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A plague of rabbits is devastating crops and community relations in France, where lawsuits are flying as farmers, hunters and landowners blame each other for failing to keep the population in check. Amid mounting anger and destruction on a scale unknown for 30 years, cereal farmers are being advised to sue neighbours who allow wild rabbits to proliferate. In one case that sparked controversy this month, a hunter was ordered to pay €1,439 (£1,134) in damages to two farmers after a court ruled that he had not shot enough rabbits in his woods. French internet sites are full of similar...

At 4ft long and weighing three-and-a-half stone, Amy the rabbit is so big she has to sleep in a dog kennel. Her owners claim the three-year-old doe, from the Continental Giant breed, is the largest rabbit in the world after she outgrew her mate Roberto, who took the title in 2004. The Guinness Book of World Records stopped handing out awards to large animals in that year for fear it would encourage owners to overfeed their pets. But Annette Edwards, who owns the rabbits, said she had not heard of a rabbit beating Roberto's record therefore as Amy is larger...

This bunny is named Pancake, likes to fall the sleep listening to the hymn, Pass Me Not Oh Gentle Savior. This is a very peaceful arrangement of a pet rabbit that is adorable. Revski

This bunny is called Sweet Dreams and with a soft hymn called, “Pass Me Not, Oh Gentle Savior” and her pancake-nightcap goes to sleep. Revski

/begin my translation N. Korea, Rabbit Meat Popular, Becoming 'Another Sweet Meat' Yonhap News "Rabbit meat, unlike sweet meat(translator's note:sweet meat = dog meat), causes no heartburn afterwards, great for your health." Restaurant districts in Pyongyang are featuring rabbit dishes, and attracting customers, advertising it as 'another sweet meat,' spurred by the recent official drive to raise rabbits for food. Chosun Shinbo, the official newspaper of General Association of Koreans in Japan(pro-North front organization,) reported on Jan. 20, "Among Pyongyang's restaurants, there are quite a few service units which provide various rabbit dishes. These days rabbit stew is as...

(AP) A pet rabbit named Sugar Bunny was stolen from a preschool and fliers protesting circus animal acts were left in its empty cage. The preschool's children gathered in a circle Monday to remember Sugar Bunny. "We talked about how some people have different ideas about animals," said teacher Lori Peters. "Some people don't think they should be in cages." Sugar Bunny vanished from the Community Building Children's Center on Saturday, teachers said. "Somebody stoled him," 5-year-old Zion told The Spokesman-Review, which gave only the first names of him and other children in a report on the heist. "I'm sad."...

EPHRATA, Wash. — Most of a group of 20 endangered rabbits that were reintroduced to the wild with great fanfare last month have been killed by predators, state officials said. Only four of the rabbits released on March 13 remained at the Sagebrush Flat Wildlife Area as of Tuesday, said David Hays, pygmy rabbit coordinator for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. Hays said two males were removed earlier this month and will be returned at the end of April. The other 14 rabbits are believed to have fallen victim to predators, mainly coyotes, but also hawks and owls,...

April 5, 2007 Kim Jong Il ate my rabbits for his birthday David Crossland in Berlin The offspring of the 12 giant rabbits were supposed to help to feed starving North Koreans. Now doubts about their fate have brought an abrupt halt to one of the more unlikely hunger-alleviating projects. Karl Szmolinsky sold the rabbits to Pyongyang so that they could be used to set up a breeding programme to boost meat production in the Hermit Kingdom. However, amid concerns that they have been eaten by the country’s leaders, Mr Szmolinsky will not be sending any more. The 68-year-old breeder...

/begin my translation German Breeder, "N. Korean Might Have Eaten Rabbits" The German Rabbit Breeder (Karl) Szmolinski, who sold 12 dog-sized giant rabbits to N. Korea in order to help alleviate N. Korea's food shortage, indicated that he would no longer supply the rabbits to N. Korea, according to Internet edition of 'Foreign Policy', a magazine specialized in foreign affairs. According to the publication, quoting German magazine Spiegel, Szmolinski made the decision, because he suspect that the rabbits he sent to N. Korea last year were not being raised but turned into food for N. Korean high officials. He originally...

Monster Bunnies For North Korea By David Crossland An east German pensioner who breeds rabbits the size of dogs has been asked by North Korea to help set up a big bunny farm to alleviate food shortages in the communist country. Now journalists and rabbit gourmets from around the world are thumping at his door. It all started when Karl Szmolinsky won a prize for breeding Germany's largest rabbit, a friendly-looking 10.5 kilogram "German Gray Giant" called Robert, in February 2006. Images of the chubby monster went around the world and reached the reclusive communist state of North Korea, a...

/begin my translation N. Korea to Grow Imported German Rabbits to Fight Food Shortage (Berlin = Yonhap News) Song Byong-seung = In order to fight its food shortage, N. Korea is trying to import large German house rabbits and grow them (domestically,) according to German media on Jan. 9. N. Korean authorities asked the rabbit farms in German state of Brandenburg to provide the rabbits, and twelve of them were already sent to N. Korea for testing (the feasibility), according to Die Welt. Karl Schusmolinski(?sp), a rabbit-breeding expert, is to visit N. Korea in coming April to instruct them how...

SCIENTISTS are poised to press ahead with controversial plans to create hybrid human and rabbit embryos. It emerged yesterday that three British teams - including one led by Professor Ian Wilmut at Edinburgh University - are due this month to seek licences from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority allowing them to create embryos that are 99.9 per cent human and 0.1 per cent rabbit. The scientists are also looking at the possibility of creating similar "chimera" embryos by mixing human and cow genes. The aim is to find a ready source of "human" embryonic stem cells without the ethical...

Former US president Jimmy Carter speaks with DER SPIEGEL about the danger posed to American values by George W. Bush, the difficult situation in the Middle East and Cuba's ailing Fidel Castro. SPIEGEL: Mr. Carter, in your new book you write that only the American people can ensure that the US government returns to the country's old moral principles. Are you suggesting that the current US administration of George W. Bush of acting immorally? Carter: There's no doubt that this administration has made a radical and unpressured departure from the basic policies of all previous administrations including those of both...

KING 5 TV reports that the last male of the Columbia pygmy rabbit species known to exist in captivity has died. There are two surviving females. Hopes are that cross breeding can rejuvenate the species.

It sounds like a job for Wallace and Gromit. A "monster" rabbit has apparently been rampaging through vegetable patches in a small village in northern England, ripping up leeks, munching turnips and infuriating local gardeners. In an uncanny resemblance to the plot of the hit animated film "Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit," angry horticulturists in Felton, near Newcastle, have now mounted an armed guard to protect their prized cabbages and parsnips. "They call it the monster. It's very big -- it's nearly the size of a dog," said Joan Smith, whose son Jeff owns one of...

LONDON (AFP) - In a tale reminiscent of the last Wallace and Gromit movie, furious villagers in northeast England have hired armed guards to protect their beloved communal vegetable gardens from a suspected monster rabbit. Leeks, Japanese onions, parsnips and spring carrots have all been ripped up and devoured by the mystery were-rabbit -- prompting the 12 allotment holders in Felton, north of Newcastle, to hire two marksmen with air rifles and orders to shoot to kill. "It is a massive thing. It is a monster. The first time I saw it, I said: 'What the hell is that?'" the...

March 3, 2006 Berkeley, California This week we made real progress in the war against hunting. It all started with my offhand remark to some Bambi-killing Neanderthal that I'd consider hunting to be a sport when the prey is also armed. Scooter overheard this and paid a visit to a friend who designs human prosthetics and had him adapt a brain-triggered mechanism that could be linked with a firearm, and voila, the Hunter-B-Gon(TM) was born! Just like the prosthetic hand that grips when signaled by the brain, this trigger mechanism is activated by a small probe in the part of...

A large and unusually bold hare was apparently so irritated when a dogsled team entered its territory that it went on the attack, in an otherwise peaceful forested area of northern Norway. Wenche Offerdal, who was driving the dogsled team in the Reisadalen area of Troms County, had never seen anything like it. She told newspaper Nordlys that she and her team of huskies met the hare while travelling between Saraelv and Seima Saturday evening. The hare appeared fully grown and quite aggressive.

A large and unusually bold hare was apparently so irritated when a dogsled team entered its territory that it went on the attack, in an otherwise peaceful forested area of northern Norway. Dogs are better known for chasing hares. It was the other way around in northern Norway last weekend. Wenche Offerdal, who was driving the dogsled team in the Reisadalen area of Troms County, had never seen anything like it. She told newspaper Nordlys that she and her team of huskies met the hare while travelling between Saraelv and Seima Saturday evening. The hare appeared fully grown and quite...

What is it that makes Democrats incapable of controlling their hostility, even during funerals? Especially during funerals. Rush Limbaugh just played a clip of today’s “Wellstone Funeral moment” from Rev. Joseph Lowry in which he raised the issue of weapons of mass destruction in the Coretta Scott King funeral, then talked about how not enough money is going to the poor. I know I have seen figures that indicate that Bush has spent more on some programs for the poor than Clinton did, but it wouldn’t matter if he had spent ten times more. Facts don’t matter. This is pure...