National Brands Inc. Issues a Nationwide Recall of Topaz brand ...

National Brands Inc. Issues a Nationwide Recall of Topaz brand Wafer Rolls Because of Possible Health Risks...more...

Forty days in captivity

The Gulf of Aden, a busy shipping route which passes the lawless northern coast of Somalia, has become...more...

The National Football Post | Breaking News: Packers Fire Sanders

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The Stranger | Slog | Our National Parks

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NOAA - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - NOAA ...

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Sheldon Alberts on Roland Burris: 'I am the junior senator ...

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Debating Republican National Committee candidates engage in gun ...

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India's National Airline Fires Overweight Stewardesses

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BBC News Search: national (20)

G8 summit: The key issues

BBC correspondents examine the main issues set to dominate the G8 summit, which opens in Japan on Monday.

Protests ahead of Japan G8 summit

Protests begin on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido ahead of Monday's summit of the G8 nations.

Justice and compassion in East Timor

The BBC's Lucy Williamson looks at whether East Timor's concept of justice is letting the newly-independent nation down.

Japan rues Kyoto climate experience

The Kyoto Protocol on climate change negotiated in 1997 was unfair to Japan, one of the nation's chief climate negotiators tells BBC News.

Delays hit pupils' test results

More than a million 11 and 14-year-olds in England will get their Sats results late this year because of administrative chaos.

Rare swordfish found on beach

A swordfish, rarely seen in Welsh waters, is washed up on a beach and is now set to be a museum exhibit.

Row erupts over park gypsy camp

Powys council and Brecon Beacons National Park are at loggerheads over the location of a gypsy camp.

Australia 'needs carbon trading'

An Australian government advisor on climate change calls for a national emissions trading scheme to combat global warming.

Stark choice in Iran policy battles

BBC Tehran correspondents on the stark choices offered by parallel debates in the US and Iran.

Assembly powers group revealed

Sixteen people to gauge support for a possible referendum on further powers for the Welsh assembly are named.

How UK's nations provide their NHS

The four nations that comprise the United Kingdom provide post-devolution health services in considerably different ways.

Singer Shakira joins Live Nation

Columbian pop star Shakira signs a multi--million dollar deal with global concert promoter Live Nation.

Brown quizzed: Point-by-point

The main points as senior MPs on the Commons Liaison Committee grilled Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Welsh valleys created NHS - Brown

Prime Minister Gordon Brown pays tribute to the role of the Welsh valleys in the birth of the National Health Service.

Timeline: Bulgaria

A chronology of key events

Country profile: Bulgaria

Key facts, figures and dates

Landscapes launch new galleries

Four new galleries open dedicated to celebrating art in Wales and featuring Welsh landscapes.

Denmark 'world's happiest nation'

Denmark is the happiest country in the world, according to a survey published by the US National Science Foundation.

Country profile: Belarus

Key facts, figures and dates

Country profile: Austria

Key facts, figures and dates

There Is Strength In A Herd

I once was asked to speak to a group of teenage boys about the importance of families. I am a high school religion teacher and often speak to teens. But this assignment made me nervous because I knew it was a topic the boys weren't excited to hear.

Minutes before speaking I had an unusual experience. A visual image came to my mind as though someone had turned on a television set in my brain. I clearly saw a scene you might see on the Discovery Channel -- it was a lion scattering a herd of animals.

The image came so powerfully that it surprised me. I wondered if it had anything to do with the talk I was about to give. The understanding quickly came.

When a predator attacks a herd the first job is not the kill. There is strength in the herd and the predator knows it. The first job is to scatter. If the predator can separate the weak from the strong and the young from the powerful they become easy targets.

This was demonstrated powerfully in a National Geographic special I saw about mother elephants (cows) and their babies (calves). Elephant cows are careful to keep their calf within a step or two because danger is always waiting nearby. Lions sometimes stay as close as 20 feet. When the cow charges the lions they easily lope away. The lions understand they can never get to the calf with the powerful mother nearby. So they watch and wait for one of them to make a mistake.

The program then showed of one calf becoming separated from its mother. The lions quickly pounced on it, trying to bring it down and kill it. Somehow this lucky calf was able to escape and return to the safety of its mother.

We live in a society now filled with children not so lucky. Predators have successfully scattered and separated families. Children have become easy targets. These attacks are devastating not only families but entire societies.

In his book, The Broken Hearth, former US Secretary of Education William H. Bennett stated:

"It is fashionable these days to say and to believe that matters like divorce, illegitimacy, cohabitation, and single-parenting are "private" matters that are not the business of the wider community. To which I would respond: There are few matters of more profound public consequence than the condition of marriage and families. Most of our social pathologies -- crime, imprisonment rates, welfare, educational underachievement, alcohol and drug abuse, suicide, depression, sexually-transmitted diseases -- are manifestations, direct and indirect, of the crack-up of the modern American family."

What is the answer? Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said it well:

"We either build our children or we build more jails. Time to stop building jails. Our children are not the problem, they are our future. If you want young people to become contributing citizens and not convicts, then early in life we must give them the character and the competence they need to succeed in this exciting new world. It begins in the home with caring, loving parents and family members who pass on the virtues of past generations" (GOP National Convention, July 31, 2000).

It begins with parents. We have the responsibility to stand close to our children, to make time for them, to love them, to teach them. If we do not they will become victims to the serious predators that now surround them.

There is strength in a herd.

African Safari Boating And Wildlife Safaris

If you are looking for an African safari adventure, you will often find your self spoilt for choices. There is Kenya with it's famous wildlife including the great wilderbeest migration in masai mara. Then there is southern Africa with a lot to offer. If you are a water person then, paddling up creeks, gliding across placid lakes and pushing through reeds while dodging crocodiles is an exciting way of seeing wildlife, not so much for glimpses of crocs, or hippos (which may just be showing their nostrils), but for the animals, so you can get much closer. Canoeing or boating safaris are most rewarding in semi-arid areas, whose rivers and lakes are obviously of paramount importance to local wildlife.

Sadly kenya's masai mara and the famous mara where the wildebeest migration occurs each year doesn't offer that to visitors.

In West Africa drifting along in a canoe on the River Niger is a major thrill, especially on the edge of Niger’s portion of hyenas and jackals can be seen. Guinea’s parc National du Haut Niger is more wooded, and gives you a chance of spotting chimpanzees. Gabon is excellent for pirogue trips, with boats available in coastal Akanda National Park, and inland at Minkebe Lope National Parks. In East Africa, Tanzania’s Selous Game Reserve is the main place for boating, which can be combined with bush walks.

You’re spoilt for choice in Southern Africa. Boating safaris in Zambia’s South Lungwa National Park are very popular, and the country also allows canoeing safaris in the swampy Kafue National Park (great for water-loving antelopes), and along the Zambezi. In the latter you can extend your trip over several days, spending nights under canvas. Neighbouring Zimbabwe also offers Zambezi canoeing expeditions, as part of trips to Mana pools National Park. To the north, Malawi’s Liwonde National Park is an exceptional place for seeing elephants, hippos, crocs and birds from a boat, while boats are also the best way to get around the swampy wildlife sanctuaries of Namibia’s Capriivi Strip.

If you use a horse or an elephant as a as a means of transport you’ll be often be able to approach other species much more closely than you would if you were on foot or in a car. Neither horseback nor elephant-back safaris are particularly widespread in africa, however; in general horses don’t have too good a time of it in Africa thanks to sleeping sickness and other parasitic diseases. Good places for horseback safaris include Kenya's masai mara, Botswana’s elephant-packed Tuli and Mashatu Game Reserves, Northern Malawi’s inspiring Nyika Plateau, Zimbabwe’s Lake Mutirikwe National Park (where you can get close to white rhinos), the alphine highlands of Ethiopia’s Bale Mountains National Park, and Swaziland’s Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary. There are also horseback safaris at masai mara.

Unlike their Asian cousins, the African elephant has never been too partial to the ideal of having to lug people around on their backs, so the recent introduction of elephant – back safaris in Zambia (Mosi-Oa-Tunya National Park), South Africa (Pilanesburg National Park), and in Botswana’s diminutive Mokolodi Nature Reserve, owes unwitting thanks to the days ivory poaching. Orphaned elephants rescued by sanctuaries, and their offspring, have grown up to be trusting of humans.

Lastly don’t forget camels. In Niger’s Air Mountains, where small population of Savanna animals still survive, you can spend days on camelback exploring the edges of the Tenere sand dunes.

Actually, “days” isn’t quite true after a few hours in the saddle, you’ll probably find walking a rather more comfortable experience.