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Way back about 1995/96 when the internet was new. The UN weather guys were trying to get some simple monitoring stations set up in the Congo (I think it was still Zaire) but a war was on ~ which has been going on since that time in 1956 the Belgians came back, killed a bunch of people, and set Kensasha/Katanga up as a seperate country.

The whole area of Republic of Congo, and Zaire had no more than 3 radio sonde stations at airports ~ which wasn't a whole lot of coverage for what they used to call 'the lungs of the world' ~ and the rebels, or the regular army, or both had managed to attack one of those stations and EAT the attendants.

The UN guys were panicking about not being able to get anybody to work there.

That's a long time ago as far as the net's concerned, and you'll notice THAT IS ALSO BEFORE GOOGLE.COM!

I remember the story well since we debated the problem extensively on the old Doonesbury.com website ~ had 4 discussion boards, with a 5th secret board on the select few could access. We had a UN weather guy on the board too.

Good luck finding the story. Henson over at NASA was involved. He knew about it, and that's one of the reasons he dropped AFRICA from all the climatological models used by the UN. The data is garbage from there, but the attendants at the radio sonde stations, so I have heard, made a fine stew!