2013-05-25T23:31:35-04:00 Kay Burley http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=kay-burley Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Kay Burley Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3263346 2013-05-12T19:00:00-04:00 2013-05-13T10:18:10-04:00

Kay Burley http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kay-burley/
That is of course unless they're in the form of a 2,000 kg male white rhino who just happens to be lying across the middle of a dirt road in the South African bush and is determined you won't be passing him anytime soon.

I was travelling in an open-sided Land Rover truck with other safari goers when we came across the massive prehistoric beast sprawled across the road, snoring, not a care in the world.

We all excitedly reached for our cameras and exchanged comments about how wonderful it was to see such an imposing and majestic animal in its natural habitat. He was lucky. We could just as easily have been reaching for a gun.




Sadly, there are millions of humans who want to see rhinos dead. Most of them are in the Far East. Humans who think the horn of the white or black rhino can be ground down and ingested to improve their sex lives, cure cancer or ward off evil spirits. Humans who are prepared to pay heavily-armed poachers to shoot and maim these animals, hack off their horn and ship it half way around the world to China. It's the new drug trade in Africa, a multi-million dollar industry that commands $65,000 a kilo for rhino horn. An average rhino horn is about 5kg. It's not hard to do the maths.

So far this year more than 200 rhino have been killed in the country. Poachers bristling with armoury sneak across the border from Mozambique determined to hunt. They often walk 60km, weighed down with AK47s, machetes, explosives, anything the hunters think they'll need to bring down the mighty animals. The more brazen and better organised even use a helicopter to scour the landscape for the increasingly rare rhino. When they spot one, they dart it from the air, land, kill the animal, hack off the horn and are back over the border before the anit-poaching team have had time to put on their boots.

Last month during a high profile event at one of the Sabi Sands safari lodges, the poachers saw their latest opportunity. While the party was in full swing, they killed a pregnant female, macheted off her horn and left her almost full term but as yet unborn calf to die. She wasn't the first and won't be the last this year.




As a result, if this trade is allowed to continue at its present toll then the death rate of the white rhino is likely to exceed the birth rate by 2016. In other words, if the poachers continue to win the battle then the rhino could be extinct in THREE years time.

Of course, it's a shame, but why should the rest of the world care? Surely there are lots of other animals to see in Africa? Well, it's also impacting on them too. Lions, leopard, cheetah, hippo, elephant are all increasingly unsettled by the poaching and are heading away from the national parks. No animal sighting, no tourists.

South Africa relies heavily on its tourism trade and so the government has begun to take notice. Jail sentences are increasing for poachers, but only if they're caught and only if there's enough evidence against them. More often than not, they walk free with a fine.

The safari lodge owners have now begun their own fightback. They have settled
on a programme of colouring the inside of the rhino horn pink making it impossible to sell to the Far East. It doesn't hurt the animal - it's the same as painting your finger nails - but it does hurt the poachers in the pocket. The good news is that a huge percentage of the rhinos in the Kruger National Park have now been treated with the pink dye.




I learned all of this from my Ulusaba ranger as we took the long route around our rhino roadblock to leave the reserve and I returned to the UK wondering what I could do to try to help with his plight.

Surely, if there was no demand, the poachers would have no-one to sell to and the slaughter would stop. Perhaps celebrities highly influential in the Far East like David Beckham or Psy could help hammer home the point that rhino horn is nothing more than hair. It doesn't improve your sex life. It doesn't cure cancer and it doesn't ward off evil spirits. It does though allow an animal to protect itself from other rhinos, lions, buffalo or humans - unless of course those humans have a gun.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2901575 2013-03-18T19:00:00-04:00 2013-05-18T05:12:01-04:00

Kay Burley http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kay-burley/ Strictly Come Dancing. But, despite years of stalking BBC TV Centre with my nose pressed up against the window, my attempts have so far been without success. Instead I have had to console myself with Saturday night sofa voting for former colleagues Kate Garraway; Dan Lobb; Andrew Castle; Russell Grant - the list goes on and on.

So imagine my delight when I was asked to take part in a charity version of the dance competition. Finally I would be able to show off the steps I'd learned while being whisked around the Blackpool Tower Ballroom by my daddy when I was eight! Sadly, the years have taken their toll and despite my best efforts rather than rivalling Denise Van Outen, I'd be lucky to challenge the dance moves of the wonderful Ann Widdecombe.

Worse still, the other contestants include our very own Charlotte Hawkins, Sky Sports presenters Natalie Sawyer; Vicky Gomersall and Orla Chennaoui. Then there are the athletes competing including Olympic medallist Kelly Sotherton. All the girls float around the rehearsal room like frisky colts while I resemble Boxer from Animal Farm. The boys are sweet to me. Sky Sports presenters Mike Wedderburn and Julian Warren along with world boxing champion Johnny Nelson offer a big brother arm and the reassurance that not to worry it's all for a good cause. That, it most certainly is.




Two of our colleagues have very poorly little girls who desperately need our emotional and financial support. Dylan has Rett Syndrome. She developed normally until she was two but has now regressed rapidly losing the ability to crawl, talk or use her hands. There's more information on her condition here Curefordylan.com. Ava is two and is being cared for at Great Ormond St Hospital for an illness affecting her brain caringmattersnow.co.uk.

Reading about these two little ones and the incredible challenges their devoted parents face every day means I'd happily embarrass myself on the dance floor every weekend if we can raise money to help find a cure for their daughters' wretched illnesses.

If you can, come and see us dance at Silverstone (http://www.silverstone.co.uk/events/dancing-with-skys-stars/) this Friday and Saturday. It'll be fun, you can point and laugh at me and you'll be making a difference to Dylan and Ava's lives.

Hope to see you there - Keep Dancing!

]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2247765 2012-12-05T19:00:00-05:00 2013-02-04T05:12:01-05:00

Kay Burley http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kay-burley/
So ladies, if I can speak frankly, discovering you're pregnant by constantly throwing up your guts seems so unreasonable. It's an utter shock to both mind and body. Now I know that morning sickness is considered a common side effect to the early stages of pregnancy, but for some women it can be so much more debilitating than that. For a desperately unlucky few, it's potentially life threatening for the baby.

My pregnancy experience was somewhere in the middle of the multi-coloured sickness spectrum.

I well remember 20 years ago discovering I was newly pregnant by first experiencing a queasy tummy which quickly manifested itself into full on nausea, then constant, uncontrollable vomiting. By the time my husband called the doctor to make a house call I was very unwell.

He suggested fluids and an anti-sickness injection. Having already started pencilling out my birth plan, and being of the thalidomide generation, I was reluctant to allow even a paracetomol to enter my bloodstream and expressed my reluctance to the doc - between stomach churns.

The doctor told me that the concerns for the baby if I continued throwing up would be far outweighed by the risks of the injections. I had it straight away, followed by fluids and a wet flannel placed on my brow helpfully provided by my concerned mum. Not sure it helped me, but it helped her!

Thankfully, unlike Kate, I didn't need to spend time in hospital but regular fluids and anti-sickness medication became a daily routine - and still the nausea nagged away at me. The doc reassured me that it would pass by 14 weeks or the end of the first trimester. It seemed a lifetime away when I was only seven weeks pregnant and being sick a dozen times a day, but I managed my expectations by crossing off the hours on a specially drawn up chart.

Day after day I tried to comfort myself with the reassurance that sickness denoted lots of foetus hormones and equated, I was told, to a very strong baby. That was of little help though as time and again I hurtled towards the nearest bathroom. I began to plan my day and activities around the closest loo. I knew exactly how many fast paces it was from the Sky News studio to the nearest ladies lavatory and on occasion could have given Usain Bolt a run for his money during a three minute TV commercial break.

As the weeks passed and I reached the magical three months, I woke every morning expecting to be nausea free. For the first few moments, I would think it had gone. That was until I heaved myself out of bed and the waves of sickness would wash over me as I waddled to the bathroom.

I say heaved and waddled because I had piled on the pounds. I'd read everything I could about how to combat the effects of nausea. Ginger I was assured would help. Nope, not even a jot. Milk of Magnesia would settle my stomach. It didn't despite downing what seemed like gallons of the stuff.

I even had bottle secreted behind the driver's seat of my car, along with one stashed in the makeup room at work and another in the dressing room there. No, eating and eating and eating seemed to be the only option. A vicious circle given the inevitable consequences, but it was the only way to keep me upright.

Eating and one other secret formula - hot Ribena. Don't know why, but it helped. Can't even bear the smell of it now, though interestingly my son loves it.

Ribena and sucking boiled sweets, but as you can imagine that proved impossible while I was trying to read the news, so hot Ribena in a cup under the desk was the next best thing.

Still the pounds piled on. I well remember a nurse at the ante natal unit suggesting I should watch the calorie intake as I lumbered onto the scales with a flask of Ribena in one hand and a sick bag in the other. You would have thought working with hormone-crazed pregnant women on a daily basis, she would have known better...

By the time I was due to give birth I had gained four stone, 56 enormous pounds, however many umpteen kilos that is and yet was still dealing with nausea at 41 weeks. Trying to wear appropriate clothes to appear on TV had been a daily, tearful challenge. I looked like a galleon in full sail. I couldn't have fitted into a bin bag.

Eventually though the baby arrived, 11 excruciatingly overdue days late. Almost miraculously the sickness disappeared. The doctor was right, my son was healthy, happy and had a full head of hair.

And so my thoughts are very much with Kate and William today, along with every other couple dealing with the distress of pregnancy sickness on whatever level. My only advice, it eventually passes and when you hold your baby for the very first time, the challenges of the previous nine months will be an instant, distant memory.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2076841 2012-11-05T19:00:00-05:00 2013-01-05T05:12:01-05:00

Kay Burley http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kay-burley/ Viva Las Vegas. Almost half a century later and the two presidential candidates are hoping they can do the same.

Nevada is one of a handful of crucial swing states which will decide whether there's a new man at the White House or the present incumbent stays at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for four more years.

Such then is the importance of The Silver State to both candidates that the president broke off from visiting those worst affected by Superstorm Sandy to make a flying visit to Vegas. Mitt Romney has also spent much of his time in the desert gambling on being able to woo the locals.

Barack Obama is counting on the latino, hispanic and female vote. Mitt Romney is hoping for some divine intervention with the support of fellow mormons who make up 10% of the vote in Nevada. In fact, so deep is their faith, they put aside contempt for drinkers and gamblers and reluctantly attended a celebration party in a Vegas casino when their man won the party nomination here.

It was all so different four years ago. Back in 2008, Obama found it easy to walk voters up the aisle of the little White Chapel where thousands of others tie the knot each year in Vegas. He won the state convincingly with a 12 point margin. But did the president not pay his new companions enough attention? Could he be heading for a messy divorce in 2012?

The Obama campaign is spending a fortune on TV advertising to try to make sure they forget any indiscretions and give him another chance. Vegas residents are bombarded with more political ads than any other viewers in the country. Apparently those watching the local news, Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune are particularly vulnerable to the TV appeals.

So what's the message? Well, the challenges of the economy have taken their toll on the USA and Nevada in particular. No longer are the streets paved with gold, certainly not for the residents at least. If the issues this time are jobs and the economy then it should be easy for Mitt Romney to convince the voters here to say "I do."

Nevada has the highest unemployment in the country (11.8%, September 2012) and 60% of mortgages are underwater here, that's almost three times higher than the national average. The city of northern Las Vegas has been described as the Ground Zero of the housing market. Foreclosure racked neighbourhoods sprawl way beyond the strip - and beneath it too.

More than 1,000 people live in dirty, rat-infested underground flood tunnels way beneath Caesar's Palace at The Luxor casino hotels. Disease and highly poisonous spiders are the major concern. Begging and 'dumpster diving' for food is how they survive. Many of those who call this home are former war veterans or those who came to Las Vegas in pursuit of the American dream. Drink, drugs and depression are now their way of life. So, who do the residents of underground Vegas want to win on Tuesday? I'll be finding out as I spend the next few days broadcasting for Sky News from Nevada.

But it's not just Vegas, baby. There are another half a dozen swing states where the election can be won and lost.

My Sky News colleagues have fanned out from Washington to Florida, Ohio to Colorado to find out who the American people want to see victorious on Tuesday.

Using wireless digilinks we'll have correspondents strolling down mainstreet Desmoines and beach side Tampa. We'll be presenting across all the US timezones and have a pop-up newsroom in Chicago.

Coverage starts in quiet reserved Las Vegas with quite reserved me at 0600 Monday morning. Worth remembering that Nevada has backed the winning candidate in every election since 1976.

By early Wednesday morning UK time we should know who'll be King of Vegas and most probably the USA for the next four years.]]>