Norwegian authorities confirmed Thursday that they had to destroy nearly 90 cats after their owners “lost control” over how many pets they could care for. The cats had all but taken over the owners’ home in Våler, in Hedmark County.

Hallvard Sommerseth of the Norwegian Food Safety Authority told local newspaper Glåmdalen that all the cats were being fed, and it wasn’t necessarily a case of neglect.

But the cats’ owners “simply lost control over the animals, and they reproduced freely,” Sommerseth said.

He added that the owners, who weren’t identified, had spent a lot of money caring for the cats, and the situation was quickly becoming too expensive for them.

“It could have quickly turned into an animal tragedy, if the cats couldn’t be fed,” he said.

He stressed that the owners cooperated with the authorities and it wasn’t necessary to call for help from the police.

Just last month, another home in Hedmark was found to contain scores of cats living in filth. The cats were destroyed and their owner taken into custody.

By Nina Berglund

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The body of the first Norwegian special forces soldier killed in Afghanistan returned to Norwegian soil Wednesday night.

A memorial ceremony attended by friends and family of fallen soldier Tor Arne Lau-Henriksen was held at the Oslo airport Gardermoen Wednesday night. PHOTO: Torgeir Haugaard / Forsvarets Mediesenter / SCANPIX

His coffin wrapped in the Norwegian flag, the body of the fallen soldier was identified as Tor Arne Lau-Henriksen, who grew up in Rørvik, northern Norway. A memorial ceremony attended by friends and family of the first Norwegian special forces soldier killed in Afghanistan was held at the Oslo airport Gardermoen upon his return.

Lau-Henriksen, age 33, was killed while on duty within the Norwegians’ operations area in the Lowgar province, south of Kabul, on Monday, leaving behind a wife and a child in Norway.

Lieutenant colonel Petter Lindqvist told Norwegian news agency NTB that the memorial ceremony at the airport was “marked by sorrow and respect for what had happened.” The ceremony was closed to the press.

“This is the return of a comrade that had to pay the highest price possible,” Lindqvist said.

The fallen lieutenant will be buried in the city of Elverum in eastern Norway on Tuesday, news agency NTB reported.

Lau-Henriksen is the first Norwegian special forces soldier to be killed while on duty in Afghanistan. The casualty is the second among all Norwegian soldiers taking part in ISAF operations, and has already prompted discussion regarding Norway’s participation in the NATO mission.

But Defense Minister Anne-Grete Strøm-Erichsen has denied that the casualty will affect Norway’s foreign policy in the South Asian country.

“We have assumed this NATO mission knowing that it involves a great risk. This mission is not completed,” Strøm-Erichsen told newspaper Aftenposten.

By Kristin Solberg

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1. Kenyans wear clothes, Jang’os DON ATTIRE
2. Kenyans go home at the end of the day, Jang’os
PROCEED TO THEIR
RESIDENCES
3. Kenyans have children, Jang’os have OFFSPRING
4. Kenyan children go to school, Jang’o offspring
ATTEND ACADEMY
5. Kenyans have wives, Jang’os have SPOUSES
6. Kenyans have concubines, Jango’s have NEXT BEST
7. Kenyans take their wives for lunch, Jang’os TREAT
their spices, sorry spouses to A LUNCHEON
8. Kenyans drive cars, Jang’os OPERATE LIMOUSINES
(when the RAV grows up it will be a Limo…usijali!)
9. Kenyans go to work, Jang’os ATTEND TO PROFESSIONAL
COMMITMENTS
10 . Kenyans talk to their families, Jang’os
COMMUNICATE WITH THEIR HOUSEHOLDS
11. Kenyans wear shoes, Jang’os ARRANGE FOOTWEAR
12. Kenyans own livestock, Jang’os POSSESS DISPOSABLE
AGRARIAN ASSETS
13. Kenyans get lost but Jang’os DISCOVER ALTERNATIVE
DESTINATIONS
14. Kenyans may fail but JANG’OS in the same
circumstances ACHIEVE A DEFICIENCY
15. Kenyans have a beer gut, Jang’os DEVELOP a LIQUID
GRAIN STORAGE
16. Kenyans may be unemployed, Jang’os may be INVOLUNTARILY LEISURED
17. Kenyans send emails/forwards while
Jang’os COMMUNICATE ELECTRONICALLY ON
THE INFORMATION SUPER HIGHWAY !!!

Posted by Mwaura Njuguna

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Norway’s Princess Märtha Louise, daughter of King Harald and Queen Sonja, has emerged as a clairvoyant, and is launching an alternative school aimed at training students to contact angels. Officials at the Royal Palace won’t comment on the princess’ latest business venture.

Princess Märtha Louise, right, uses her royal title on Astarte Education’s web site, and poses with her partner Elisabeth Samnøy. Princess Märtha Louise claimed to have “seen the light” in 2002, when she married author Ari Behn in a lavish royal wedding at the cathedral in Trondheim. PHOTO: TOR RICHARDSEN/SCANPIX

The princess’ business partner has publicly confirmed the training program, which is billed as a means of “getting in touch with your own truths” through “readings, healing, crystals and hands-on treatment.”

The princess, who still officially represents the Royal Family at various events, has named her new venture after “one of the oldest goddesses in the Middle East,” Astarte, and its website is registered at her home address in Lommedalen, just west of Oslo. The telephone number listed is that for the Royal Palace in Oslo.

Even though use of the palace’s phone number implies the business is indirectly supported by the Royal Palace, palace officials won’t comment on it.

“The palace never expresses itself on the princess’ private business ventures,” said a tight-lipped Sven Gjeruldsen, information adviser on the palace staff. He referred further questions to the contact information on Astarte’s web site.

The princess wrote on her school’s new website, Astarte Education, that she’s “always been interested in alternative treatment programs,” suggesting she’s had psychic abilities since she was a little girl.

“I especially remember one time I met a woman when I was small,” Princess Märtha Louise wrote. “I went up to her and said she didn’t need to be sad about her husband, that things would go well between them.”

The woman was astonished, according to the princess, and “wondered who had told me this. There was a big commotion, and many fearful adults, because none of them wanted her to think one of them had gossiped,” Märtha Louise wrote.

Communicating with animals
The 35-year-old princess was educated as a physiotherapist, trained as a Rosen therapist and also has studied at an academy for holistic medicine “where I learned to systematize sensual impressions to read others, and through horses I learned to communicate with animals on a deeper level.”

Märtha Louise, who competed in equestrian events for several years, said that she started “taking contact with angels” when she worked with horses. “I have later learned the value of this enormous gift, and want to share it with others,” she said.

The princess has launched Astarte Education with a friend, Elisabeth Samnøy, who describes herself on the website as a former ship mechanic who also attended a holistic academy.

“After that I have been in a process where angels and their frequency opened contact with the divine in my heart,” Samnøy wrote.

The pair concedes that their training program isn’t sanctioned by Norwegian education authorities. Courses will be offered twice a week over three years, at a cost of NOK 12,000 per half-year.Students are obligated to sign up for at least one year at a time.

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When Princess Märtha Louise married author Ari Behn in 2002, her father, King Harald, warned Behn that his daughter was known for being unpredictable. “Things will happen,” the monarch said in his wedding speech. (See photo above.) He was right.

Princess Märtha Louise and Ari Behn had a lavish royal wedding in Trondheim in 2002. PHOTO: REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch The princess made an appearance this past weekend at an outdoor festival near her summer home at Hankø that her husband helped organize. PHOTO: Sara Johannessen/SCANPIX

Her decision this summer to teach classes in alternative treatment, and help people contact angels, is just the latest unconventional pursuit for a member of Norway’s royal family who’s been both admired and ridiculed.

Reaction ranged Tuesday from those who said she was making healing and clairvoyancy more credible, to those who think she should resign as a member of the state Evangelical Lutheran church.

There was no official reaction from either King Harald or her mother, Queen Sonja, both of whom are on summer holiday. They have always defended their daughter in the past though, and are expected to either do so or keep quiet.

Princess Märtha Louise has long been somewhat controversial, and caused some headaches for her parents. Her brother and heir to the throne, Crown Prince Haakon, always seemed the smart one, and appeared far more studious and serious.

The princess’ academic interests, meanwhile, were vastly overshadowed by her love for horses, romance and good times. An alleged alliance with a married man in England in the early 1990s made her party to a divorce case there, and prevented her from entering the country where her grandfather was born, for fear of getting dragged into court.

Her ultimate marriage to self-styled Bohemian author Ari Behn was also controversial, not least because of Behn’s own written accounts of drug use and love of publicity. Signs of mutual spirituality emerged quickly, however, not least when the couple secretly made a traditional pilgrimage by walking over the muntains to the historic city of Trondheim before the wedding there in 2002. They later wrote a book about the wedding experience, in which Märtha compared herself to a “fountain of light.”

Her choice of physiotherapy training surprised many, not least when she once said it was a career she could practice from home. Would-be patients couldn’t quite imagine knocking on the door of the palace to get a massage.

Even though she now lives in a large home in suburban Bærum, after securing special dispensation from local zoning rules to expand and remodel it, and inherited her grandfather King Olav’s summer home on the island of Hankø, she still used the palace phone number for her new healing business.

Palace officials have tried hard to distance themselves from Princess Märtha Louise’s personal business ventures, which have generated controversy as well because of accusations she was using her royal title for commercial gain.

Sven Gjeruldsen, who initially said he wouldn’t comment on the princess’ personal business affairs, later said the palace number was used “because the princess’ protocol adviser has her office at the palace.”

Protocol adviser Mari Sørli said she didn’t know why the palace phone number was used, and that it would be changed because its usage was a mistake.

She said neither she nor the palace had any role in Princess Märtha Louise’s new venture. Sørli’s job, according to the royal family’s official web site, is to coordinate the professional and personal activities of the princess.

By Nina Berglund

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Maputo (Mozambique) Mozambique said on Wednesday it has plans to spend US$87 million to implement a three-year industrial policy and strategy to boost its exports.

The programme will be rolled out on 7 September in the central port city of Beira, with Trade and Industry Minister, Antonio Fernando, and Agriculture Minister, Erasmo Muhate, leading the launching ceremony.

Deputy National Director of Trade and Industry, Nilsa Miquidade, told APA that three priorities of food processing, metallurgic and textile have been highlighted as targets in this endeavour.

The project’s main purpose is to improve the quality of the country’s exports, Miquidade said in Maputo.

The funding, according to her, will be raised by the government and its cooperation partners in time for the programme to be rolled out this year.

“We have launched a Made-in-Mozambique campaign and quality is a key issue. We want quality in all our exports.

“Therefore investments in infrastructure and processing plants is of vital importance to this effort,” she said in an interview.

Given the 13 years of stability, the generally positive growth trend, Mozambique has been relying on imports, particularly for food and garments.

Some 70 per cent of Mozambique’s 19 million people work in the agricultural sector (generally doing subsistence farming) than in any other industry throughout the country.

While commercial agriculture remains limited, it is expanding, especially in the sugar, cotton, citrus, coconut, cashews, and tropical fruit crops sectors.

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Bouake (Cote d’Ivoire) A 150-man contingent from Burkina Faso army is expected soon in Cote d’Ivoire to team up with UN peacekeeping mission but will be particularly responsible for the Prime Minister Guillaume Soro’s personal security, source told APA here Wednesday.

On Wednesday, the Burkina Faso National Assembly examined the terms of the deployment of these peacekeeping forces to Cote d’Ivoire.

Premier Soro narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in his former rebel stronghold town of Bouake on 29 June when missiles were fired at his plane.

Four member of his delegation were killed and 14 injured as they landed on a mission to swear in the magistrates in charge of public hearings.

The Burkina back up force is the first deployed by the neighbouring country to Cote d’Ivoire since the crisis broke out on 19 September 2002.

Earlier in the conflict, Abidjan had accused Ouagadougou of abetting with the former Ivorian rebels of the Forces Nouvelles (New Forces) that controlled the northern part of Cote d’Ivoire for over four years while the government ruled over the south.

In the aftermath of the Ouagadougou peace deal signed on 4 March 2007 between President Laurent Gbagbo and Guillaume Soro, Cote d’Ivoire has embarked on a promising peace process.

Burkinabe President and current ECOWAS chairperson, Blaise Compaore, mediated the deal.

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Lagos (Nigeria) The mother of the Speaker of Bayelsa State House of Assembly, Mrs Hansel Seibarugu, 70, was kidnapped on Tuesday night by gunmen in her home in Akaibiri, APA learnt on Wednesday.

Mrs. Seibarugu was kidnapped by her assailants who stormed the riversides community in Bayelsa State in the Niger Delta region in two speed boats between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m.

The Speaker, Mr Werinipre Seibarugu, who is away in South Africa, was aware of the threat to kidnap his mother before travelling out, but could not carry out his plan of relocating the mother to a safe location before his oversea’s trip.

The gunmen were said to have forced a youth to take them to the home of their victim where they shot sporadically and later took their victim and sped off in their speed boats.

The Commissioner of Police in charge of Bayelsa State, Mr Julian Okpaleke, confirmed the incident and said that a suspect had been arrested and was being interrogated.

Commenting on the issue, the Special Adviser to the Speaker on Media, Mr Jonah Okah, said: “I have confirmed the kidnap after speaking with his close family relatives.’’

“I am aware that the government is making efforts to secure the release of the victim. The kidnap is quite unfortunate and a bad omen for the state,’’ he said.

However, no group has claimed responsibility for the kidnap.

Kidnapping of foreign and local oil workers as well as children of prominent people has become a popular and lucrative pastime for youths in the oil-rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria.

Although, Nigerian officials have usually denied payment of ransom for the release of victims, it is widely believed that millions of naira are paid to the miltants before they could release their victims.

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