Illumination I

Bad-enough-to-make-me-sob news: - Nairobi, Kenya - BUAV - the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection - which calls itself the world's leading organization campaigning to end animal experiments reported today that the United States is the largest importer of primates from the island nation of Mauritius. In 2009, a hundred and seventy-nine long-tailed macaques were imported into the U.S., including wild-caught animals.

Wild, long-tailed monkeys sustain broken limbs and other injuries when trappers catch the primates and transfer them to breeding farms on the island nation of Mauritius, said a new report released Tuesday. Photos in the report showed handlers swinging monkeys by the tail and monkeys confined to small, rusty metal cages.

The Indian Ocean island nation has four major breeding farms and a fifth farm is to be opened soon, evidence that the trade is expanding.

"Monkeys are highly social and intelligent animals with strong family ties. Their brutal capture from the wild and forced captivity in Mauritius is morally unacceptable," said the BUAV's Sarah Kite. "We call on the government of Mauritius to put an end to this brutal trade and for the USA, European Union and Israel to ban primate imports and stop perpetuating this appalling cruelty."

You have got to be kidding me. It isn't enough that animals are imprisoned for the purpose of being tortured with experiments that benefit us and expand our knowledge of human diseases? They have to be mistreated and kept in dismal conditions as well? What the hell is wrong with people? It's the greed thing again, isn't it? Always the greed.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Good news: - Copiapo, Chile - The 33 miners who gained worldwide celebrity by surviving for weeks in a collapsed Chilean mine, will receive training on giving television and newspaper interviews officials said Tuesday.
The trapped mine workers became instant celebrities, featured on round-the-clock on television broadcasts and dominating newspaper coverage when they were found to have survived the disaster several days after being given up for dead. When the men are finally freed, the planned training will help the workers cope with the coming media onslaught.

The miners will receive instruction via close-circuit television on "remaining poised during an interview, asking the interviewer to repeat the question if they don't understand it, and how to say that they prefer not to answer" a given question, said Alberto Iturra, the psychologist who has been tasked with overseeing the men's mental and emotional well-being during the ordeal.

That is terrific, just bloody terrific. I'm so glad that they'll be poised when talking about their ordeal. I do wish they would get them the hell out of that hole before worrying about all this other crap. They can't really prepare them for their celebrity status when they finally make it out, anyway.