Nepalese royals misused National Trust for Nature Conservation, says audit report

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2008:

 

KATHMANDU–A three-member audit committee on March 26, 2008
confirmed years of rumors that the Nepalese royal family had
extensively misused the King Mahendra National Trust for Nature
Conservation.
Examining financial records from 2000-2006, the audit
committee reported that, “Millions [in Nepalese rupees] were spent on
travels abroad and lavish parties,” summarized the Nepal Horizons
News Service, in an account also internationally distributed
verbatim by the Indo-Asian News Service.

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Senior conservation official charged with ordering massacre of gorillas

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2008:
GOMA, DRC–Honore Mashagiro, formerly regional director of
the Congolese Wildlife Authority for Virunga National Park in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, was arrested at his home in Goma
on March 18, 2007 for allegedly orchestrating the killings of 10
gorillas whose remains were discovered in June and July 2007.
DRC environment minister Felicite Kalume announced the
arrest. Agence France-Presse reported that “Six foresters would also
be questioned on suspicion of having trapped and killed the animals
in the site on Mashagiro’s orders.”
“Mashagiro was in a position of great responsibility,”
Wildlife Direct spokesperson Dipesh Pabari told Claire Soares of The
Independent, “and allegedly used his authority to promote the
destruction of forest for charcoal to make money. This threatened
the gorilla habitat, so when the rangers tried to protect the
forest, he allegedly orchestrated the gorilla massacres to
discourage them.”

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Effort to repair Kenyan animal services amid post-election strife hints at job ahead in Zimbabwe

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2008:

 

NAIROBI, HARARE–The difficulty of restoring Kenyan animal
services after just a few weeks of unrest following the disputed
outcome of the December 27, 2007 national election hints at the
magnitude of the job ahead in Zimbabwe, where a similar
post-election crisis appears to be capping nearly nine years of
conditions almost as dysfunctional as the worst Kenya experienced.
As ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press, rioting had just resumed in
the Kibera slum district of Nairobi, near the headquarters of the
Kenya Wildlife Service, after talks broke down that were intended to
achieve a power-sharing arrangement satisfactory to supporters of
both incumbent president Mwai Kibaki and challenger Raila Odinga. As
earlier, all Kenyan animal advocates could do was hunker down, try
to stay out of the line of fire, and help the animals they could
with whatever they had, wherever they were caught when the trouble
started.
The outcome of the March 29, 2008 Zimbabwean national
election likewise remained uncertain. The Zanu-PF party, ruling
Zimbabwe since 1980, appeared to have lost control of the national
parliament, but Harare Daily News editor Barnabas Thondiana told
ANIMAL PEOPLE that agents of Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean president
since 1980, “secretly stuffed ballots to enable him to achieve a
respectable election figure.” Claiming military support, Mugabe
tried to remain in power despite many indications that he had been
electorally defeated.

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Kenyan animal advocates keep working despite post-election violence

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2008:
NAIROBI–More than 150 of the estimated 530 mob and 82 police
killings wracking Kenya during the four weeks after the disputed
outcome of the December 27, 2007 national election came in Kibera,
a shantytown just a stray bullet’s distance from the headquarters of
the Kenya Wildlife Service, KWS animal orphanage, Nairobi National
Park, the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust elephant and rhino
orphanage, the Kenya SPCA, and the offices of Youth for
Conservation and the African Network for Animal Welfare.
They had all escaped the violence, as of press time for the
January/February 2008 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE.
Wildlife refuges elsewhere in Kenya were also imperiled. “A
few dozen miles from the Masai Mara game reserve in Narok,” reported
Associated Press on January 19, “Masai fighters and men from
President Mwai Kibaki’s Kikuyu tribe battled for hours with machetes,
clubs, swords and bows and arrows. Five people were killed and 25
wounded, police chief Patrick Wambani said. Homes and shops were set
ablaze.”

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Prince Harry dodges the bullet as suspect in harrier shootings

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2007:
LONDON–Prince Harry of Britain and two
companions on November 6, 2007 escaped
prosecution for allegedly killing two hen
harriers, but the shotgun blasts suspected to
have been fired by the royal hunting party helped
to blow the cover off the pretense by shooting
estate operators that they practice wildlife
conservation.
“Norfolk Crown Prosecution Service has
advised Norfolk Police there is insufficient
evidence to prosecute anyone over the shooting of
two hen harrier birds, a protected species, at
Sandringham on October 24, 2007,” a Crown
Prosecution Service spokesperson said in a
prepared statement.
“The bodies of the hen harriers have not
been found and there is no forensic or ballistic
evidence. Witnesses also heard unexplained
shooting in the area before the three suspects
said they were present at the scene, so other
people cannot be ruled out,” the CPS
spokesperson added. “The three suspects, who
were interviewed by police, all denied that the
birds were killed by them.”

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Dog killings in Bolivia

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2007:
ACHACACHI, Bolivia–“Aymara peasants loyal to President Evo
Morales, calling themselves the Red Ponchoes, yesterday beheaded
two dogs as a gruesome signal to those ‘who don’t want change’ in the
country,” a representative of the Asociacion para la Defense de los
Derechos de los Animales de Bolivia e-mailed to humane media on
November 23, 2007. “Red Ponchos secretary general Ruperto Quispe
confirmed that other peasant groups from the La Paz area
participated,” the report added.
Video of the killings reportedly hinted that Morales
himself encouraged the action.
Identified by New York Times correspondent Simon Romero as a
former organizer for the coca growers’ union, Morales in June 2007
attended a llama sacrifice.

Candidates on animal issues

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2007:
Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, a
longtime vegetarian and now a vegan, celebrated Thanksgiving 2007 at
the Animal Acres sanctuary in Acton, California. Kucinich was
scheduled to discuss animal issues on November 29 on a Dialogue for
Democracy webcast with In Defense of Animals founder Elliot Katz,
Farm Animal Reform Movement founder Alex Hershaft, PETA cofounder
Alex Pacheco (who left PETA nearly 10 years ago), and Last Chance
for Animals founder Chris DeRose.
But Ohio Representative Kucinich is rated little chance of
winning the nomination.

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Why did the Central Bureau of Investigation raid the Animal Welfare Board of India?

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2007:
CHENNAI, MUMBAI, MYSORE, DELHI, THIRUVANATHAPURAM–One of
the noisiest and farthest-reaching scandals in the often
controversial 47-year history of the Animal Welfare Board of India
may prove to be less about corruption and bribery, when the Central
Bureau of Investigation concludes months of digging, than about
pursuit of mostly symbolic tribute by some AWBI appointees, and
redress of injured pride by some who have been rebuked.
Disputes over the allocation of grant money, partisan
politics, and enforcement of laws governing livestock transportation
and slaughter have become involved.
Yet–from statements and copies of inside correspondence
obtained by ANIMAL PEOPLE–pursuit of public stature and vengeance
for past frustrations and humiliations appears to have most visibly
motivated the persons whose charges instigated CBI raids on several
animal welfare organizations, the homes of their officers, and the
Animal Welfare Board of India offices in Chennai.

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The legacy of a winged monkey army

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2007:
CHENNAI–The Central Bureau of Investigation raid on the Blue
Cross of India came about two weeks after chief executive Chinny
Krishna prominently criticized a government plan to breach Ram Sethu,
or Adam’s Bridge, an underwater rock formation linking India to Sri
Lanka.
Krishna wondered after the September 28, 2007 raid whether
the intense political controversy over breaching Ram Sethu might have
been involved, but ANIMAL PEOPLE found no hint that it was.
Krishna pointed out, as many others have, that Ram Sethu
helped to break the force of the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
Promoted by the Congress Party, which presently heads the
Indian federal government, the breach would cut about 30 hours and
considerable fuel use from the itineraries of coastal cargo vessels.
But it would also considerably alter the aquatic ecology of the
strait between India and Sri Lanka, and would be considered an act
of sacrilege by many Hindus. Controversy over the proposal
reportedly could be a factor in forcing the Congress government to
call early elections.

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