In brief: Rhino saved after attack by poachers
JOHANNESBURG – The rhino’s rescuers gave her a name: Hope.
Poachers in South Africa had darted the rhino with a tranquilizer and hacked off her horns while she was sedated, leaving the animal with a horrific wound covering much of her face. A couple of days later, staff on a wildlife reserve found the grievously injured rhino – alive.
Last week, veterinarians operated on the 4-year-old female, a rare survivor of increasing attacks by poachers who killed more than 1,200 rhinos last year in South Africa, home to most of the world’s rhinos. They removed maggots and dead tissue, applied dressing and fastened a fiberglass cast with steel screws. The wound measures 19.6 by 11 inches, the biggest of 10 similar cases that the team has treated in the last three years.
“If we can save Hope and she can go back and produce more offspring, then in her lifetime she would have contributed to the survival of the species,” said Dr. Gerhard Steenkamp, a veterinarian from the University of Pretoria.
He is a member of Saving the Survivors, a South African group that treats rhinos with gunshot wounds, facial gouges and other injuries inflicted by poachers.
The rhino called Hope was attacked in Lombardini, a wildlife reserve in Eastern Cape province where several rhinos were poached recently.
Demand for rhino horn is high in parts of Asia where it is seen as a status symbol and a cure for illness despite a lack of evidence that it can heal.
Thandi, a rhino whose horns were hacked off in 2012, recovered and gave birth in January, according to Saving the Survivors.
Gay couples may wed before recess
DUBLIN – Some of Ireland’s gay couples planning a civil partnership may receive a surprisingly fast upgrade to marriage.
Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald announced Monday that the bill to legalize gay marriage, following its landslide approval in Friday’s referendum, should be passed before lawmakers’ planned July 16 summer recess.
She said as part of the law, those gay couples already scheduled to be wed in civil partnership ceremonies following the bill’s passage will have their pre-booked events legally upgraded to full-fledged marriages.
Fitzgerald said: “I am very conscious that many couples will want to get married as soon as possible. I am working to make that happen.”
Gay couples in Ireland have been entitled to marriage-style civil partnerships since 2011. Like marriages, these must be scheduled at least three months in advance.
Olmert gets more prison time for bribe
TEL AVIV – Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been sentenced to eight months in prison for accepting bribes, a court in Jerusalem said on Monday.
The sentence, which also includes an additional eight months of probation and a fine of $25,600, was imposed after Olmert was convicted in a March retrial of accepting more than $150,000 from a U.S. businessman.
Olmert receive a six-year prison sentence last year after a bribery conviction.
The new prison sentence is suspended pending an appeal. If the ruling is upheld by the High Court, Olmert could spend nearly seven years in prison.
Olmert was forced to resign in 2009 because of corruption allegations.
Scores die, six hurt in fire at rest home
BEIJING – A fire that swept through a rest home in central China killed 38 people and injured six, Chinese authorities said today.
The fire broke out Monday night in an apartment building being used as a privately run rest home in the city of Pingdingshan in Henan province, according to a statement from the province’s work safety administration.
Two of the injured were in serious condition, the statement said. The official Xinhua News Agency reported that a rescue operation was still underway this morning and the cause of the fire was unclear.
With a rapidly aging population, China faces increasing pressure to provide safe and affordable care for the elderly.
In 2013, a disgruntled resident set fire to a rest home, killing himself and 10 others, in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang.