Young Achievers is a youth organization that that empowers young people from katutura through capacity building and skills transfer. The main aim of the group is to make sure that all the youths in this program make it to and through tertiary education.
The idea for Kasie Adventures came about from Young Achievers members who were conducting tours for interested international students living in Windhoek. Young Achievers members saw that there might be greater demand for this sort of tour and decided to launch a commercial enterprise to sustain their youth development work. The name “Kasie” is derived from the street language spoken in Katutura and means “neighborhood”. The members were further inspired by the Minister of Environment and Tourism, when she delivered her speech at the National Youth Week in April, where she encouraged youth to engage themselves in tourism related activities as the market has a lot of opportunities to offer.

Many tourists coming to Windhoek read about Katutura and express a desire to visit, but few are adventurous enough to go on their own. In recent years, a few tour companies have sought to serve these tourists by providing quick drive-through tours of Katutura in an air conditioned van or on the top of a double-decker bus, but they offer no real interaction with the people who live in Katutura. Kasie Adventures will provide tours into Katutura that teach tourist about real life in the former township. Tour guides are senior youth members of Young Achievers who live in Katutura. Visitors with Kasie Adventures will to meet the local people, shop in handicraft markets, sample typical street food (Okapana), enjoy restaurants serving traditional food, visit local markets and more.

Contact: +264-81-7754835

Earthrace Conservation, who concentrate on marine wildlife, issued a warning that Namibia is getting extremely close to being placed in the same category as Japan, who are renowned for their dolphin slaughter, and will earn a black mark from conservationists as well as tourists. This year the seal cull has become a huge topic of discussion and has attracted a lot of international publicity which has been hotly debated and heavily criticized. Namibia and Canada are the only two countries in the world that still have this barbaric practice of culling seals.

The case that the Ministry of Fisheries use is not feasible because it does not take the key roles that the seals play in the ecosystem into account. The reason that the fish numbers are low in Namibian waters are not because of the seals, but rather because of overfishing, according to Pet Bethune, the founder of the Earthrace group. Namibia has less seal than Canada, yet they kill more than Canada. In Canada, the allowed total of seals that could be killed was 400,000 but only 38,000 were actually killed. The seals tourism earns Namibia about N$8 Million yearly whereas the seal cull only brings in between N$500,000 and N$1 Million a year, so arguments for the seal cull in Namibia simply do not add up, according to Earthrace. All other countries accept the fact that Seals belong to the ecosystem and that simply doing away with such a huge number can and will seriously negatively affect the global ecosystem, Bethune continued.

This year, a total of 85,000 baby seals and 6,000 adult males will be slaughtered. Bethune condemned the Namibian Government for refusing local and international media to report and film the event, arguing “if Namibia stands by their idea that it is OK, then they should not have a problem with people filming it” Canada is also constantly under pressure for their seal culls, however they do allow animal welfare organizations to observe the process, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). He continued to state that, “Namibia appears to be paranoid about keeping the activities out of the press and international spotlight as it is presumably very inhumane”

The seal hunt in Namibia does not create much employment nor does it help the local economy very much and the resources required by the government by using military personnel and patrol boats 24 hours a day to keep the area secure is simply not viable for such a small industry.

In a statement by Bell-Leask from the IFAW recently, he said that the Namibian seal cull is “inhumane, wasteful and completely out of sync with international beliefs and feels that commercial sealing has to stop. Namibia can offer absolutely no justifiable reason, be it scientific or commercial, to continue with what can only be called a beach-side bloodbath”.

“The herding and beating of scared nursing seals is horrendous and absolutely not necessary and needs to be stopped immediately – it is arguably the cruelest act against animals in the world”, according to IFAW.

Very expensive and high end video equipment were found hidden in the area which were disguised as rocks. Amongst the equipment found were high definition cameras with zoom capabilities, large portable hard-drives for storing the footage, a car battery for power as well as a wireless router so that the videos and pictures can be transferred to another storage device without needing to be at the source. It is suspected that the culprits are international press working together with various animal rights groups who are in the country on tourist visas so that the culling can be filmed and used for their arguments.

It is suspected that the individuals who set up the cameras are lodging in the well known guesthouses at mile 72 from where they can walk along the beach unnoticed to the seal area to hide the equipment. Nobody has been arrested, however, the security and surveillance have been upgraded and intensified and anybody found in the area that is suspicious, will be treated as a trespasser and suffer the consequences, according to police inspector-general Sebastian Ndeitunga.

Namibia has always taken the stance that any information regarding the annual seal culling is not to be filmed, photographed or reported on.

The excitement and amazement soon disintegrated when everybody realized that the dead animal which was hung up with wire turned out to be a very large dog with very long hair. The crowd could only be dissolved once officials from the Ministry of Environment and Tourism came by and confirmed that it was in fact a dog and not a lion.

A security guard stated that he came rushing over, leaving his post, with a gun at hand in case it really turned out to be a lion.

The perpetrator that hung the dog in the tree or the motives behind the act is still unknown but the Namibian Police have confirmed that once the person is found and caught, they will be charged with cruelty to animals.

The entire famous Hoaruseb pride as well as two black-backed jackals were found dead in the Hoaruseb River over the weekend and it is suspected that the poison used was strychnine, however the results have not yet been confirmed.

The collars and skulls were removed before the carcasses of the lions, Maya, Morada and Tawny as well as the two jackals were cremated on saturday evening to ensure that no other animals get poisoned as well.

“This is a big blow for tourism as well as conservation alike, but the biggest blow is for the desert lions which have been struggling to regain their numbers” according to a tour guide. Dr. Flip Stander has been the frontrunner of the Desert Lion program and has been intensely studying the lions for many years now – you can find more information at his website:  www.desertlion.info.

The BBC reported that an arrest warrant for Gaddafi as well as two other people was released by the International Criminal Court (ICC). According to Iivula-Ithana, the African Union (AU) has taken the stance not to take any part in the arrest of al-Bashir or Gaddafi and that Namibia will stand behind the AU as Namibia is part of this “organisation”.

“It appears that only people from Africa get targeted by the ICC,” she went on to say. One only needs to look at Iraq and Afghanistan to see the results of foreign countries interfering in their affairs. The “developed countries” have not acknowledged the ICC affiliation, so these countries are not pursued when they commit crimes against humanity.

Quoting the Libyan Foreign Minister Khalid in a BBC report, he said that the ICC was a “ baby of the European Union designed for African politicians and leaders and its practices were questionable”.

The ICC is an international self-governed institution which is based at The Hague, Netherlands, and plays no role in the United Nations. It was founded in Rome on the 17th July 1998 as a result of the Rome Statute and more than 120 different States have acknowledged the ICC. USA, China, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Israel and Qatar voted against the International Criminal Court.

Namibia is well known for its’ diligence in protecting the rhinos and keeping a lid on poaching even though poaching is a huge problem in South Africa. According to Dr. Kalumbi Shangula, there are various factors which play a role in the limited poaching of rhinos and other animals in Namibia, for instance; well designed monitoring programs and policies and the rugged environment in Namibia which does not offer easy access to the remote regions where the Namibian rhinos generally roam.

The Ministry of Environment and Tourism recently set up an SMS hotline so that the members of the public can easily and quickly report any suspicious behavior in regards to rhino and animal safety. The fact that this service has not been extremely busy, indicates that there are not many suspicious incidents in the eyes of the public.

There is an estimated rhino population exceeding 1500 in Namibia presently and even though poaching in Namibia is basically under control, the World Wildlife Federation in Namibia still warns that “despite the fact that Namibia can be proud of themselves on the protecting and recovering of wildlife, especially a symbolic animal like the black rhino, one should not become complacent and drop your guard. Rhino horn is in huge demand and the progress made in Namibia has to be maintained and the best method to attain this is to help the rural population in Namibia to start earning money through tourism and controlled hunting so that they do not have any incentive to aid poachers or poach themselves.

Colette Rieckert, the CEO of the Gymnasium, stated; “this is always the last resort. We, the board, urge this family to rethink the situation and reconsider if two strokes on the behind of an unobedient child really constitutes a charge of assault with the intent of causing grievous bodily harm”. Rieckert also questions whether the trial will do the boy any good, or if it will instill even more psychological harm in him and his family.

Rieckert went on to state that in the schools code of conduct, that under extreme and strict conditions, a hiding could be used. “Therefore, the colleagues can not be found guilty of misconduct, because they had only acted within the boundaries of our school’s guidelines”.

Rieckert continued to say that a hiding is still also used as a last resort in many homes and that parents should not push away their responsibilties to discipline their children and expect the schools to do this instead during school hours. Undisciplined children are disruptive and generally ruin the learning experience for the other children. She ended her statement by saying that she feels that no child should have to experience the criminal justice system but that the school board would defend the actions of the teachers as well as the school’s reputation.

In the Kavango region, the final four shelters will be closed at the end of the month and in the Ohangwena region everybody has left the camps. The only shelter still housing victims is in the Ongenge constituency as the roads are still impassable. In Oshikoto and Ohangwena, most of the people have left to return to their villages with 26 regions left that remain difficult to get to. At Etai and Ondangwa there is only one camp each left.

The Prime Minister has requested the Caprivi Regional Council to continue with food aid until the first harvests arrive, which is expected in October. Tents have been provided to some of the schools in the Caprivi for teachers to live in whilst they wait for their homes to be rebuilt. Angula went on to say that tribal chiefs and headmen will be approached to request that land be made available for these people to relocate permanently. Anybody that does not relocate to the new areas, which are less likely to be affected by floods will stay at their old location at their own risk should floods hit the area again. Victims along the Kuiseb River in Erongo have been given food as well as fodder for their livestock. The situation will continue being monitored until such time that everything reaches normality.

A training workshop will take place from the 18th to the 22nd of July which will teach logistics and warehouse management hosted by the World Food Program in Otjiwarongo. This training session will concentrate on the seven high risk areas and will include the Namibian Defense Force, the Directorate of Risk and Disaster Management and staff from the Prime Minister’s office.
Other areas will be trained in the future as well.

A period of two weeks has been planned for the census to be completed, ending on the 10th September and the Director General of the National Planning Commission (NPC) has requested all citizens to help this be achieved by assisting the counters locate everybody. This will be the biggest and most precise project undertaken by the NPC and therefore have employed 81 thousand people to gather the statistics. While ensuring that the quality of the data gathered is maintained, the majority of these workers will consist of unemployed youth and Alweeno stated that a deal has been made with the Ministry of Education that teachers will be employed as supervisors to the census.

The total cost of the census project will total around N$163 000 000. Alweeno justified this spending by stating; “It is only through census that we will be able to have a comprehensive picture of the social and living conditions of our people”. Included in the statistics will include results from the regional areas, comprehensive population numbers in local areas as well as migration figures.