| Emirates conquers local market
KENYAN travellers have shown increasing preference to enrol in Skywards, the frequent flyer programme of Emirates and Sri Lankan airlines. A recent study by the Emirates indicates that Skywards membership in Kenya is approaching the 20,000 mark. The programme recorded a 42 per cent growth in local membership in the year ending March 31, 2005. Worldwide membership of the programme has topped 1.8 million. Skywards offers three tiers of membership: Blue, Silver and Gold, with each membership tier providing privileges to its members. Members earn Skywards Miles as they fly Emirates, Sri Lankan or partner airlines, or when they use the programmes designated hotels, car rentals, financial, leisure and lifestyle partners. Emirates Regional Manager Khalid Hassan said Skywards has delivered true value to its members through unbeatable travel privileges and benefits.
Close animal encounters
BALED up, with lunging ambushes from in front and behind, the pint-sized cubs made it clear I should never underestimate their capacity for mischief. Boskoppie Lion LodgeCoated in the softest of fur with big doe-like eyes, the two-month and three-month-old lion and tiger cubs prance at the sight of new visitors to the Boskoppie Lion Lodge, in South Africa's Free State. But beware, these cubs know how to rumble, unleashing their coiled energy in rollicking attacks using baby teeth and oversized, clawed mitts as big as a human palm. By the time their adoptive mum Ingrid Swart caught up with me in the pen, I had been outmanoeuvred. "Oh, when they get naughty like that, give them a smack on the nose," she says. "It's what a mummy lioness would do." I gingerly reach down to one of the tiger cubs, swinging by his teeth off my safari pants, and tentatively bop his nose.
UK couple critical after elephant fall
A British man and wife were critically hurt when they fell off an elephant at a sanctuary in Hartbeespoort on Thursday afternoon, said ER 24. The woman was sitting behind her husband on the elephant when it knelt to let them climb off after a safari, said spokesperson Werner Vermaak. "The lady and her husband then fell forward and plummeted from the elephant's back right onto the ground. "Both of them sustained multiple fractures and severe injuries," he said. The woman fractured her upper leg. Her husband was thought to have fractured his pelvis. "They were treated and stabilised on scene and rushed off to a hospital in Pretoria for specialist treatment," said Vermaak. .
Masons give Community Builders award to Houseman
Local homebuilder Tony Houseman was presented the Community Builders Award recently by Madison Lodge No. 126 of Orange.The award — presented annually to a person who has positively impacted his or her community — was established by the Grand Lodge of Texas in January 1991 to enable the Masons to recognize non-Masons who have benefited their communities."The Masons have had a presence in Orange for over 150 years," Orange Mayor Brown Claybar said. "Its members have been involved in community life all over Orange."Previous winners of the award include former Orange Chamber of Commerce president Betty Harmon, Orange police chief Sam Kittrell and Claybar, who said of the award, "It's one of the highest honors I've received in my life."A Port Arthur native, Houseman left Southeast Texas in 1966 for Los Angeles, where he went into investment banking.
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