"Kenyan police chief fired amid abuse claims" by Associated Press | September 9, 2009
NAIROBI - President Mwai Kibaki fired Kenya’s police commissioner yesterday, sending the chief of a force accused of having committed executions and rapes to head the postal service. Human rights activists welcomed the move but said more steps are needed to reform a corrupt and dangerous force.
They SENT HIM OVER to the POST OFFICE not a PRISON?
Related: African Safari: Clinton Threatens Kenya
The fact that the US isn't hammering them over this issue proves the US tacitly condones the tactics of its ally.
Six years ago, Mohammed Hussein Ali was brought in to clean up the force but did little to tackle a culture of corruption and abuse during his tenure.
The United Nations alleged the police commissioner even ran death squads, after the bodies of hundreds of young men were found dumped at morgues and other sites during a crackdown on a banned gang. Most had been executed with a gunshot to the head, their hands often tied behind their backs. Many were last seen in police custody.
They are EVERYWHERE!
Human Rights Watch and the state-funded Kenya National Commission on Human Rights say police also looted and raped and killed Kenyans during riots that followed the contested December 2007 elections, in which more than 1,000 people died.
But the US accepts this government? Oh, right, Kenya is not Iran or Gaza.
Ali denied the allegations, saying, “Unfortunately during my tenure vilification of police became a national pastime. Police work is not a public relations exercise.’’
No, it is an exercise in oppression, isn't it?
"Kenya’s elephants dying amid drought" by Associated Press | September 10, 2009
NAIROBI - A drought in Kenya has become so bad that it is felling even the giants of the animal kingdom: the country’s famed elephants, which are dying as rivers dry up and grasslands shrivel in parched game reserves.
The bones of the elephants bleaching under a relentless African sun underscore how bad the drought is. It has killed hundreds of cattle and many acres of crops, threatening the lives of people who depended on them for food. There are no tallies of deaths among people attributed to the drought, but the UN’s World Food program said recently that 3.8 million Kenyans are at risk and need emergency food aid.
Zoologist Iain Douglas-Hamilton, who founded Save the Elephants, said the drought is the worst he has seen in 12 years and poses a serious threat to the animals, whose striking silhouettes roaming Kenya’s broad savannah help draw 1 million tourists each year.
“It may be related to climate change, and the effect is elephants, particularly the young and the old, have began to die,’’ he told AP Television News on Monday. “When they do not have enough food they also seem to be vulnerable to disease, their immune system weakens and they catch all sorts of diseases.’’
Sigh. Why bring that lie into it? It is destruction of habitat by western corporations that are the real threat.
Elephants, which have no predators, must roam widely to get their daily ration of as much as 52 gallons of water and about 660 pounds of grass, leaves, and twigs.
No predators except man, right? That's because other animals are smart; what other animal can take on an angry elephant, save a mouse?
But the water is disappearing and the grass is all but gone.
--more--"
And why am I so affected by a dumb beast, readers?
Related: ORIGINAL Elephant Painting
I watched an Animal Planet show on them, and they remember where their herd mates die.
In fact, one died during their journey on the show, and the other elephants had a devil of a time getting the mother to move along.
It was heart-breaking to see the mother elephant wailing, not want to leave her dead calf!
The narrator even pointed out that the elephants were SHOWING EMOTIONS!!!!
And now they are SELF-AWARE ENOUGH to PAINT!!!!
LIFE is PRECIOUS, world!!!
Can't we all SHARE THIS PLANET in PEACE??!!!!!!!!!
