An investigation of the killing of rare mountain gorillas has uncovered an inside job:
The Congolese Nature Conservation Institute (ICCN) is reported to have brought the charges against Honore Mashagiro – one of its members.
Ten gorillas were killed in 2007 in the Virunga National Park, a Unesco world heritage site.
The motive is said to have been related to creating a “distraction” while other illegal activity was conducted.
No, I’m not talking about opportunities for women (pun intended). Sometimes the security team gets an odd request to help operations or even become operations in times of need. The BBC report on the bread crisis in Egypt puts this into perspective:
Hosni Mubarak said eradicating bread queues was “imperative”.
The army and interior ministry control numerous bakeries normally used to supply bread for troops and police.
Mr Mubarak issued his order to the army at a meeting of cabinet ministers on Sunday that was called to address the growing crisis, his spokesman said.
Perhaps the next time the network teams asks you to start working for them to reduce panic among users, just remember bread price inflation in Egypt. Or maybe the 100,000% inflation in Zimbabwe is worth consideration as well. Another article I read said Zimbabwe’s issues are just foreshadowing of things to come for the rest of the world. Food for thought (pun not intended).
The BBC story says a mystery about the Little Prince author has been solved.
Mr von Gartzen told the BBC News website that he made 1,200 phone calls to former Luftwaffe pilots and their families in search of the man who shot down the French writer.
Finally, he was told about a man who had a clear memory of the events of 31 July 1944, the date Antoine de Saint-Exupery disappeared.
“I presented myself as doing research and he said: ‘You can stop researching now because I shot down Saint-Exupery’.”
That sounds like a confession. Case closed?
Lino von Gartzen said it came as a big shock: “I never thought I would find who shot him down. I was quiet for some minutes as this was too much for me”.
For another two years he continued to check Horst Rippert’s story and is convinced by it.
“From my point of view as a professional historian it’s a very, very good hypothesis and everything he told us seems to be true.
Two years of checking a story is a nice luxury to have. Most investigations I get to work on have a half-life of a couple weeks.
“He feels guilty and very, very sorry about it. He was very scared that the cheap press would massacre him.”
In the published extracts, Mr Rippert describes being a fan of de Saint-Exupery’s work. “In our youth, at school, we had all read him. We loved his books,” he said.
Talk about a gut-wrenching conclusion to the tale. Does he feel he will avoid massacre if he claims to be a fan of the man he killed? Or was he really a fan? Imagine if fighter pilots were actually worried they might shoot down their favorite author — fear of literary impact. I guess that would be a form of conscientious objection to war.
From the Satires of Juvenal, Book IV, Satire X, as posted in Wikipedia:
orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano.
fortem posce animum mortis terrore carentem,
qui spatium uitae extremum inter munera ponat
naturae, qui ferre queat quoscumque labores,
nesciat irasci, cupiat nihil et potiores
Herculis aerumnas credat saeuosque labores
et uenere et cenis et pluma Sardanapalli.
monstro quod ipse tibi possis dare; semita certe
tranquillae per uirtutem patet unica uitae.
(10.356-64)
I will try to translate if I can find some time. Might come in handy for the session I will be leading at RSA.