ANIMAL PEOPLE is the leading independent newspaper providing original investigative coverage of animal protection worldwide. Founded in 1992, ANIMAL PEOPLE has no alignment or affiliation with any other entity.

 

This site built and maintained by: GREANVILLE ASSOCIATESand CRESCENT COMMUNICATIONS •Rev. 12.1.05 Copyright ANIMAL PEOPLE, INC. 1992--2006

 

 

 

 

 
   

 
powered by FreeFind

ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: March 2008

Updates from Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, & Bangladesh

A female suicide bomber killed 69 people and wounded 140 at the al-Ghazl pet market in Baghdad on February 1, 2008--the fifth attack on the market since June 2006. Half an hour later, a second female suicide bomber killed 29 people and wounded 67 at the New Baghdad pet market. Four of the al-Ghazl attacks appear to have been the work of al-Qaida. A November 2007 attack was attributed to Shiites, who feigned an al-Qaida attack to increase public support for Shiite militias.

Assadullah Khalid, governor of Kandahar, Afghanistan, attributed to the Taliban a February 17, 2008 bombing that killed at least 80 spectators at a dogfight and wounded 90 more. The Taliban suppressed dogfighting, but it has regained popularity since the U.S. ended Taliban rule in late 2001.

"Jewish settlers and Israeli and Palestinian activists have joined forces" to try to prevent Israel from building a barrier that will separate wildlife from water, Associated Press writer Laurie Copans reported on March 2, 2008. "In the Wadi Fukin area of the central West Bank," Copans wrote, "the Israeli-Palestinian branch of Friends of the Earth has persuaded Israel's Supreme Court to halt work on the barrier, arguing that natural springs would be destroyed." The campaign is supported on the Palestinian side by the Palestine Wildlife Society.

"A five-member team of media persons from Kerala on a recent visit noticed the absence of stray dogs in Aizawl," in Mizoram state, India, The Hindu reported on December 19, 2007, noting that dogs are eaten in Mizoram. On January 13, 2008, the Daily Telegraph reported, "a rampaging army of rats" had produced "fear of famine" in Mizoram. Stimulating the rats was a once-in-50-years bamboo forest flowering. The lack of dogs was by February 8 felt in nearby parts of Bangladesh, as well, where rats "destroyed the crops of tens of thousands of people" said BBC News correspondent Mark Dummett. Dogs are rarely eaten in Bangladesh, but are persecuted as allegedly unclean, and may be covertly exported for consumption.