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As part of the celebrations for his 91st birthday next Saturday, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe will be served a feast featuring five impala, two buffalo, two elephants, two sables, and one lion. According to a report in Zimbabwe's The Chronicle, the menagerie was donated by Tendai Musasa, owner of the prominent Woodlands Farm near the Elephant Hills Resort at Victoria Falls, where the 20,000-person shindig will take place. While you'd think that eating elephants and lions, icons of wildlife conservation, would be illegal, it turns out it's not—neither under Zimbabwean nor international law. As of 1997, elephant populations in Botswana,...

JUVFONNA, Norway (Reuters) – Climate change is exposing reindeer hunting gear used by the Vikings' ancestors faster than archaeologists can collect it from ice thawing in northern Europe's highest mountains. "It's like a time machine...the ice has not been this small for many, many centuries," said Lars Piloe, a Danish scientist heading a team of "snow patch archaeologists" on newly bare ground 1,850 meters (6,070 ft) above sea level in mid-Norway. Specialized hunting sticks, bows and arrows and even a 3,400-year-old leather shoe have been among finds since 2006 from a melt in the Jotunheimen mountains, the home of the...

Hunters purchased nearly 2,600 wolf licenses Monday, the first day they went on sale in Montana. The sales occurred on the same day U.S. District Judge Mike Molloy of Missoula heard arguments from animal rights and environmental groups seeking to block hunts in Idaho and Montana. Idaho's hunt started Tuesday as Molloy took the arguments under consideration. the slower sales — compared to the 4,000 sold on the first day licenses were available in Idaho — might have been due to the uncertainty of the court decision. If the hunt is halted before the season starts, holders will be refunded...

Those who disagree with the Bush administration's policies in Iraq face the same scornful charges that they are unpatriotic as Sen. John Kerry did 35 years ago when he spoke out against the Vietnam War, the Massachusetts Democrat said Saturday. "I have come here today to reaffirm that it was right to dissent in 1971 from a war that was wrong. And to affirm that it is both a right and an obligation for Americans today to disagree with a President who is wrong, a policy that is wrong, and a war in Iraq that weakens the nation," Kerry said...

PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. (March 15) - Carlos G. Rojas didn't know what to think when the military life insurance checks started showing up at his office. He didn't know anyone who would have named him a beneficiary, and the checks totaled $200,000. He called Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance, which pays death benefits to military families, and the customer service representatives insisted the money was his and he should cash the checks, he said. Rojas couldn't do it. "It's not like picking up a penny you just found," said Rojas, a 29-year-old marketing consultant. "Somebody's life was connected with that money."...

U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Sam E. Smithson, a team leader with Company L, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, provides security while on patrol during Operation Red Bull II, Jan. 19, 2006, in Barwanah, Iraq. Smithson and his team continue to patrol and find weapons caches in the region. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Adam C. Schnell U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Sam Smithson Marine Leads Team on Weapons Hunts By Cpl. Adam C. Schnell 2nd Marine Division BARWANAH, Iraq, Feb. 1, 2006 — The Marines of 2nd Platoon, Company L, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment constantly search...

BARWANAH, Iraq (Feb. 1, 2006) -- The Marines of 2nd Platoon, Company L, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment constantly search the palm groves and desert valleys here for insurgents and their weapon of choice … roadside bombs. Leading one of the platoon’s fire teams during hunts for weapons caches is Woodland, Calif., native, Lance Cpl. Sam E. Smithson. His fire team, with the help of the squad, is responsible for finding at least eight different caches since arriving in the area. In the last month, Smithson was part of two different operations, leading his Marines in finding many caches. His...

CHICAGO — Ketchup maker H.J. Heinz Co. (HNZ) posted sharply lower third-quarter profits Monday, as the ketchup-maker said strong business in North America couldn't make up for rising fuel costs, soaring commodity prices and a large write-down. Earns for the quarter ending Jan. 26 was $152.4 million, or 43 cents per share. During the same period last year, the company earned $202.2 million, or 57 cents per share. The company reported $73.8 million in impairment charges during the third quarter, largely due to a write-off of an investment in the Hain Celestial Group Inc (HAIN). Excluding impairment charges and 4...

New York – The jury was out for a while, but Teresa Heinz Kerry has been declared a resounding liability by women. In a scathing attack, the feminist writer Naomi Wolf claims the exotic ketchup heiress is having an emasculating effect on John Kerry, her second husband. "Listen to what the Republicans are hitting Kerry with: Indecisive. Effete. French. They are all but calling this tall, accomplished war hero gay," she writes in New York magazine. Wolf, who advised Al Gore on capturing the women's vote in 2000, blames Heinz Kerry for making the charge stick. "Let's start with Heinz....

US hunts Islamic militants in Bosnia By Harry de Quetteville in Sarajevo (Filed: 26/07/2004) American military intelligence and the CIA have deployed hundreds of officers in Bosnia to track suspected Islamic militants amid concern that the country has become a refuge, recruiting ground and cash conduit for international terrorism. Almost a decade after the end of the war in the former Yugoslavia, Bosnia has become a "one-stop shop" for Islamic militants heading from terrorist battlegrounds in Chechnya and Afghanistan to Iraq, according to European intelligence officials. With five months to go before European Union peacekeepers take over from Nato troops...

SAMARRA, Iraq (AP) -- Using sledgehammers, crowbars, explosives and armored vehicles, U.S. forces smashed down the gates of homes and the doors of workshops and junkyards Wednesday to attack the Iraqi resistance that has persisted despite the capture of Saddam Hussein. Loud blasts mixed with the sound of women and children screaming inside the houses. An explosion at the gate of one compound shattered windows, cutting a 1-year-old baby with glass. U.S. medics treated the injury while other soldiers handcuffed four men, who were later released. The raid, launched before dawn and lasting until midmorning, targeted the city of Samarra,...

Tuesday, 17 December, 2002, 13:20 GMT Canada hunts for 'al-Qaeda cell' Al-Qaeda may have planned new attacks in Canada Canadian intelligence officers believe an Algerian man arrested in the capital Ottawa last week is connected with Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, reports say. They say Mohamed Harkat, a 34-year-old immigrant, is associated with one of Bin Laden's top lieutenants, Abu Zubaydah, according to the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS). Abu Zubaydah is under interrogation Abu Zubaydah was arrested in Pakistan in March and is being questioned by US intelligence agents. A CSIS file quoted by Canada's Globe and Mail...