Word: hunts
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...become a major part of the problem. By backing the Northern Alliance, Washington has empowered a group of warlords of minority Tajik, Hazara and Uzbek descent to rule over the Pashtuns?Afghanistan's largest ethnic group and the bedrock of Taliban support. And by rearming the warlords to hunt down al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the U.S. has also unwittingly helped fuel further conflict. According to U.N. special representative for Afghanistan Lakhdar Brahimi, "The war against terrorism creates its own problems. In particular, you have more arms. We're trying to face the problem of the old arms that were...
...some areas, such fighting has already started. In the north around Mazar-i-Sharif, ethnic Uzbek General Abdul Rashid Dostum and Hazara warlord Mohammed Mohaqiq have used the hunt for al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders as an excuse for a pogrom against Pashtuns. Human Rights Watch has documented 150 separate cases of looting, rape and killing in the area that have sent thousands of Pashtuns fleeing south. There are also persistent accusations that Afghan commanders are calling in U.S. air strikes against rivals, not terrorists. Meanwhile in Kabul, local factions have begun turning their newly acquired firepower on one another...
Across the Channel, the European field-sports community has watched these convulsions in disbelief, concern and even with a little amusement. In Germany, hounds are not used to kill game but to chase animals toward hunters with guns. But there is hunting with hounds either on foot or on horseback in Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Italy. In France, where politicians antagonize rural folk at their peril, there are 440 hound packs - more than in Britain - to hunt everything from deer to foxes to boar; parties, parades and church masses are staged to cheer the hunts on. Says...
Cruelty is the reason the anti-hunt Britons give for why they want the sport stopped. Yet, I wonder. Some are sincere animal lovers, but the whiff of hypocrisy is strong. For a start, no one talks of stopping the killing of foxes. Considered vermin, tens of thousands are destined to be slaughtered every year in a variety of ugly ways. Snaring is one of them, a practice banned in some European countries - but not in Britain. Snares are supposed to be checked within a limit of 12 hours, by which time foxes, half crazed with fear, have been known...
...just the cruelty, say some anti-hunt campaigners, but the fact that people are taking pleasure in this barbaric sport. Yet few of the riders or walking followers ever see the kill, or want to. They come to watch the hounds, to enjoy the exhilaration of chasing cross-country, or simply for the pleasure of meeting friends at the scene. It's all very different from the expectations of safari tourists, most of whom hope to see lions on a kill...