Tag Archives: bear
Belarus fines two for toy bear photos after airdrop
1 of 4. Belarussian journalists Irina Kozlik (L) and Yulia Darashkevich show victory signs from a police car near a court building in Minsk August 9, 2012.
Credit: Reuters/Vasily Fedosenko
MINSK |
MINSK (Reuters) – Authorities in Belarus arrested and fined two journalists for posing for photographs holding teddy bears after hundreds were dropped by air on the country in a pro-democracy stunt, the Belarussian Association of Journalists said on Thursday.
Alexander Lukashenko, the authoritarian president, also suggested on Thursday that the Swedish embassy in Minsk had been involved in planning the July 4 escapade, in an outburst likely to widen a diplomatic rift with Sweden over the incident.
“Those who came and prepared the violation of the state border worked together with the (Swedish) embassy. We have proof of this,” Lukashenko was quoted as saying by the Belarus state news agency Belta.
The journalists’ arrest and Lukashenko’s accusation underlined the depth of his anger and embarrassment over the stunt and his determination to punish those he views as being responsible for it.
The two journalists, Irina Kozlik, who works for Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, and Yulia Doroshkevich, a press photographer, were each fined 3 million Belarussian roubles (about $ 400) at separate court hearings in Minsk and released.
An official for the ex-Soviet republic’s journalist association said that Kozlik, 27, and Doroshkevich, 31, were detained on Wednesday evening in the capital Minsk.
The two women were accused of “carrying out an unsanctioned protest,” Andrei Bastunets, deputy head of the association, told Reuters.
The July 4 stunt, in which a light aircraft chartered by a Swedish PR firm Studio Total dropped 800 toy bears carrying pro-democracy messages over Belarussian territory, prompted Lukashenko to sack his air defense and border guards chiefs and expel Sweden’s ambassador.
The teddy bear “blitz” was the latest pro-democracy stunt aimed at mocking Lukashenko’s iron grip on a country he has ruled since 1994, three years after the Soviet Union’s break-up.
Once described as Europe’s last dictator by the U.S. administration of George W. Bush, Lukashenko has been ostracized by the European Union and United States over a harsh crackdown on opponents who challenged his re-election in December 2010.
Last summer, opposition groups staged waves of “silent” protests in Minsk in which people engaged in synchronized public clapping and coordinated their mobile phones to ring out in unison to show their disapproval of Lukashenko’s style of rule.
DIPLOMATIC RIFT
With both Belarus and Sweden now pulling all their diplomats out of each other’s country, the diplomatic rift has worsened Belarus’s already poor relations with the West.
In comments issued by Belta news agency on Thursday, Lukashenko said Belarus still awaited an answer from Sweden and neighboring Lithuania about their role in the airdrop. The plane entered Belarussian air space from Lithuania.
“If these answers do not come according to international norms, we will find an adequate response ourselves …,” he said.
“Lithuania shouldn’t sit like mice under the broom either. They have got to say why they allocated their territory for violating a state border,” he added.
In a statement on Thursday, the U.S. State Department said the expulsion of the Swedish diplomats only served “to deepen Belarus’ self-isolation … We again call on Belarus to immediately release and rehabilitate all political prisoners, and to put an end to the repression of civil society and the democratic opposition.”
It took more than three weeks for Belarus to formally confirm the teddy bear airdrop. It was all the more embarrassing for Lukashenko and his defense chiefs since the incident occurred a day after Independence Day, which also commemorates Minsk’s World War Two defense against Nazi Germany.
Lukashenko sacked two generals, including the head of the air defenses, and told the incoming border guards chief to use weapons if necessary to shoot down any future foreign intruders into Belarussian air space.
Belarus’s KGB state security agency has since charged two Belarussians, Anton Suryapin and Sergei Basharimov, with complicity in the “illegal intrusion” by the Swedish plane.
Suryapin, who is aged about 20, had earlier been identified as a blogger who was arrested after the first photographs of the toy bears were published on the Internet. In the past week, some Belarussian journalists have shown solidarity with Suryapin by posing for photos on the Internet holding miniature toy bears.
(Writing By Richard Balmforth; Editing by Rosalind Russell)
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Wandering Cape Cod bear captured in Boston suburb
A black bear is seen in a tree in Brookline, in this handout photo posted by the Brookline Massachusetts police June 26, 2012. A male black bear captured on Cape Cod earlier this month, where it was tranquilized and moved to central Massachusetts, showed up again on Tuesday just six miles from downtown Boston. State officials said they had captured the bear in a tree in the Chestnut Hill area of Brookline, just west of Boston, and confirmed it was the same bear which roamed the Cape for about two weeks before being captured and relocated on June 12.
Credit: Reuters/Brookline Police/Handout
BOSTON |
BOSTON (Reuters) – He’s baaack: A male black bear captured on Cape Cod earlier this month, where it was tranquilized and moved to central Massachusetts, showed up again on Tuesday just six miles from downtown Boston.
State officials said they had captured the bear in a tree in the Chestnut Hill area of Brookline, just west of Boston, and confirmed it was the same bear which roamed the Cape for about two weeks before being captured and relocated on June 12.
The bear was identified by a tag placed in its ear. It had probably traveled about 100 miles.
“Because this bear was in a highly congested urban area, an interagency Large Animal Response Team was deployed to the area,” said the Massachusetts’ wildlife agency, known as MassWildlife.
The 180-pound bear was then shot with a tranquilizer dart by the Environmental Police. Later, MassWildlife officials transported the animal to a remote location in western Massachusetts, about 150 miles away.
The Boston Globe reported that the bear was spotted in a white pine tree in the backyard of Alan Leventhal, chief executive of Beacon Capital Partners, one of the largest real estate investment trusts in the United States, and on Boston University’s Board of Trustees.
The agency said that black bear sightings have been reported in a number of towns west and south of Boston recently but could not confirm that all sightings were the same bear.
The Boston Globe reported that the bear was spotted in a white pine tree in the backyard of Alan Leventhal, chief executive of Beacon Capital Partners, one of the largest real estate investment trusts in the United States, and on Boston University’s Board of Trustees.
The Brookline Police Department tweeted photographs of the bear in the tree, with a caption that was a twist on the classic children’s book “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See”:
“Black bear, black bear what do you see? I see Brookline police looking at me.”
The so-called Cape Cod bear was first spotted May 27 in the Cape Cod area, the easternmost part of the state. State wildlife officials think the bear swam across the Cape Cod Canal from the mainland.
The Massachusetts bear population was last estimated at 3,000 in 2005, with most bears in northwest and western parts of the state, including the Berkshires region.
The black bear population has been slowly growing and expanding its range into eastern and southeastern Massachusetts, state officials said. Of the three species of bear found in North America, the American black bear is the smallest.
(Reporting By Ros Krasny)
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ECHO Bear Cat Recalls Hydraulic Log Splitters Due to Impact Hazard
The end cap of the log splitter’s hydraulic cylinder can break away from the body of the log splitter, posing an impact hazard to the user or bystander.
US Consumer Product Safety Commission – Recent Recalls and Product Safety News
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