All around the world: Africa News

Got up pretty late today. It looks like a good day today. The football game last night was great!

• New Zealand will conclude their camp by travelling across the Slovene-Austrian border to Maribor for a June 4 date.
• Compared to what we’ll face at the World Cup we’re going to have in Slovakia at Italy it fits perfectly,” Herbert said.
• It couldn’t have worked better for us.” New Zealand Football are still exploring options for further warm up matches, including the viability of a home international, and options for camps for some players outside established FIFA windows.
• June 15 New Zealand v Slovakia Rustenburg.
• June 20 New Zealand v Italy Nelspruit.
• TVNZ is available on mobile phones: Text TVNZ to 8869..

Full Story: All Whites eye Serbia and Slovenia

Greeted a friend whom i havent seen for years. The talk today was pretty refreshing. read some interesting stuff at http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/1/23/829481/

• I got no photo of the massive takin, the “goat-antelope” of the Himalayas, the national animal of Bhutan, in the very last exhibit at the top (that’s a hotlink from wikipedia to the left).
• More broadly, they are members of what was formerly called the order ungulata, which now consists of the true ungulates, both even-toed (the animals of the cloven hoof are members of this order Artiodactyla, since two is an even number) and the odd-toed (members of the order Perissodactyla) and the order Paenungulata, the sub-ungulates.
• The multicolored (Myanmar and China) and golden (China) subspecies of takin are endangered.
• The 950 or so wild ones living in Mongolia and northwest China are critically endangered.
• They have larger ears than their relatives from India and Southeast Asia and have swayed backs.
• From wikipedia: 65% of Sumatran Elephant deaths are because of human persecution.
• Standing in its stead, since aardvarks are often referred to as anteaters, is an actual anteater.but the collared anteater from Central and South America (aka tamandua) is not an ungulate, but is rather related to sloths.

Full Story: Ungulates and their friends

Stayed up pretty late last night and got up late this morning. A typical day: it has been raining all day today. Another friend was laid off todayJust got a cup of tea and prepare to start working.

• It will be the New Zealanders’ first appearance since 1982 in the World Cup finals, where they have drawn Slovakia, Italy and Paraguay.
• Herbert said: “The preparation is going to be tough, but we are going to need it.”He said he hoped a home friendly could be arranged on March 23 or 24 plus a game against South American opposition in April to complete the programme, before arriving about June 7 in South Africa.
• Serbia topped their European qualifying group and are drawn in World Cup group D against Germany, Australia and Ghana.
• Slovenia finished just behind Slovakia in their qualifiers and beat Russia in a playoff to reach the finals, and are in Group B with the United States, England and Algeria.

Full Story: New Zealand to play Serbia, Slovenia in warm-up friendlies