why we need to count it and see what the status of the chimp is right now - that will ultimately affect what we know about this subspecies elsewhere."
Forgotten wilderness

The chimp is endangered across its range in Cameroon and Nigeria. Its total population is down to fewer than 9,000 individuals, of which about 1,000 are thought to live within the borders of the national park.

The ape faces many threats, from illegal poaching for bushmeat and traditional medicines to loss of habitat.

Wildlife experts are exploring new areas of the park to get a better idea of numbers, as there have been no population surveys for 20 years.

The cameras captured more than 50,000 images of the park's wildlife between 2015 and the end of 2017.

"It's an incredible tool to use these camera traps and to reveal that this park - which is a forgotten wilderness, really, for Nigeria - still has a really important reservoir of important species for Nigeria and Africa in general," said Stuart Nixon.

The researchers were surprised to spot a giant pangolin, which is one of the rarest and least known of the six species.

The scaled mammals are poached for their scales, which are used in traditional medicine, and their meat.

"No-one's seen a giant pangolin - no-one even knew that they were there," said Stuart Nixon. "It's the first record for Nigeria as well - that highlights how rare, how elusive and how difficult they are to find and study."

Camera traps also found the first photographic evidence of leopards, which may make up one of the most significant populations in West Africa.

The African golden cat was also seen on images.

"It's likely that it's the only significant population of the golden cat left in Nigeria," said Stuart Nixon. "Very elusive, very little known, there's not been many studies on them at all."

Chester Zoo has been supporting Gashaka Gumti National Park for more than 20 years, intensifying their efforts recently to address growing threats to the park's wildlife.

The wildlife within the park is officially protected but some animals are at risk of poaching. Chester Zoo is funding patrols for the rangers and providing training in wildlife monitoring and protection.

Yohanna Saidu of the Nigerian Park service and chief warden of Gashaka Gumti National Park said there were few places in Africa that can rival its spectacular beauty.

"But it survives barely known by the international community and under increasing threat," he said.

"This work is helping us learn more about the secrets of one of our last wilderness areas and we must continue to work together to ensure its survival for future generations.

"If all this beauty were lost it would be a terrible tragedy for all."

Company started by a Brit.

https://www.ted.com/talks/joel_jackson_a_vehicle_built_in_africa_for_africa




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScPVd-zb6k0&t=437s

Clever satire.

Through his policies the man single-handledly halved production of Maize in in the country from 2000-2008. That from break basket to food insecure in 8 years. Where else would such a calamity be praised? Put down your rose-tinted specs, pah!

Yeah this thread is great. Keep it up!

Big man on right finally gets a smile in 5th picture. Why the sunglasses?

...photoshop

staggerman:
Nice

Yes, it's a great story and inspiration for a lot of us.

Football was Celestine Olisa’s life as he was growing up in Nigeria, where his skill at the game earned him the nickname “Boban” after his hero, the Croatian captain Zvonimir Boban. He was good enough to turn professional in his late teens and now, after surviving the journey to Europe as a refugee, he is coaching the next generation in his adopted homeland of Croatia.

Celestine, 35, was born in Enugu in the Biafra region and later lived with his stepmother and family in Sabon Gari in Kano state. They had a spare parts and car wash business.

All he wanted to do was play football. “I would tell my parents I was going to church, but actually I’d be going to play football,” he says.

Celestine collected pictures of Boban, who played for AC Milan and led Croatia to third place in the World Cup in France in 1998.

“As a kid, you look up to someone,” says Celestine. “Boban was an aggressive midfielder. I liked his style.”

When it came to the World Cup, Celestine supported Croatia.

“We didn’t have a TV at our house, so we went to the neighbours’ to watch,” he says. “It was a black and white TV. If the house was full, we would stand outside, watching through the window.”

Celestine reminisces about provincial Nigeria from the apartment he now shares with his Croatian wife Anamarija, 27, a lawyer. They married last year. “It was more than a romance,” he says. “She was the one who was giving me courage.”

Courage was what he needed on the difficult journey he was to make before his new life began in Croatia.

Celestine had been a promising junior player for the Nigerian Premier League side Kano Pillars FC and, in 2004, won a competition that led to a signing with Jedinstvo Bijelo Polje FC in Montenegro for two years.

“I was twenty-two,” he says. “I saw Europe for the first time. Lots of things were different from Africa. I was lonely. At that time, I thought I would have a better life in Nigeria and I returned home. But I started to regret it. The religious problem in Nigeria was getting worse. I had seen that life was safe in Europe. Why had I come back?”

Celestine himself was injured when an unknown attacker stabbed him in the stomach, putting him in hospital.

In 2011, he left Nigeria for the second time. “Now I was a refugee. I went with smugglers, through Libya and across the Mediterranean. There are things I don’t want to talk about, that’s the simple truth. It was a journey that no-one would want to remember.”

Celestine was stopped in Slovenia, where the authorities decided to send him to Croatia.

“I was in an open camp in Slovenia,” he says. “We got a warning that the police were coming. Other refugees ran away because they did not want to be sent to Croatia but I packed my case and waited.”

“I thought to myself, ‘I don’t want to run away any more, I’ve had enough.’ I had a good feeling about Croatia. Croatia is football. The police said it was the first time someone was sitting waiting for them, ready.”

At Porin reception centre, Celestine started encouraging fellow refugees to play football and the Red Cross provided them with a proper field in the neighbourhood.

“In football, we didn’t feel that we were asylum-seekers but just players, playing sports naturally, like everyone else.”

Celestine went on to coach Croatian children at NK Utrina and adults at NK Zagreb 041, an amateur club run by fans which campaigns against violence and racism in football. While holding down a second job as a barman, Celestine is also attending coaching school with the aim of becoming a certified trainer of the Croatian Football Association.

He was granted asylum, and met and married the woman he loved. “I told Anamarija I would do everything in Croatian style. We had a Catholic wedding and 70 guests. Unfortunately, I couldn’t invite anyone from Africa.”

On a weekday evening, Celestine is coaching the children again at NK Utrina. “This club is my home,” he says. “I know all the parents here. They gave me a life when I was nobody. I feel confident here.”

He points to a boy dribbling a ball in the field.

“That boy is very keen. He could have a future. He could be the next star for Croatia.”

http://www.unhcr.org/news/stories/2017/6/5937c4bb4/nigerian-footballer-scores-success-coach-croatia.html

Actually neither Nigerian or Irish. Posted in 1936 New York newspaper

https://twitter.com/QuoteResearch/status/842849694397026304/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Right place, right time.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34023361

French President Francois Hollande has thanked three American men hailed as heroes for overpowering a heavily-armed gunman on a train in northern France.

The incident happened on the high-speed Thalys service near Arras. A 26-year-old Moroccan man was arrested.

One of the Americans said they took an AK-47 assault rifle and a handgun from the attacker as they saw him walk down the aisle of the train.

They then put him in a chokehold until he was unconscious.

France's Interior Minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said Mr Hollande thanked the men by telephone and will meet them in the coming days.

Two of the American men who overpowered the gunman, Spencer Stone and Alek Skarlatos, are members of the Air Force and the National Guard respectively.

"I grabbed the handgun, got that away from the guy and threw it. Then I grabbed the AK-47, which was at his feet, and started muzzle-bumping him in the head with it.

"Everybody just started beating the guy while Spencer held the chokehold until he went unconscious."

When he checked the AK-47, Mr Skarlotos said it had jammed and would not have been able to fire. The cartridge for the handgun had also been dropped, he said.

French authorities said three people were injured, two of them seriously - one with a gunshot wound, the other a knife wound.
Scene-of-crime experts were quickly summoned

Chris Norman, a British man living in France, was also hurt while trying to subdue the attacker.

"I came in at the end of it all and helped get him under control," he said at a news conference in Arras.

"The guy pulled out a cutter and started cutting Spencer - he cut behind his neck and nearly cut his thumb off."

Another man, who has not been identified, suffered severe cuts to his neck. Spencer Stone went to help him despite his own injuries. Mr Stone remains in hospital.


"I'm really proud of my friend that he just reacted so quickly and so bravely," Anthony Sadler said.

"He was really the first one over there. Even after being injured himself, he went to go help the other man who was bleeding also. Without his help, he would have died.

"That man was bleeding from his neck profusely."
French actor Jean-Hugues Anglade, who was on board, said: "I thought it was the end"

The passengers included French actor Jean-Hugues Anglade, the star of Betty Blue and Nikita, who was lightly wounded breaking glass to sound the alarm.

In an interview with Paris Match magazine, Mr Anglade said: "I thought it was the end, that we were going to die, that he was going to kill us all.

"I really could see us all dying because we were all prisoners in that train, it would have been impossible to escape from that nightmare."

The American men and Mr Norman were awarded medals for bravery by authorities in Arras.

In a statement, British Prime Minister David Cameron praised the "extraordinary courage of the passengers who intervened and helped disarm the gunman, including the British consultant Chris Norman.

"The bravery of Mr Norman and the other passengers helped to prevent a terrible incident."

US President Barack Obama was among those to praise those who took action.

"It is clear that their heroic actions may have prevented a far worse tragedy," the White House said in a statement.

Mr Cazeneuve said the man lived in Spain until 2014, and in Belgium this year. Spanish intelligence passed on information about the suspect to France in February 2014, he said.

The suspect is believed to have radical Islamist beliefs, Mr Cazeneuve said. Anti-terror investigators in Paris. now have 76 hours to question the suspect.

Belgian prosecutors also opened an anti-terror investigation on Saturday morning.

Images shared on social media appeared to show the suspect being restrained on the station platform in Arras.

France has been on edge since the attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine and a Jewish supermarket in Paris in January, which left 17 people dead.

And in June a man said to be inspired by the Islamic State group beheaded his boss and tried to blow up a gas plant in southern France.

EgunMogaji:
Mate, middle east is not europe.

I think it's Dubai.

His photo was Europe (UK). Yours is Dubai.

Front page please.

The mass murderer Bashir has not been arrested or detained, he has just been prevented from leaving temporarily. OP, please amend title to the truth.

There is no way South Africa would risk escalating matters by actually arresting him.

That is horrible. R.I.P. brave kid.

Only on Nairaland...

Again mods, this is front page news...

Hostage taken and police are closing in on the suspects. Yet still Nigerians are kept in the dark on this site, instead the front page contains articles like '» Photo: Iyanya Strips Down To His Undies In New Bathroom Selfie In Dubai «'. Nairaland is not what it used to be.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30740115

How is this not front page news

Barcelona style 13-pass goal scored by Ipswich u14s, the club that Finidi George used to play for. Already on 700,000+ views.


[flash=560,315]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDMP3Yhm-IE[/flash]

This should be moved to the politics section.

Yes, this is a horrendous catalogue of evidence.

To those adding parks (like the one in Dublin), this thread is for national parks, altogether different beasts!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_park

Symphony007: FIRST FAMILY OF FRANCE.
The holland's.

As President Hollande split from his wife, he must be the only single dad from this list!

A lot of people don't know that at the exact time (or even AFTER) that this disgusting trade was taking place, around 20,000 from Britain and Ireland alone) white slaves were being taken in coastal raids, and more from Iceland, Spain/Portugal to Arab lands. Look up Barbary slave trade for more info.

The last I checked Tunisia (a base for the pirates) was in the African Union, so maybe the EU could counter-sue them if such an event ever happened. This is just one example of a practice that has been going on for 1000s of years.

Judging that the majority of people there are against independence, that seems unlikely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1Lvr7IvFHQ

Respect for not celebrating to save the blushes of the other keeper.

Are people here on substances? From ages 15-17 some oyibo can grow up a lot, from the sounds of it some here have never met or seen oyibo kids before. This kind of thing doesn't happen in Sweden - what's more there is no reason for it to happen. This level of competition is not taken as seriously there as it is in Naija.

All this talk of Swedish ages all based on one blurry picture of 3 of their players?

They don't mess about with things such as age in Sweden.