Climate change: Guess who’s blaming the victim?

It is a well-worn truism that those that have contributed the least to cause climate change will suffer the most from it.

Here’s the kicker: the Western polluters not only get to keep their dirty money, but their reputations as well.

A study carried out for the BBC World Service trust and the British Council found that many Africans blame themselves for climate change even though the continent’s fossil fuel emissions are less than 4 per cent of the global total.

The Africa Talks Climate Report, which interviewed 1,000 people in 10 countries, found a near-universal sense that what people called “weather” was changing and affecting lives, though people tended to blame themselves, their peers or God.

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The United Split States of Africa?

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is famous for championing the cause of African unity and the creation of a United States of Africa.

But his methods are not earning him any friends. Last week, Nigeria recalled its envoy from Tripoli and a senator called the Libyan leader a “madman” after he suggested that the country be split into two to avoid further religious bloodshed.

“His theatrics and grandstanding at every auspicious occasion have become too numerous to recount,” declared a statement from the Nigerian Foreign Ministry, saying the ambassador had been summoned back for “urgent negotiations” because of the “irresponsible utterances of Colonel Gaddafi.” Africa’s most populous nation, with a largely Muslim north, and a Christian-dominated south, has recently been wracked by communal violence.

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Why monkeys are quicker to ape females

In South Africa, scientists studying wild vervet monkeys found that the animals were better able to learn a task when it was demonstrated by a female.

This followed experiments in which a dominant male and a dominant female were selected as a “models” to demonstrate to other monkeys how to open doors to boxes containing fruit.

After this “demonstration phase,” the other monkeys were far more likely to try — and to succeed in — opening the fruit box if their demonstrator was a female. Apparently, the primates simply paid more attention to females than to males. Joe Zuma would undoubtedly approve.

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