Free Republic

STRASBOURG, France, April 9 (Reuters) - Europe's top human rights court ruled on Tuesday that the Swiss government had violated the human rights of its citizens by failing to do enough to combat climate change. The European Court of Human Rights's (ECtHR) decision on the case brought by more than 2,000 elderly Swiss women set a precedent that will resonate across Europe and beyond for how courts deal with a growing trend of climate litigation. The Swiss women, known as KlimaSeniorinnen, argued their government's climate inaction put them at risk of dying during heatwaves. In her ruling, Court President Siofra...

Dec. 15 (UPI) -- A British Columbia animal shelter announced an unusual "new guest" at its facility -- an albino porcupine. The Northern Lights Animal Sanctuary said in a social media post that the porcupine, dubbed Coconut, was found chewing through hydraulic hoses and electric cables on a Smithers resident's property. The sanctuary said the porcupine is an albino, meaning its body and eyes are completely devoid of pigment. They said the condition is very rare in porcupines. The post said the "new guest" will receive "room service" at the sanctuary for a few months. Sanctuary officials said Coconut will...

Thirty-seven years after the U.S. Air Force shut down a mountain-top radar station in the hills south of San Jose that scanned the skies for Soviet bombers during the Cold War, the summit of Mount Umunhum is finally opening to the public this week as a new park, with stunning views of San Francisco Bay, Silicon Valley and Monterey Bay. The Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, a public agency that owns the 3,486-foot peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains east of Los Gatos, spent $25 million over eight years on the project. Supporters say the new summit, which visitors will...

President Barack Obama told a group of young African leaders on Monday that harvesting organs from humans that are killed as part of an African ritual was “craziness” and a “cruel” tradition that needed to stop. He warned of dehumanizing marginal groups of humans and of the problems that arise when “you are not able to see someone else as a human being.” In a wide-ranging question and answer session with members of the Young African Leaders Initiative [YALI], a woman from Kenya said “Persons with albinism in Africa are being killed and their body parts harvested for ritual...

President Barack Obama told a group of young African leaders on Monday that killing others to harvest body parts was a “foolish tradition.” At the Young African Leaders Initiative summit in Washington D.C., President Obama was asked about the killing of Albinos in Africa and the harvesting of their body parts for ritual purposes. “Persons with Albinism in Africa are being killed and their body parts harvested for ritual purposes,” a woman in the audience said. “My request to you is to raise this issue with heads of state of African countries to bring these atrocities to an end.” Obama...

NAIROBI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - At least 15 people with albinism, mostly children, have been killed, wounded, abducted or nearly abducted in East Africa in a surge in violence against albinos in the past six months, the United Nations (U.N.) said on Tuesday. The UN said there has been a marked increase in the number of attacks on albinos in Tanzania, Malawi and Burundi, where their body parts are prized in black magic with three incidents in the past week as gangs roam southern Malawi hunting for them. "These attacks are often stunningly vicious, with children in particular being targeted,"...

This week, albinos and so-called witch doctors have made headlines. A number of news outlets reported that Tanzania had announced a ban on these "witch doctors" to curb attacks on people with albinism. That made us wonder: What, exactly, is a witch doctor? And why are people with albinism under attack in Tanzania? Roughly 1 in 1,400 Tanzanians has a rare genetic condition that results in the lack of pigment in his skin, hair or eyes. By comparison, the rate is 1 in 20,000 worldwide.

I had just 24 hours to prepare for my trip to Africa. We had been reporting on the killing of Tanzanians with albinism, a genetic condition characterized by a lack of pigment in people's eyes, skin and hair, as part of an ABC News hour special. In Tanzania, there has been a grotesque rash of albino killings: 54 people have been murdered since 2007, though observers say more incidences go unreported. Renegade witch doctors have convinced locals that there are magical properties in the blood, bones and skin of people with albinism, which has created a sickening black market where...

BUJUMBURA, March 15 (Reuters) - Burundi has arrested eight people found with human bones suspected of belonging to albinos, a government official said on Sunday. The tiny east African nation and neighbouring Tanzania have been convulsed by a spate of ritual albino murders fuelled by a body parts trade. Witchdoctors tell clients that albino parts will bring them luck in love, life and business. "Before arresting them, we did a search and found human bones in their houses," said Nicodeme Gahimbare, a public prosecutor in the eastern Ruyigi province. "The eight were denounced by two other detained people who have...

Once, albinos used to seek shelter from the sun. Now they have gone into hiding simply to survive, after a series of killings linked to witchcraft. In Tanzania, 25 albinos have been killed in the past year. The latest victim was a seven-month-old baby. He was mutilated on the orders of a witchdoctor peddling the belief that potions made from an albino's legs, hair, hands, and blood can make a person rich. Sorcery and the occult maintain a strong foothold in this part of the world, especially in the remote rural areas around the fishing and mining regions of Mwanza,...

...Discrimination against albinos is a serious problem throughout sub-Saharan Africa, but recently in Tanzania it has taken a wicked twist: at least 19 albinos, including children, have been killed and mutilated in the past year, victims of what Tanzanian officials say is a growing criminal trade in albino body parts. Many people in Tanzania - and across Africa, for that matter - believe albinos have magical powers. They stand out, often the lone white face in a black crowd, a result of a genetic condition that impairs normal skin pigmentation and strikes about 1 in 3,000 people here. Tanzanian officials...

A friend sent me this in the email the other day A very eventful day around here... A once in many lifetimes experience! Mark saw this lil' feller run out in front of a car, thought it was a lost baby goat. Stopped to get it, and WOW. A real Albino Whitetail Deer. Just hours old, but doing fine. No Momma deer around. Another car nearly hit it in front of Mark... Well, he is THE neatest thing any of us ever saw. And such a 'freak of nature', that only 1 in more than a million are even born....

A rare albino crow has been spotted in B.C.'s Fort Langley area, but it has now gone missing and members of an animal rights group are asking for help finding it. Peter Hamilton, of the Lifeforce Foundation, says the group received a call last week that the bird had been spotted in the Fraser Valley community east of Vancouver. "We went down and determined it was, in fact, an albino crow," he said in an interview Wednesday. The bird was being guarded by its parents and is not a full albino as it does not have the pink eyes which...