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Wild dromedary camels, brought to Australia in the mid-19th century to help explore and develop the outback, were left to breed and survive on their own. Now they number a million in the wild and have become pests, officials say. Camels are not usually associated with Australia, but Australia is home to the largest herd of feral camels in the world. About 12,000 dromedary camels were brought to Australia in the mid-19th century to carry people and supplies during the exploration and development of the Interior but after the advent of the automobile, they were abandoned and left to fend...

<p>Considering the name of this blog, we took great concern with the left Eye of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, which appeared puffy on Wednesday while she testified to a Senate committee.</p> <p>Sebelius had a basal cell carcinoma removed from her forehead on Tuesday during a successful standard outpatient procedure, according to HHS spokeswoman Jenny Backus.</p>

LACEY TOWNSHIP, N.J. – Philadelphia Eagles fans thirsty for predictions on whether their team will win or lose each week won't get them from a New Jersey pigskin-prognosticating camel. Princess, the star of Popcorn Park Zoo, won't predict the results of any Eagles games this season to protest the signing of quarterback Michael Vick. Vick spent 18 months in prison for organizing a dogfighting ring. The 2,600-pound camel went 17-4 last year and correctly picked the Pittsburgh Steelers to win the Super Bowl.

Thousands of camels will be shot from helicopters and turned into burgers in a bid to halt their trail of havoc across Australia. Marksmen plan to gun the animals down amid concern the thirsty dromedaries are barging into people's homes and ripping up their bathrooms looking for water. Government officials plan to wipe out 650,000 of the feral population in the remote Outback area of the country. The creatures were first introduced to Australia in the 1840s to help explorers travel through the Australian desert. There are now about one million camels roaming the country. They compete with sheep and...

At the Centralian Gold abattoir outside Alice Springs, business is brisk. Scores of animals are brought in each week to be slaughtered, deboned and packaged into sausages, steaks and mince. But the largest slabs of meat on the racks are not beef, lamb or even kangaroo, but camel. Garry Dann, who owns the business, describes camel meat as "beautiful, healthy and organic" and says demand for the product is growing every month. Travelling in large, aggressive packs, they prevent Aboriginal women from venturing into the countryside for fear of being attacked or trampled Mr Dann, who sells camel sausages, mince...

Camels' 'Milk Chocolate' is coming to the US.. A company in Dubai plans to bring Milk Chocolate (made with Camels' milk) to the America. Apparently, camel-milk chocolate is considered a delicacy.

JEDDAH: The June 4 speech at Cairo University by US President Barack Obama was watched widely in the Arab world, including the desert of Hail province where traffic virtually vanished during the address. According to a report in Asharq Alawsat daily, residents of Dhabi village gathered around TV screens to catch Obama’s words. “Obama’s speech caused the postponement of some of my appointments by request of my guests, relatives and friends, as well as some nearby Bedouin,” said Awad Khudair Al-Shammari, the owner of one of the few television sets in the area. Al-Shammari, who owns and breeds camels, said...

Evidence for health claims is thin, but a Pittsboro woman is pushing for testing. There is nothing smooth about a cool glass of camel's milk. The animals aren't cooperative, milk production is less than stellar and it's illegal to sell across state lines. Still, proponents, led by Millie Hinkle of Pittsboro, say camel's milk may be an elixir, curing maladies from allergies to autism to diabetes – although the science behind such claims is thin. The prospect of a cure-all is what inspires Hinkle, a naturopathic physician who read about the health benefits in a magazine three years ago and...

/begin my translation N. Korea: Why Importing Camels? (Beijing Reuters = Yonhap News) A report surfaced recently, which says that N. Korea imported camels and yaks, prompting speculation over what the wild animals are for. According to a Feb. 19th dispatch by China's Xinhua agency, a zoo located in Dairen, Liaoliang Province recently exported two yaks, a kind of wild buffalo, and four camels to N. Korea. It briefly mentioned, "This is the first time these wild animals are exported to N. Korea from Dairen or Liaoling Province in general." It did now spell out where in N. Korea they...

Camel wrestling contest attracts thousands of spectators    Some 130 wrestling camels from the Aegean and Mediterranean regions competed in the 27th Selçuk-Ephesus Camel Wrestling Festival.  The 27th Selçuk-Ephesus Camel Wrestling Festival, which was held Sunday, drew nearly 20,000 local and foreign spectators. Some 130 wrestling camels from the Aegean, Marmara and Mediterranean regions competed in the festival. Fighting camels do no work for nine months of the year, and in the competitive season, they fight only about a dozen times. Their owners pamper them and often become deeply attached to them.Selçuk Mayor Hasan Hakkı Doğan, who delivered a...

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — It may have seemed like a mirage: Two camels nibbling on a pine tree along a street in this desert metropolis on the Texas border. Police tried lassoing the animals, which lunged at the officers with snapping teeth as onlookers chuckled. But in the end, officials say all it took was some juicy green leaves on a branch held by the caretaker to lure the camels back into captivity.

DAMASCUS, Syria – Scientists have unearthed a camel jawbone in the Syrian desert that they think may be a previously unknown tiny species of the animal and say dates back a million years.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — "It's just like judging a beautiful girl," said Fowzan al-Madr, a camel breeder from the Kharj region southeast of Riyadh. "You look for big eyes, long lashes and a long neck — maybe 39 or 40 inches." As he spoke, Madr was surveying the offerings at Saudi Arabia's largest camel market, on the outskirts of Riyadh. The days are long past when camels were crucial to life, a chapter lost in increasing urbanization and technology. But there is still pleasure in raising them, sometimes for milk and meat, for racing and, yes, for their beauty. Camel...

MADINAT ZAYED, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Dubai's crown prince bought a camel for an unprecedented high price of $2.7 million during a desert festival in the emirate of Abu Dhabi. Sheik Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the son of Dubai's ruler Sheik Mohammed and his heir apparent, bought 16 camels for $4.5 million during a camel beauty pageant taking place during a desert carnival that aims to preserve the nomadic way of life in the oil-rich Gulf. Sheik Hamdan paid $2.7 million for one camel, Emirates' state news agency WAM reported Tuesday. It gave no details on the...

HAIL, 16 March 2008 — A seven-year-old boy fell into a swimming pool here recently during a private social function and the men in attendance were helpless to do anything about it. According to a report in Al-Riyadh newspaper, none of the men knew how to swim and were otherwise almost clueless about what to do as the child flailed about in panic. One man grabbed the pool ladder and tried to ease it over to the boy to no avail. Others tried to tie a couple of shumaqs (the Saudi headdress for men) to make a lifeline, but it...

CAMP BUEHRING, Kuwait, March 10, 2008 – Like devoted fans, about 100 servicemembers anxiously awaited Clyde’s arrival here on March 7. And, like a true celebrity, Clyde was fashionably late. Army Sgt. Dale Carson with the 76th Brigade out of Indianapolis, Ind., gets a wild ride from Clyde the camel March 7, 2008, on Camp Buehring, Kuwait. Clyde comes to the base once a month as part of the Morale, Welfare and Recreation office’s efforts to give the troops a break from their day-to-day routines. Defense Dept. photo by Samantha L. Quigley  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. “I...

Camel hunting, the new Aboriginal pastime By Nick Squires in Sydney Last Updated: 7:05pm GMT 10/02/2008 Aborigines in Australia's arid desert interior have hit on an innovative way of tackling the boredom and substance abuse which have ravaged so many of their communities - hunting camels. Camel hunting is the innovative new way of tackling the boredom and substance abuse which have ravaged Aboriginal communities Where their forbears pursued traditional prey such as kangaroos and monitor lizards, the younger generation is heading into the scrub to shoot plentiful one-humped dromedaries. The camels were introduced in the 19th century from India...

A Palestinian man interacts with a camel as he waits for tourists on the Mount of Olives overlooking Jerusalem's Old City, Jan. 14, 2008. Israeli and Palestinian negotiators took on the most contentious issues in their bitter conflict Monday, under a U.S.-backed effort to hammer out a final peace deal by the end of the year

TROUTMAN, N.C. -- A man is recovering after he was attacked by his pet camel at his home along Buffalo Shoals Road near Troutman in Iredell County. The man bought the camel from a petting zoo and planned to keep it as a pet but Wednesday night it attacked him, stepped on him and pinned him to the ground. A neighbor heard his yells for help and freed him. The victim had several lacerations but is expected to be OK. He said he's going to return the camel to its original owners on Thursday.

An Australian woman was killed by a pet camel given to her as a 60th birthday present after the animal apparently tried to have sex, police said Sunday...

RIYADH (Reuters) - Hundreds of camels have died in Saudi Arabia this week from a mystery ailment. The Agriculture Ministry has said 232 camels died in the space of four days in the Dawasir Valley, 400 km (250 miles) south of Riyadh. King Abdullah has promised compensation for owners, who say the real number of deaths is far higher. Agriculture ministry officials have denied an infectious disease caused the deaths and blamed them on animal feed supplied by food storage authorities.

WEWAHITCHKA, Fla. — The owner of an exotic animal farm has died after being kicked and then sat on by a 1,800-pound camel. Cathie Ake and the 4-year-old camel were being filmed by a local television station on Sunday when the camel kicked her and sat on her during a break in filming. The station was doing a story on Mini-Akers Exotic Animals, the farm Ake owned with her husband. Ake's husband, Donnie Ake, said he thinks Polo, the camel, was agitated by mating season. He said he would find a new home for Polo, which they bought three weeks...

Kyzyl Al'Tajik (Kazzie) 4/1996-7/19/2007 Died sometime overnight of a freak slip/fall accident. Rest in peace, buddy.

For anyone with a yen to help out financially strapped Algerian nomads, now's your chance. Alissa Descotes-Toyosaki, a Japanese-French writer and interpreter living in Paris, is offering a "camel owner plan," through which purchasers lend their beasts to Tuareg nomad camel handlers in southern Algeria.

Dead camel found on the roadside... in Sweden (AFP) 2 July 2007 STOCKHOLM - Motorists in Sweden are accustomed to seeing elks along the roadside, but the discovery of a dead camel on the shoulder of the E22 autoroute left more than a few eyebrows raised, media reported on Monday.‘But as the police patrol arrived at the scene it turned out to be completely true,’ police officer Lars Lindwall told Swedish news agency TT.Police got the call during the night between Sunday and Monday and found the visibly injured animal dead by the roadside outside the southern Swedish town of...

Saudi tribe holds camel beauty pageantBy Andrew HammondApril 27, 2007 GUWEI'IYYA, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - The legs are long, the eyes are big, the bodies curvaceous. Contestants in this Saudi-style beauty pageant have all the features you might expect anywhere else in the world, but with one crucial difference -- the competitors are camels. This week, the Qahtani tribe of western Saudi Arabia has been welcoming entrants to its Mazayen al-Ibl competition, a parade of the "most beautiful camels" in the desolate desert region of Guwei'iyya, 120 km (75 miles) west of Riyadh. "In Lebanon they have Miss Lebanon," jokes...

GUWEI'IYYA, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - The legs are long, the eyes are big, the bodies curvaceous. Contestants in this Saudi-style beauty pageant have all the features you might expect anywhere else in the world, but with one crucial difference -- the competitors are camels. This week, the Qahtani tribe of western Saudi Arabia has been welcoming entrants to its Mazayen al-Ibl competition, a parade of the "most beautiful camels" in the desolate desert region of Guwei'iyya, 120 km (75 miles) west of Riyadh. "In Lebanon they have Miss Lebanon," jokes Walid, moderator of the competition's Web site. "Here we have...

An owner of an exotic animal farm has died after being kicked and then sat on by a camel. Cathie Ake and the 4-year-old camel were being filmed by a local television station on Sunday when the camel kicked her and then sat down during a break in filming. The station was doing a story on Mini-Akers Exotic Animals, the 15-acre farm Ake owned with her husband. Cathie Ake's husband, Donnie Ake, said he would find a new home for Polo, the camel, The News Herald of Panama City reported Tuesday. He believes the 1,800-pound animal was agitated by mating...

At nearly 7 feet tall and 1,800 pounds, Deputy Bert is unlike any other law-enforcement officer. And with a Los Angeles County sheriff's ID around his neck and a badge on his harness, Deputy Bert is unlike any other camel. Listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the highest-ranking law-enforcement camel on the planet, sheriff's Deputy Bert is part of a menagerie of animals employed by Los Angeles County - and one of the public's favorites. "The kids just flock to him," sheriff's Sgt. Larry Wineinger said. "He's our No. 1 crowd pleaser." Deputized four years ago, Bert...

A team of Iranian and British anthropologists working on human remains discovered at the 5200-year-old Burnt City have identified a male rider who they believe was a messenger in ancient times... “The marks indicate that he had gathered his right leg while riding. Thus the riding was carried out on a big animal like a camel or ox,” Foruzanfar explained. There is evidence that draft animals were used in the Burnt City in ancient times, but gathering a leg while riding is something someone does while riding a camel over long distances. Thus, it is surmised that the man was...

A job well done is worth celebrating, but Turkish Airlines say staff went too far when they sacrificed a camel. To mark the last delivery of 100 aircraft, maintenance workers clubbed together to buy the beast - and then consume it. The sacrifice took place at Istanbul international airport. "They didn't ask permission," a spokeswoman for the airline told the BBC, adding that the boss of the offending staff had been suspended. He will remain off work while the incident is investigated. Camel is eaten in Turkey, while the sacrifice of animals - usually sheep - is performed during the...

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Workers at Turkish Airlines celebrated a job well done by sacrificing a camel at Istanbul airport and their boss has now been suspended. The national flag-carrier said on Wednesday maintenance staff killed the camel at Turkey's busiest airport after sending a batch of aircraft back to the supplier ahead of schedule. Turkish Airlines has suspended the head of plane maintenance pending an investigation, the company said in a statement. Turkish newspapers carried pictures of the camel, two rugs thrown over his hump, ahead of Tuesday's sacrifice. They also showed pictures of the beast chopped up into chunks...

Dying trade of the Sahara camel train By John Pilkington BBC News, Mali A thousand years ago Sahara salt was worth its weight in gold In Timbuktu, camel trains, that for millenia have been trudging around the Sahara with their valuable cargoes, are being replaced by the much less exotic lorry. I have always been fascinated by the Sahara - so when I heard that camel caravans still make the 450-mile journey from the Taoudenni salt mines to Timbuktu, I decided to go and see if this was true. What I found there was the stuff of dreams. Every week...

Damascus: Swiss researchers have discovered the 1,00,000-year-old remains of a previously unknown giant camel species in central Syria. “This is a big discovery, a revolution in science,” Professor Jean-Marie Le Tensorer of the University of Basel said. “It was not known that the dromedary was present in the Middle East more than 10,000 years ago.” “Can you imagine? The camel’s shoulders stood three metres high and it was around four metres tall, as big as a giraffe or an elephant. Nobody knew that such a species had existed.” Tensorer, who has been excavating at the desert site in Kowm since...

GRAND RAPIDS -- Spectrum Health and Saint Mary's Health Care will require all their employees to not use tobacco at any time during their work shift beginning January 1. The staffs of both hospitals will need to arrive without smelling of smoke, and they can't use any tobacco products until they leave hospital property after their shift. Metro Health is also joining in the Smoke-Free Work Day Every Day campaign. In 2003, the Grand Rapids hospitals became the first in the country to jointly declare their hospital campuses smoke-free. Today, more than 30 Michigan hospitals have smoke-free campuses. This...

SEATTLE -- Non-tribal casinos have already lost tens of millions of dollars because of Washington’s new indoor smoking ban. A new financial study, conducted by our own KIRO Team 7 Investigators, discovers taxpayers could loose millions as well. Card-rooms, charity bingo halls, and some bars and restaurants are required to report financial information to the state every year. The state hasn't had a chance to look at the figures since the smoking ban took effect. I have. It looks like "no smoking" means economic devastation for the non-tribal gaming industry. If there was ever any doubt that gamblers are also...

Following are actual statistics reflecting examples of the negative impact upon individual businesses following the recently instituted smoking ban ordinances, effective in Springfield, Illinois and surrounding unincorporated Sangamon County this September 15, 2006 (less than two weeks ago). When small businesses account for about two-thirds of our country's economic growth and new jobs, it is difficult to comprehend elected officials' reasoning in voting to implement an intrusive ordinance which will hurt those same business owners. A restaurant owner who does not permit smoking will see it as a violation of his property rights if a coalition uses the political...

Delaware County's ban on smoking in most work places has become a problem for some nursing homes, which are both work places for employees and homes for the residents. The smoking ordinance does not prevent people from smoking in their homes, but it does ban smoking in most public buildings and work spaces. If a nursing home bans smoking, they could lose federal funding for failing to comply with regulations, but if they allow smoking they could face fines or a lawsuit from the county health department, officials said. Federal regulations state that if a nursing home changes its...

Churchill Downs could be hurt financially if it is forced to go completely smoke free, a company official said Wednesday. Kevin Flanery, Churchill Downs Inc.’s vice president for national public affairs, told a Louisville Metro Council committee considering a new, tougher smoking ban, that the race track is already facing heavy competition from Indiana and from computer and telephone betting services.And he said the company’s experience at a Florida track shows some people will stop betting when a smoking ban takes effect. But the former head of the Greater Louisville Medical Society testified that his group favors a complete...

A private smokers club in Smiths Falls challenged Ontario's indoor smoking ban with its grand opening Friday — and Ontario officials did not brave the fumes to attend. Instead, the club's founder was charged under the province's Smoke-Free Ontario act the day before it opened. Since Ontario's indoor workplace and public smoking ban went into effect, ashtrays and cigars have been illegal in bars. The grand opening of Do' Little's pub as a club for members of a private smokers association took place at noon at the Comfort Inn on Centre Street in Smiths Falls, about 65 kilometres south of...

Park Ridge aldermen will resume discussion of the city's public smoking ban, following complaints from three restaurant owners that their businesses have been adversely affected by it.The restaurant owners spoke briefly to the City Council Monday night, prompting Mayor Howard Frimark to ask the aldermen if the smoking ban should be brought back before the Procedures and Regulations Committee. Alderman Jeannie Markech agreed that it should, and made a motion for the discussion. Eight aldermen voted in favor of the issue going back to committee and five voted against. One alderman was absent.The next meeting of the Procedures and Regulations...

I decided to see what might be the difference between Muslim and Islam and found this section on the Quran...I found it interesting...40 readings and scholars say 7-14 are legitimate? Amazing. Despite the consensus among Muslims on the authenticity of the current format of the Qur’an, they agree that many words in the Qur’an can be interpreted in equally valid ways. The Arabic language, like other Semitic languages, has consonants and vowels, and the meanings of words are derived from both. For several centuries, the written texts of the Qur’an showed only the consonants, without indicating the vowel marks. As...

There have been a bunch of books about the mistakes made after the American invasion of Baghdad, George Packer's Assassin's Gate and Thomas Ricks' Fiasco being the two best in my opinion.Yesterday, the Washington Post published an excerpt from Rajiv Chandrasekaran's effort. He was their bureau chief there for a few years and his book, Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone, will be released tomorrow.I haven't read the book, but the excerpt is as damning as anything could be. It outlines how people were recruited to serve in the Coalition Provisional Authority, the group that ran...

Jobs are being eliminated by special interest activist organizations Now that air quality test results by the likes of the American Cancer Society are proving that the secondhand smoke kills argument is completely fabricated. http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2004/04/american-cancer-society-test-results.html It's time for lawmakers to investigate why this fallacy has permeated the local government debate.....and specifically who is funding and spreading that false information. http://www.rwjf.org/about/founder.jhtml The "who" is in large part the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. And since RWJF is an affiliate of the Johnson & Johnson Company (the manufacturer of competing nicotine product interests Nicoderm & Nicoderm CQ), it stands to reason that the...

Robin Brayman, a 44-year-old Greenfield resident, thought she had saved quite a bit of money buying cigarettes online, until she received a bill from the state demanding more than $2,000 in unpaid sales and cigarette taxes. "I had no idea. When I first started buying, the Web site said the cigarettes were tax-free, duty-free. You assumed you didn't have to pay anything," Brayman said. Brayman, like many other smokers, purchases cigarettes online because they are offered at a deep discount. A carton of Marlboro Full Flavor 100s costs $29.45 plus shipping from BuyCheapCigarettes.com, the site Brayman patronized. The same...

Camel's Milk An Aphrodisiac? Elderly Dad Says Yes Man's Wife Recently Gave BirthPOSTED: 8:15 am EDT August 30, 2006 NEW DELHI -- One hump or two? Camel's milk is hot stuff in India because of its supposed effect as an aphrodisiac. The run on camel's milk was prompted by 88-year-old Virmaram Jat who fathered a child. The Times of India newspaper reports the man attributed his virility to the drink. Virmaram's third wife, Gammo Devi, who is 45 years younger to him, delivered male twins on July 19, according to the Times. One of them was stillborn. The hospital said...

ROCKTON -- Rockton leaders snuff out an idea to ban smoking at public places. Tuesday night at their meeting, a motion to draft an ordinance banning smoking in public places failed to get anywhere. Rockton Village Trustee Dennis Meade put the issue before board members, but no one seconded the motion. The proposal would've kept people from lighting up on streets, sidewalks, parks and in businesses. Several community members including business owners spoke out at the meeting against a ban saying it would hurt their business. Others claimed it a ban would go against their rights. One person at...

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned against any military strike on Iran in an interview published on Saturday. The United Nations Security Council has demanded Iran suspend uranium enrichment by the end of the month after Tehran failed to persuade the international community its atomic scientists were working on power stations, not bombs. Washington has declined to rule out military strikes as a solution to the nuclear dispute. "The conflict between the United States and Iran must be resolved through diplomatic channels and direct dialogue, because any strike on Iran means the end of stability in the region...

The mother of deceased Ground Zero worker James Zadroga described Mayor Bloomberg as a "cold, heartless person" for opposing a series of new laws that address the health battles of 9/11 rescuers."I don't think he realizes how the common people live - maybe for one month he should try and live on $500 a week," Linda Zadroga wrote in a letter to the Daily News. "But when [you're] a billionaire, you have no concept of the so-called middle class. Well, one day he may have some tragedy in his family he will need to deal with, and then maybe...