Madagascar has diplomatic relations with many countries, both individual bilateral relations and by virtue of its membership of African and other regional blocs. International aid has been received from the IMF and the World Bank, and a national environmental plan supported by the World Bank and USAID began in 1990.
Around the World in Eighty Days is an adventure novel by the French writer Jules Verne, first published in French in 1872. In the story, Phileas Fogg of London and his newly employed French valet Passepartout attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a wager of £20,000 set by his friends at the Reform Club. It is one of Verne's most acclaimed works.
Vannes is a commune in the Morbihan department in Brittany in north-western France. It was founded over 2,000 years ago.
Albert Londres was a French journalist and writer. One of the inventors of investigative journalism, Londres not only reported news but created it, and reported it from a personal perspective. He criticized abuses of colonialism such as forced labour. Albert Londres gave his name to a journalism prize, the Prix Albert-Londres, for Francophone journalists.
RER D is one of the five lines in the Réseau Express Régional, a hybrid commuter rail and rapid transit system serving Paris and its suburbs. The 190-kilometre (120 mi) line crosses the region from north to south, with all trains serving a group of stations in central Paris, before branching out towards the ends of the line.
Rail transport in Madagascar is primarily operated by Madarail. There are two unconnected systems having a total length of 875 km (544 mi), as of 2006, all metre gauge, 1.000 m. The northern railway is currently concessioned to Maragall. The southern line, Fianarantsoa-Côte-Est railway (FCE), is a parastatal line.
Lucien Bodard was a French reporter and writer on events in Asia.
The World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) is the largest association of Calvinist churches in the world. It has 230 member denominations in 108 countries, together claiming an estimated 80 million people, thus being the fourth-largest Christian communion in the world after the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion. This ecumenical Christian body was formed in June 2010 by the union of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) and the Reformed Ecumenical Council (REC).
Samir Khullar, better known as Sugar Sammy, is a Canadian stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and producer from Montreal, Quebec. Being fluently quadrilingual, his is comedy routines are delivered in English and French, and sometimes in Punjabi and Hindi.
Patrick de Saint-Exupéry is the son of Count Jacques de Saint-Exupéry and the Countess de Saint-Exupéry, born as Martine d'Anglejan. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the aviator and writer, was the cousin of his grandfather. Patrick started his career in journalism at age 19 after winning a young reporters award.
Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted is a 2012 American computer-animated circus comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and Pacific Data Images and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film is the third installment of the Madagascar franchise, the sequel to Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008), and was the first film in the series to be released in 3D. It was directed by Eric Darnell, Conrad Vernon, and Tom McGrath from a screenplay by Darnell and Noah Baumbach, and features Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett Smith, Sacha Baron Cohen, Cedric the Entertainer, Andy Richter, McGrath, Chris Miller, Christopher Knights, and Vernon reprising their voice acting roles from the previous installments, alongside new cast members Jessica Chastain, Bryan Cranston, Martin Short, and Frances McDormand. In the film, the main characters—a party of animals from the Central Park Zoo whose adventures have already taken them to Madagascar and Africa—attempt to return to New York City, and find themselves traveling across Europe with a circus while being chased by a relentless French Animal Control officer.
Gastrallus is a genus of beetles in the family Ptinidae. They are distributed nearly worldwide except Australia and Central and South America; almost half are native to the Palearctic realm.
The Albert Londres Prize is the highest French journalism award, named in honor of journalist Albert Londres. Created in 1932, it was first awarded in 1933 and is considered the French equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. Three laureates are awarded each year. The three categories are : "best reporter in the written press", "best audiovisual reporter" and "best reporting book".
Olivier Weber is a French writer, novelist and reporter at large, known primarily for his coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has been a war correspondent for twenty-five years, especially in Central Asia, Africa, Middle-East and Iraq. He is an assistant professor at the Institut d'études politiques de Paris, president of the Prize Joseph Kessel and today ambassador of France at large. Weber has won several national and international awards of literature and journalism, in particular for his stories on Afghanistan and for his books on wars. His novels, travels writing books and essays have been translated in a dozen of languages.
Max Olivier-Lacamp is a French journalist and writer, winner of the Prix Renaudot in 1969, and Albert Londres Prize in 1958.
Clotilde (Rullaud) is an artistic director, singer, vocalist, flutist, composer, filmmaker, producer and vocal coach.
Olivier Staphylas is a French animator, best known for his work at DreamWorks Animation and for his award-winning student film, Le Building. He joined DreamWorks in 2006 and, within a few years, attained the role of supervising animator on How to Train Your Dragon. His work on 2011's Puss in Boots, supervising the titular character's animation, earned him nominations for an Annie Award and a Visual Effects Society Award. He then served as head of character animation on Penguins of Madagascar. Starting in 2014, he served in that position at Oriental DreamWorks.
Olivier Ayache-Vidal is a French film director and screenwriter.
The Abidjan-Niger Railway is a 1,260-kilometre (780-mile) single-track metre gauge line in francophone West Africa that links Abidjan, the economic capital of Ivory Coast to Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. The railway, like others on the continent, was constructed by the colonial power to encourage economic development in the region, although detractors would claim that it was to exploit the region solely for their own advantage.
