Safari Notes

Usain Bolt's feat at the Beijing Olympics, will awe and be talked about - for years and maybe - for generations to come. He has taken the sporting world by storm: "I blew my mind," he said, "and I blew the world's mind." His own blown mind should cause no worries -- it will be put back together with another night of prodigious sleep and perhaps some more Chicken McNuggets, his prerace meal of choice this week. But the world's mind may take some time to recover. Track and field, the Olympic Games and the sporting world at large witnessed something Wednesday that cannot quickly be processed, for it involved the utter rewriting of the laws of human athletic possibility. On a hot, steamy night that would have felt familiar in Kingston or the sugar cane fields of his native Trelawny, Bolt obliterated another world record, torching a world class field in the 200-meter dash in a time of 19.30 seconds, .02 of a second better than American Michael Johnson's

Africa has lost one of its few leaders who had integrity, was incorruptible and who greatly cared for democracy and about his people. By his character and through his deeds, Levy Mwanawasa was a shining light in Africa; very few African leaders won and commanded respect as Mwanawasa did. In the few years he has served as Zambia's president, Mr. Mwanawasa showed a new kind of leadership in Africa; a kind of leadership that would be worth emulating by leaders in other parts of Africa. Rest in peace Man!

Its people: hard working, resourceful and many are well educated. With proper, encouraging conditions in the country, Ugandans can do much more. Its land: abundant and very fertile in most parts; but very little of which is productively utilized at the moment. Ugandan land, if well and extensively cultivated, can feed many more millions and in many more countries than it does now. Its waters: Uganda is a land of fresh water - streams, rivers and lakes. And has lots of rain. Few countries have as much fresh water per person as Uganda has. Years ago, Uganda’s lakes, rivers and streams were clean and pristine; now – many are littered with plastic bags and bottles. But, still - of water - Uganda has some of the most fresh and plenty of it. Its livestock: Ugandan cattle and poultry are some of the best one can find. Its wildlife: with a variety of birds and other animals; and green plains and rolling green valleys, many covered with jungles - Uganda is pure magic. And now Uganda has Oil ,

The Gaza Strip is a narrow piece of land along the Mediterranean coast between Israel and Egypt. Just 40km (25 miles) long and 10km wide, it is home to more than 1.4m Palestinians. The shape of the territory was defined by the Armistice Line following the creation of Israel in 1948 and the subsequent war between the Israeli and Arab armies. More from the BBC More on Gaza: Free Gaza , Gaza.net , Raising Yousuf , Looklex , BBC , New York Times , Al Jazeera , The Independent , Telegraph , Wikipedia

We know of snakes and fish being poisonous, but a poisonous bird? That is what the brightly colored pitohui is; it is a native of New Guinea. At least three of the bird's species have poison in their skin and feathers, which is used only as mechanism against predators such as snakes and hawks or even humans. The poison has served the bird well: humans, even the natives in New Guinea, very rare would think of eating it. More on the Pitohui: BBC , NPR , Species Wikimedia , Wikipedia , uga.edu , The New York Times , Bird Forum , interaktv , Menankatuck , Suite 101.com , itg.be , National Geographic , WWF , Scholar

Writing about Kibera yesterday, got me into thinking and remembering the very disturbing and heart wrenching plight of the people of Bangladesh - highlighted in last weekend's CNN's 'World's Untold Stories' . A video of the same, from TheRealNews : As Channel 4 last reported: How does a country's population survive climate change as their homes, land and roads all disappear under water ? Will Bangladesh disappear under water? Will they have to adapt, as many have done now, to live with water all around them? Only time will tell. In the mean time, millions of impoverished Bangladeshis will have to live in even more misery and hardships.

He is the fastest man on Earth and is nicknamed "The Lightning Bolt." He is Usain Bolt and has taken not only the athletics world by storm, but - the whole world. The old and the young, newsmen and laymen are all in awe of the super, amazing Jamaican. He is so fast, that many, including his competitors believe that he is using some form of drugs or is super-normal. Today, 'usain bolt' is one of the most searched terms on Google, Yahoo and all other international search engines. More on Bolt: TIME , IAAF , ABC.net , Sports Illustrated , Times On Line , Trackfield.about , Wikipedia , The Washington Post , YouTube , News