Interview by Joanne Michele, Safeworld Correspondent
On the 22nd of May, 2011 a Bahraini photographer, Mohammad Darwish, was arrested by the authorities.
The authorities refused to give any information to his family and on the 4th of June, his sister, Asma Darwish, went on hunger strike.
Asma was no stranger to human rights issues in Bahrain. Her husband Hussain Jawad was a member of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and Amnesty International and had himself been arrested three times. She herself was well known to the media and became a regular contact for the media through twitter under the name of @eagertobefree.
Her father-in-law, Mohammad Hassan Mohammad Jawad (Parweez), an independent human rights activist was arrested on March 22 and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. Parwees was 65 and was the oldest political prisoner in Bahrain. When he was arrested he was tortured and held in solitary confinement for 4 months.
When we first spoke in December, Asma’s 16-year old cousin had just been released after two months in prison. He’d been arrested for watching, but not participating in, the protests, and was exposed to torture. Moreover, another cousin and uncle are both political prisoners, having been sentenced to 10 and 5 years, respectively.
Bahrain has the highest rate of drug-related deaths in the Arabian Peninsula, according to a United Nations (UN) report: here.
Camels with long, crocodile-like snouts once lived near what is now the Panama Canal, suggests a new study.
The camels lived 20 million years ago and are now considered to be among the oldest known animals from Panama.
“They were probably browsers in the forests of the ancient tropics. We can say that because the crowns are really short,” lead author Aldo Rincon, a University of Florida geology doctoral student, said in a press release.
Rincon and his team are working with the Panama Canal Authority and scientists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute to make the most of a five-year window of excavations during Panama Canal expansions that began in 2009.
The new fossil camels, Aguascalietia panamaensis and Aguascalientia minuta, extend the distribution of mammals to their southernmost point in the ancient tropics of Central America.
Excavations are often difficult in the tropics because the lush vegetation prevents access. That’s not such a bad thing, considering that these species-rich areas contain some of the world’s most important ecosystems, including rain forests that regulate climate systems and serve as a vital source of food and medicine.
“We’re discovering this fabulous new diversity of animals that lived in Central America that we didn’t even know about before,” said co-author Bruce MacFadden, vertebrate paleontology curator at the Florida Museum on the UF campus and co-principal investigator on the NSF grant funding the project.
“The family originated about 30 million years ago and they’re found widespread throughout North America, but prior to this discovery, they were unknown south of Mexico.”
The two new fossil camels, found in the Las Cascadas formation, belong to an evolutionary branch of the camel family separate from the one that gave rise to modern camels.
Camels belong to a group of even-toed ungulates that includes cattle, goats, sheep, deer, buffalo and pigs. Other fossil mammals discovered in Panama from the early Miocene have been restricted to those also found in North America at the time.
While researchers are sure the ancient camels were herbivores that likely browsed in forests, they are still analyzing seeds and pollen to better understand the environment of the ancient tropics.
“People think of camels as being in the Old World, but their distribution in the past is different than what we know today,” MacFadden said. “The ancestors of llamas originated in North America and then when the land bridge formed about four to five million years ago, they dispersed into South America and evolved into the llama, alpaca, guanaco and vicuña.”
The feeding habits of mammals haven’t always been what they are today, particularly for omnivores, finds a new study. Some groups of mammals almost exclusively eat meat — take lions and tigers and other big cats, for example. Other mammals such as deer, cows and antelope are predominantly plant-eaters, living on a diet of leaves, shoots, fruits and bark. But particularly for omnivores that live on plant foods in addition to meat, the situation wasn’t always that way, finds a new study by researchers working at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham, North Carolina: here.
The government has admitted that war in Somalia is putting pressure on the country’s economy and putting challenges to implementation of the budget read last June.
In a letter by Finance Permanent Secretary Joseph Kinyua to all ministries, the government has also conceded that that the raise of salaries for the military effected last June, the cost of implementing the new Constitution, high inflation rates and the weakening of the shilling against major foreign currencies had put major challenges to implementation of the budget.
Kenya nurses strike despite mass dismissals: here.
A lawmaker in Somali parliament has accused Kenyan military serving under AMISOM and Ras Kamboni fighters of committing crimes against humanity in Kismayo city: here.
Somalia: Jubaland State – Kenya Is Backing Warlords Against Peace: here.
March 2011. Donald Trump’s boys have returned from a hunting safari in Zimbabwe. The Trump boys photos have appeared on the Hunting Legends website posing next to some of the animals that they have shot. The photos make my stomach turn, but one outrages me in particular.
One photo (On the right – Click here to see the Youtube video) shows Donald Trump Junior holding the tail of an elephant and a large knife. He is standing next to the carcass of an elephant that has a rifle leaning against it. We don’t know whether he shot the elephant or not, or whether he cut the tail off himself, but that is clearly the impression the photo is meant to give.
Now whilst it is bad enough shooting an elephant for pleasure, posing with the tail of such a magnificent beast that you have just cut off with a large knife is a gross and unpardonable action. It may not be illegal, but it shows a total disregard for any wildlife, and unbelievably poor judgement from someone who is meant to be a business leader.
Donald Trump campaigns against wind farms
Despite Donald Trump’s recent pronouncements on the world going bust and putting his plans to develop his golf resort on hold, he claims to have found £10million to fund anti-wind power campaigns to save Scotland from being ‘encircled’ by offshore wind turbines. Trump is hell-bent on destroying an industry is already attracting £billions of investment and creating skilled and well paid jobs across Scotland. And all because he claims they might spoil his view.’
Image from Hunting Legends website
The Trump boys, Donald Junior and Eric, pose with a crocodile that has recently been shot.
Trophy-hunting Trump sons accused of animal cruelty: here.
WWF statement on Cameroon elephant slaughter: here.
March 2012. At least 50% of the elephant population of Cameroon’s Bouba Ndjida National Park is dead – killed in a bloody poaching spree by horseback bandits. The poachers’ deadly mission has continued virtually unhindered for eight weeks thanks to the tardy response of government and wildlife authorities: here.
Twelve suspected poachers have been arrested and 14 elephant tusks confiscated outside protected areas in southeast Cameroon this week. Forest rangers carried out the arrests and seizures near Boumba-Bek and Nki National Parks after receiving intelligence information from village monitoring groups formed by WWF: here.
In Africa, this species is a winter migrant from southern Europe and western Asia.
July 2012. Birders have been gathering at WWT Welney in Norfolk this week to see an extremely rare squacco heron. The reason why it has turned up in the UK is unknown as these birds normally spend the summer in Southern Europe: here.
March 2012: A new species of skink has been discovered in Cambodia. The lizard is characterized by its very short legs, long tail and striking iridescent skin. The skink was found during a Rapid Assesment Programme expedition in northeast Cambodia led by Fauna & Flora International (FFI), in partnership with Conservation International (CI) in 2010.
Four hundred Romanian coal miners refused to go underground today demanding a 10 per cent pay rise.
The miners rallied in Petrosani to press the state-owned firm to cough up the rise, which they said has been due to them since the beginning of the year.
Massing outside the National Coal Company’s offices in the town, the miners chanted: “Thieves,” “liars,” and “resign.”
Union leader Tiberiu Cozma said: “I have not entered the mine because our rights are not being respected.”
At the start of the year former economics minister Ion Ariton signed a deal giving the miners a 10 per cent pay rise, but the workers say they have not received the increase.
On February 1, miners refused to descend underground and those who were on the night shift refused to come out, to press him for the rise.
Subsequently over 1,500 miners from seven mines in the Jiu Valley kicked off a spontaneous strike.
Qatar detains Egyptians after weekend football match
By Shabina Khatri
A dozen Egyptian football fans were temporarily detained and subjected to “cruel and degrading” treatment on Saturday in Doha, an Arab human rights group has said.
The Egyptians were held for more than 10 hours following a friendly football match between Congo and Egypt at Gharafa Stadium, reportedly for holding up “offensive” signs while sitting in the stands, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information stated.
“The 12 Egyptian citizens held banners that condemned the killing of the martyrs of the Port Said massacre, which took place a few weeks ago in the stadium of the Egyptian city of Port Said.
The banners did not read anything unlawful, but only read the fans’ views on the rule of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) and expressed their solidarity with the martyrs of the Ultras (football fans), who died during the bloody events of Port Said stadium in an incident that the SCAF bears political responsibility for.
However, the Qatari security forces detained the Egyptian fans for allegedly holding offensive banners in the stands.”
Egypt: 17-year-old girl killed for missing curfew: here.
Africa: European Bank for Development Encourages Nation [Egypt] to Pursue Its Pre-Revolution Privatization Schemes: here.
Egypt: Fears of Rising Malnutrition Amid Increasing Poverty: here.
Syrians should fear eastern, not western, intervention – especially autocratic ‘friends’ like Saudi Arabia: here.
Syria has made a curious transition from US ally to violator of human rights. In the war on terror America was happy to send suspects to Syria. Now the US cries torture: here.
The Gulf States have now declared arming the Syrian opposition their policy after months of doing so covertly: here.
162 Nepalese workers had died in Qatar in the first ten months of 2011, 13 of which were suicides: here.
One photo (On the right – Click 
