Washington D.C ( Missing Red Panda "Rusty" last seen Sunday night )

A male red panda has been missing from the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington D.C. since 6:00 p.m. Sunday evening.

"The keepers last saw him when they fed him on Sunday night," said Devin Murphy, a spokesperson for the zoo. "They noticed he wasn't in his cage at 7:30 a.m. when they went to check on him."

She said that zoo officials are combing the grounds for the panda, who is less than a year old and is named Rusty.

"He could be sick & hiding, or someone could have taken him," the Zoo posted on Twitter on Monday morning. "Please help us keep an eye out for Rusty."

Red pandas are typically the size of a house cat and have big, bushy tails. (Read: Red panda facts.)

They spend most of their time in trees, even sleeping in the branches. They are most active at night, as well as in the early morning and early evening hours.

 

 

"They're raccoon-like and share certain raccoon characteristics but they're not as adept or opportunistic as raccoons," said Marc Brody, a conservationist and National Geographic grantee who founded Panda Mountain, a panda conservation center.

"And they would be hard pressed to make it on their own," he said. "If it was late in the season, there would be a lot more fruiting plants around the National Zoo. I'm sure he can live for a couple of days but to forage indefinitely, it's early in the season to feed on fruits and berries."

Brody also warns that Rusty may be in trouble if temperatures climb. Red pandas typically live in a cooler climate and might not adapt well to the humidity of Washington.

"Red pandas generally tend to sleep in trees during the heat of the day," said Murphy. "They're not aggressive, but we are advising people to respect that he is a wild animal."

Rusty arrived in Washington D.C. in April, from a zoo in Lincoln, Nebraska. He has been on exhibit for about three weeks and is up to date on all of his shots.

He is not the only red panda to go on the lam. Yin, who lived at the Virginia Zoo from 2007 until her death in 2011, escaped twice in a month shortly after arriving in Norfolk, Va.

"She was quite the escape artist," said Winfield Danielson, the marketing and PR manager for the Virginia Zoo. "We design the habitats in accordance with the standards of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums to keep the animals secure in their habitats but sometimes things happen. One time a branch fell from a tree and allowed Yin to climb over."

The National Zoo has asked anyone who spots Rusty to immediately tell an official at the zoo or call 202-633-4888

Iran News ( Women kicked to curb - banned from taking part in celebration at Freedom Stadium )

Women arrested after being banned from attending Iran's 2014 World Cup celebrations

Details

Published on Thursday, 20 June 2

NCRI - Furious Iranian women staged a mass protest outside Tehran's Freedom Stadium after they were banned from taking part in celebrations to mark Iran's qualifying for the 2014 World Cup.
Many women were arrested after they used the demonstration to demand the liberation of political prisoners within the regime.
The female crowd chanted, 'The stadium is empty, because the women's seats are empty’ before they were rounded up by security forces who branded the gathering illegal.
Meanwhile, the state-run Mehr news agency reported that public relations department of the Iranian regime's Football Federation announced in a statement: "In this ceremony only men are allowed to be present and women who like the national team are asked to avoid coming to the Freedom Stadium."

Iran ( 4 Prisoners, including One Woman, Hanged in Public ) Human rights news

Horror Show Resumes after Show of Democracy: 4 Prisoners, including One Woman, Hanged in Public

Friday 21 June 2013

[English] [فارسى]

 

Iran Human Rights, June 21: After a two-week hiatus due to the Presidential election, Iranian authorities have begun to execute again. Four prisoners, including one woman, were hanged in Shahr-e-Kord (western Iran) on June 20.
According to the state official newspaper Kayhan, the prisoners were identified as Mohammad Ebdali, Vahid Fayooj, Golafrooz Fayooj (woman), and Ghobad Fayooj.
The four prisoners were convicted of purchasing, possessing, and trafficking 4,534 grams of heroin, said the report.
Three of the prisoners were hanged in Shahr-e-Kord Prison while Ghobad Fayooj was hanged in public in the "Mahdiyeh" area of Shahr-e-Kord. The public executions were carried out under heavy security.


Prisoners were elevated by using a crane and then hanged. It typically takes several minutes for the execution to be carried out when using the crane method.
Iran Human Rights (IHR) strongly condemns these executions. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the Founder and Spokesperson of IHR said: "It seems that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has recommenced the horror show after a two-week hiatus in order to carry out a show of democracy for the Presidential election." Amiry-Moghaddam called on the international community to condemn the executions.
Additionally, the execution of four other prisoners, who were convicted of murder, was scheduled for June 18 in Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj (west of Tehran). One of the prisoners was hanged while the other three were pardoned by the families of the offended.

BEIJING ( An American executive said Monday he has been held hostage at his medical supply plant )

BEIJING (AP) — An American executive said Monday he has been held hostage for four days at his medical supply plant in Beijing by scores of workers demanding severance packages like those given to 30 co-workers in a phased-out department.
Chip Starnes, 42, a co-owner of Coral Springs, Florida-based Specialty Medical Supplies, said local officials had visited the 10-year-old plant on the capital's outskirts and coerced him into signing agreements Saturday to meet the workers' demands even though he sought to make clear that the remaining 100 workers weren't being laid off.
The workers were expecting wire transfers by Tuesday, he said, adding that about 80 of them had been blocking every exit around the clock and depriving him of sleep by shining bright lights and banging on windows of his office. He declined to clarify the amount, saying he wanted to keep it confidential.
"I feel like a trapped animal," Starnes told The Associated Press on Monday from his first-floor office window, while holding onto the window's bars. "I think it's inhumane what is going on right now. I have been in this area for 10 years and created a lot of jobs and I would never have thought in my wildest imagination something like this would happen."
Workers inside the compound, a pair of two-story buildings behind gates and hedges in the Huairou district of the northeastern Beijing suburbs, repeatedly declined requests for comment, saying they did not want to talk to foreign media.

view image"

View photo ››

American Chip Starnes, co-owner of Specialty Medical Supplies, looks out from a window after he was …

It is not rare in China for managers to be held by workers demanding back pay or other benefits, often from their Chinese owners, though occasionally also involving foreign bosses.

Pakistan ( Islamic militants kill nine foreign tourists - Because of U.S drone Strike )

SLAMABAD (AP) — At least a dozen Islamic militants wearing police uniforms shot to death nine foreign tourists and one Pakistani before dawn Sunday as they were visiting one of the world's highest mountains in a remote area of northern Pakistan that has been largely peaceful, officials said.
The foreigners who were killed included five Ukrainians, three Chinese and one Russian, said Pakistani Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. One Chinese tourist was wounded in the attack and was rescued, he said.

The local branch of the Taliban took responsibility for the killings, saying it was to avenge the death of a leader killed in a recent U.S. drone strike.

The shooting was one of the worst attacks on foreigners in Pakistan in recent years and is likely to damage the country's already struggling tourism industry. Pakistan's mountainous north — considered until now relatively safe — is one of the main attractions in a country beset with insurgency and other political instability.

ISTANBUL ( Police Remove Thousands of Protesters from Istanbul’s Taksim Square )

Police Remove Thousands of Protesters from Istanbul’s Taksim Square

ISTANBUL – Riot police on Saturday resorted to armored vehicles and water cannons to clear Istanbul’s Taksim Square of the tens of thousands of people who had gathered there to stage a peaceful demonstration.

The tension mounted until 6:00 p.m. as the protesters, who assembled Saturday afternoon in the square with red carnations commemorating the violent removal of demonstrators from nearby Gezi Park a week ago, moved in small groups among the police brigades.

After an hour of peaceful protests, police with their megaphones ordered the demonstrators to leave, which no one did. The cops then blasted jets of water from the armored vehicles that had been surrounding the square for days.

Unlike previous weeks, riot police did not launch tear gas, nor were there scenes of panic or attacks against the officers.

Police guarded the area, though without completely cordoning it off, and many citizens maintained an attitude of protest in the nearby streets, but without any clashes.

The protests began on May 28 as a rejection of government plans to raze Gezi Park to build a replica of an Ottoman-era military barracks and a shopping mall, but they expanded into a broader movement against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, which the demonstrators say has become increasingly authoritarian

Mexico ( Four Prosecutors from Attorney General’s Office Killed in Northwest Mexico ) Crazy

CULIACAN, Mexico – An armed group gunned down four people, three of them prosecutors from the Sinaloa state Attorney General’s Office, along with a student doing professional practice at that agency, authorities said.

Sources with the state AG’s office said that the attack was perpetrated on a main street of Guasave municipality when the gunmen in a moving vehicle shot at the victims riding in another.

The authorities said the group, armed with automatic rifles, intercepted the officials’ vehicle at the intersection of two major Guasave thoroughfares and fired several rounds at them

Police launched an operation to cordon off the area and to begin investigating the case, though as yet they have not uncovered any details about the group of assailants.

The multiple homicide indicates a resurgence of the region’s wave of violence and comes a day after the visit of Defense Secretary Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, who met with Gov. Mario Lopez Valdez to analyze the violence in the state.

Sinaloa state’s deputy attorney general, Martin Robles, noted days ago the possibility that the recent homicides in Guasave and Ahome are the work of a gang headed by Fausto Isidro Meza, alias “el Chapo Isidro.”