World News
Rare black leopard captured in Kenya camera trap photos | World News
The elusive cats, also known as black panthers, were last seen in a confirmed observation in 1909 in Ethiopia.
Kenya’s Ol Ari Nyiro Conservancy says it took a photo of a black leopard in May 2007 but did not publicise it at the time.
British wildlife photographer Will Burrard-Lucas captured the latest black leopard in Kenya after a friend told him there had been sightings.
He contacted the landowners and set up motion-sensitive cameras to capture the largely nocturnal cat in Laikipia County, central Kenya, in January.
Black leopards are the same as their spotty relatives but carry a gene mutation for melanism that makes their coats black.
However, infrared cameras used during the night revealed their spots.
Mr Burrard-Lucas set up “studio-like lighting” and left his cameras for days in an area where the leopard had been spotted before he was successful.
“For me, no animal is shrouded in more mystery, no animal more elusive, and no animal more beautiful,” Mr Burrard-Lucas wrote on his blog.
“Nobody I knew had ever seen one in the wild and I never thought that I would either.
“As I scrolled through the images on the back of the camera, I paused and peered at the photograph below in incomprehension… a pair of eyes surrounded by inky darkness… a black leopard!
“I couldn’t believe it and it took a few days before it sank in that I had achieved my dream.”
As the photographer was capturing stills of the animals, researchers from San Diego Zoo Global studying leopards in the area set up remote video cameras nearby.
Researchers believe the black leopard is the daughter of a normal female leopard she was seen following.
Publishing their findings in the African Journal of Ecology, Nicholas Pilfold, from the San Diego team, said: “Collectively, these are the first confirmed images in nearly 100 years of black leopard in Africa, and the first in Kenya.”
Melanism was thought to be a way that leopards adapted to moving out of the dense forests where their spots camouflage them from predators or prey.
However, the sighting in the open, semi-arid habitat of Laikipia raises questions about that theory.
World News
Swastikas painted on Jewish graves in French cemetery
The graffiti appeared in the cemetery in Quatzenheim, near Strasbourg, overnight on Tuesday – hours before planned nationwide marches against a rise in antisemitic attacks.
French president Emmanuel Macron visited the graveyard on Tuesday, walking through a gate with a swastika sprayed onto it.
He paid his respects at one of the desecrated graves and told Jewish community members and local leaders: “It’s important for me to be here with you today.”
There were more than 500 antisemitic attacks across France in 2018, a 74% increase from 2017, figures released last week revealed.
After a series of antisemitic attacks last January Mr Macron urged the whole of France to “rise up” against “disgusting attacks” on the country’s Jewish community.
Incidents in recent days included yellow vest protesters on Saturday abusing Alain Finkielkraut, a well-known Jewish writer and son of a Holocaust survivor.
It has grown by about half since the Second World War, but antisemitic attacks remain common.
Earlier this month a bagel shop was sprayed with the word Juden – German for Jews – in yellow letters.
A Jewish cemetery in Herrlisheim, north of Strasbourg, also had many of its gravestones daubed with swastikas in December last year.
In 2015 four Jews in a Kosher supermarket in Paris were among 17 killed across the city by Islamist militants.
“These acts are disgusting,” Prime Minister Edouard Philippe told parliament last week.
“We need to educate and remind people about our history, to talk about the horrors that hide behind those criminal acts.
“We also need to punish (more) and we know that we can’t be hesitant on that.”
Mr Macron will host a dinner on Wednesday with the head of Crif, the overarching body that represents the Jewish community in France.
Hausa
Nijar ta samu tallafi maganin malaria daga Amurka

Hakkin mallakar hoto
Getty Images
Gwamnatin Amurka ta tallafa wa jamhuriyar Nijar da magungunan zazzabin cizon sauro wato malaria na milyoyin CFA.
Tallafin dai ya hada da magungunan rigakafin zazzabin cizon sauro dama na magance cutar da zarar an kamu da ita.
Kazalika daga cikin tallafin da Amurkan ta ba wa Nijar, akwai gidajen sauro.
Amurka dai ta bayar da wannan taimako ne ga Nijar da zimmar rage yaduwar cutar ta malaria da akshi 50 cikin 100.
Wannan tallafi na Amurkan, na daga cikin wani tsari ne na kasar wajen tallafa wa kasashe masu tasowa.
Cutar zazzabin cizon sauro na daga cikin cututtukan da ke saurin kisan kananan yara da ma mata masu juna biyu a kasar.
Gwamnatin Nijar ta kasa yakin da take a kan yaduwar cutar zuwa gida uku da suka hada da neman tallafi da wadatar da al’ummar kasar da maganin rigakafin cutar da kuma tsaftace unguwanni.
Kasashen Afrika ne suka fi fama da cutar zazzabin cizon sauro, kuma yawancin wadanda ke mutuwa yara ne.
World News
Two dozen bodies recovered from flooded illegal Zimbabwe gold mine
Up to 70 may have been trapped in the mine and the search near Kadoma continues, the government said. It has declared a national disaster.
Henrietta Rushwaya, who leads the country’s small-scale miners’ association, said 23 of the bodies had been identified.
According to the government’s deputy chief mining engineer, “it doesn’t seem likely” that there are any other survivors.
Friends and relatives have broken police lines in an attempt to identify their loved ones.
According to the Zimbabwean government, $200,000 (£155,000) is needed to complete the rescue effort – with a spokesman urging “well-wishers” to donate body bags, masks and gloves.
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