International Slipstream

It’s a century too late, no doubt, but Belgium feels it must exorcise the ghosts of its colonial past. More than 100 years after King Leopold II claimed Congo as his personal colony, the state-funded Royal Museum for Central Africa has commissioned eminent historians to investigate the allegations that the country had perpetrated genocide in Congo. A debate on Belgium’s past was sparked at the time American author Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold Ghost was published in Belgium in 1999. He accused King Leopold’s army of murdering nearly 10 million Congolese, amputating, raping kidnapping and looting the local populace for refusing to work on rubber plantations. The commission is expected to present its findings in 2004.

ALASKA, US
The Heat Is On
More bad news for those complaining about the sweltering heat: a Science report says glaciers in Alaska are melting at an incredible rate, that 85 per cent of these have lost vast portions of their mass in the last 40 years. The ice cover in the Arctic is apparently also shrinking by an area the size of Netherlands every year. There are some tell-tale signs—six of the 10 warmest years were in the last 10 years, the other four in the ’80s.