Thirteen high-paying hunters from Holland and Belgium participated in a five-day driven hunt from Ammondale Lodge in Allsday, a town in the Limpopo Province.

Unlike a traditional hunt, in a driven hunt the animals are chased toward the hunters by beaters or chasers. In this case at the Farm Braam, 83 beaters dressed in bright orange walked shoulder-to-shoulder, chasing antelope, baboons and warthogs toward the hunters who were positioned on wooden platforms along an open corridor.

“No hunting actually took place in the practical sense of the word,” Paul Oxton, founder of the Wild Heart Wildlife Foundation, told The Dodo. “There’s really no sport in it.

“Any animals in the middle get shot dead. They literally just stand there and take pot shots. There is no fair chase whatsoever. It’s a completely different way of killing animals. It’s highly unethical.”

Oxton reported on Facebook that 18 animals were killed on Monday, 20 more on Tuesday, and an estimated 98 were killed all told, according to The Dodo.

Some critics called it a massacre.

Protesters, including those from Wild Heart Wildlife Foundation and other groups, stood outside the gates of the hunting field each day with signs. By the second day, the hunters began hiding their faces, since some photographs of them were reportedly showing up in their hometown newspapers.

“They all started putting jackets and hats over their faces,” Oxton told The Dodo. “They were ashamed. These people were ashamed. They obviously don’t care, but they care enough to where they don’t want to be seen for having done this shameful thing.”

CBS-Miami
Deadly Flash Floods Sweep Through Utah Town

HILDALE, Utah (AP) — Rescuers trudged through muddy streambeds Tuesday in a small polygamous town on the Utah-Arizona border and found the bodies of several children who died when their two vehicles were swept away in a torrent of floodwaters that killed at least 12 people. The same flash floods claimed at least four lives in nearby Zion National Park.

The van and SUV were filled with three women and 13 children when a wall of brown water overtook them Monday evening, carrying the vehicles several hundred yards downstream and sending them plunging down a flooded-out embankment with terrifying force. The SUV was smashed beyond recognition. Three people survived, all of them children, in the secluded community that is the home base of Warren Jeffs' polygamous sect.

A witness described rushing to where the vehicles came to a stop and seeing a gruesome scene of body parts, twisted metal and a young boy who survived the flood.

"The little boy was standing there," Yvonne Holm said. "He said, 'Are you guys going to help me?'"

Only one person was still missing Tuesday in the border town, and authorities had not identified the dead. The children in the vehicles ranged from 4 years old to teenagers.

At nearby Zion National Park, authorities found four bodies and searched for three missing hikers who set out Monday to rappel down a narrow slot canyon. They left before park officials closed the canyons that evening because of flood warnings, park spokeswoman Holly Baker said. The hikers, from California and Nevada, were all in their 40s and 50s, Baker said. She had no details on their identities.

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A man looks on as crews clear mud and debris from a road following a flash flood Tuesday, Sept. 15, …

In Hildale, the streets were caked in red mud, and earth movers cleared the roads and piled up mounds of dirt. As a helicopter buzzed overhead, crowds of boys in jeans and girls and women wearing deep-colored prairie dresses watched the rescue effort.

Residents called it the worst flood in memory for the sister towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona, located about 315 miles south of Salt Lake City at the foot of picturesque red rock cliffs. It was in this area at Maxwell Canyon where heavy rains sent water down Short Creek and barreling through the towns.

The torrent was so fast, "it was taking concrete pillars and just throwing them down, just moving them like plastic," said Lorin Holm, who called the storm the heaviest in the 58 years he's lived in the community.

The women and children were in the SUV and van on a gravel road north of the towns. They were returning from a park when they stopped at a flooded crossing and got out to watch the raging waters, Hildale Mayor Philip Barlow said.

What they apparently did not know was that a flash flood was brewing in the canyon above, he said. It came rushing down and engulfed their vehicles.

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A woman walks across mud and debris in a road following a flash flood, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2015, in C …

"We're greatly humbled by this, but we realize that this is an act of God, and this is something we can't control," said Barlow, a Jeffs follower. "We have to take what we receive and do the best we can."

The National Weather Service had issued a flood warning about three hours earlier for the area, saying: "Move to higher ground now. Act quickly to protect your life." It's unknown if the victims were aware of the warning.

The raging torrents are not uncommon in an area prone to flash floods, but the volume and pace of Monday's rain was a "100-year event," said Brian McInerney, hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Salt Lake City.

The height of the storm lasted about 30 minutes, pouring 1 ½ inches of rain into a desert-like landscape with little vegetation and many steep slopes.

Monday's weather event was like a bucket of water being poured onto a rock — it slid right off and began running downstream, picking up sediment to create the forceful, muddy "chocolate mess" that rushed through the city, McInerney said.

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People look on as crews clear mud and debris from a road following a flash flood, Tuesday, Sept. 15, …

"It just hit the wrong place at the wrong time," he said.

Officials say some of the bodies were recovered in Arizona several miles downstream.

In Zion National Park — about 20 miles north of Hildale — rescuers were waiting for water levels to drop before entering the canyon to search for the missing. The group was in Keyhole Canyon, which narrows to just 6 feet across in places. Baker said the canyon received more than a half-inch of rain in a single hour.

Park rangers advised the group when they picked up their permit Monday that weather conditions were poor, but until canyons are closed, Baker said rangers leave it up to visitors to determine whether it's safe to continue their excursions.

Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox, who was sent to the town, called it one of the worst-weather related tragedies in state history and said the Utah National Guard will send troops.

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People look on as crews clear mud and debris from a road following a flash flood Tuesday, Sept. 15, …

Chris and Lydia Wyler of Hildale said heavy rainfall usually draws spectators who love to splash in it and watch as it surges through creeks.

"People go out on the streets and kids will start playing," Chris Wyler said. "But this storm that hit yesterday, it was just so severe and so sudden."

The search effort temporarily eased the tension between Jeffs followers and others who no longer belong to the sect but still live there. That split between loyalists who still believe Jeffs is a victim of religious persecution and defectors who are embracing government efforts to pull the town into modern society has sharpened in the four years since Jeffs was sentenced to life in prison for sexually assaulting underage girls he considered brides.

"We were all coming together for a common cause, without any bad feelings," said Ross Chatwin, who lives in Colorado City.

___

Associated Press reporters P. Solomon Banda in Hildale; Lindsay Whitehurst and Michelle L. Price in Salt Lake City; Sally Ho in Las Vegas and Alina Hartounian in Phoenix contributed to this story. McCombs reported from Salt Lake City.

Niamey (AFP) - Eight months after Muslims rioted in Niger at a cost of 10 lives and many burned churches, efforts are afoot to mend ties with the Christian minority in the west African country.

The rampage was triggered in January when radical Muslims angered by caricatures of the Prophet Mohamed in French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo killed 12 people in an assault on the magazine's Paris offices.

In Niger, hundreds of Muslims took to the streets, clashing with police and razing 45 churches, five hotels, as well as bars and schools run by Christians. The French cultural centre in the second city, Zinder, was also set alight.

Muslims make up about 98 percent of the 17 million population in the deeply poor, landlocked nation south of the Sahara. Until the riots, they lived in peace with the small Christian minority.

However, the threat of armed Islamist activity is present both in the north, where Niger is prey to Al-Qaeda-linked groups in the desert, and the south, which has been attacked by Boko Haram fundamentalists from neighbouring Nigeria.

- 'Value of living together' -

Leaders of both faiths have been striving to restore strong community bonds by means of an inter-religious dialogue backed by a plan to "renew the value of living together" (REVE) funded by the European Union.

The aid organisation CARE International, based in the United States, is overseeing the REVE project "to prevent violence" on the ground and "strengthen peaceful coexistence", according to CARE chief in Niamey, Ibrahim Niandou.

"Committees for dialogue" have already been set up in the country's eight regions and their members reflect all religious tendencies, including "the most radical ones", Niandou said.

"Christians and Muslims mutually enlighten each other for better peaceful coexistence according to the recommendations of the Bible and the Koran," the national CARE chief added.

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Bishop Laurent Lompo (L) and the imam of Niamey's great mosque Jabirou Ismael, pictured on April …

"It has become necessary... that really different religions, leaders of different religions, meet to talk," says Boubacar Seydou Toure, an influential member of the Islamic Association of Niger (AIN), the biggest such body and one of the oldest.

"You know what has happened over the past months in our country, and it is really down to misunderstanding each other," Seydou added.

Last week, the AIN hosted a peace forum bringing together about 100 Muslim religious jurists and doctors known as ulemas, Christian priests as well as theologians from both faiths.

"The crises are often triggered by religious leaders during their fiery preaching in the mosques and in the churches," Seydou explained.

Christian preacher Baradje Diagou said January's disturbances have heightened the need to co-exist peaceably.

"If we each keep to our own communities, it's very difficult for us to be able to understand one another," he said.

- Christians are 'more wary' -

This week, Roman Catholics and Christian evangelists met "around the same table" for the first time, also with social harmony in mind, said Boureima Kiomso, chairman of the Alliance of Churches and Evangelical Missions in Niger.

"Agreeing to listen to one another and to reexamine ourselves in order to move on together is very important," Kiomso added.

Inter-faith meetings may not be enough to stave off more religious unrest in Niger, where Islam has been gaining ground, with mosques being built in big towns and small villages.

Some radical Muslims do not care for a spread of Christian places of worship, notably evangelical ones, sometimes next door to their mosques.

The enrolment of youths from Niger in the ruthless Boko Haram sect, against which Niamey forms part of a regional military alliance, shows radical Islam has gained ground in the country.

Since February 6, Boko Haram and its local members have carried out attacks in the southern Diffa region, killing dozens of civilians and soldiers.

Diffa lies on the border with northeast Nigeria, where the Islamists have waged a bloody uprising since 2009.

While Niger makes ready for general elections in 2016, its security forces must also contend with the threat of jihadist movements coming across the border from Mali and Libya.

The Christian minority is "more wary" after the violence in January, Kiomso says.

"They have been forced to revise their positions and adapt to new conditions to be able to survive in Niger."

Adamou, a Muslim resident of the capital in the southwest, feels that "many Christians won the sympathy of Muslims who tolerated them badly" before the upheaval.

"I personally helped to rebuild a burned-down church," said Idi Ali, another Muslim citizen.

Danish 15-year-old Lisa Borch murdered her mother in October of last year after watching YouTube videos of ISISbeheading British hostages and now she’s going to jail for it.

Borch and Iraq-born boyfriend Bakhtiar Mohammed Abdulla, 29, stabbed Tina Römer Holtegaard at least 20 times with a long blade kitchen knife in their home of Kvissel, Denmark. Borch became obsessed with militant Islam after falling in love with a Muslim man who left her, then she met Abdulla at a nearby refugee center. The two had plans to flee to Syria to fight for ISIS.

After the murder Borch called the police saying, "I heard my mother scream and I looked out the window and saw a white man running away. Please come here, there is blood everywhere." But when police arrived at the house, Borch was calmly sitting in the living room, using her iPhone, and watching videos on YouTube. She didn’t even get up from her computer when police asked her about her mother, she just pointed them upstairs where they discovered Holtegaard in bed covered in her own blood.

Police later examined the computer and found Borch had been watching beheadings on repeat.

During Borch’s trial it was learned Borch's twin sister had just moved out, no longer able to deal with the constant arguing between Borch and their mother. The arguing stemmed from Holtegaard telling Borch to break up with Abdulla, who Borch now claims is only a friend, telling her to 'live the life of a normal teenager.' Prosecutors believe the arguing led to the murder. One time Borch even showed her sister which knife she was planning on using to kill their mother, but Borch’s sister thought it was a sick joke.

In court Borch and Abdulla blamed each other for the murder but both got sentenced. Borch will serve nine years in jail and Abdulla will serve 13 years and will be expelled from Denmark afterwards.

[via Daily Mail]

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Syria's President Bashar al-Assad answers questions during an interview with al-Manar's journalist Amro Nassef, in Damascus, Syria, in this handout photograph released by Syria's national news agency SANA on August 25, 2015. REUTERS/SANA/Handout via Reuters

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has blamed Europe's refugee crisis on Western support for "terrorists", as people fleeing his country's civil war stream towards the European Union.

In his first public comments on the mass migration, broadcast on Wednesday, Assad said Europe could expect more refugees.

Countries including the United States, Turkey and Saudi Arabia want to see Assad gone from power and have supported the opposition to his rule during the four-year-old war, including some of the armed groups fighting him.

Assad said Turkish support had been crucial to the growth of two of the biggest insurgent groups in Syria, Islamic State and the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, and aerial bombing by a U.S.-led coalition had failed to stop Islamic State. Turkey denies the accusation.

The Syrian president dismissed Western suggestions that his government's actions in the war had fueled the spread of such groups.

"As long as they follow this propaganda, they will have more refugees," Assad said in an interview with Russian media. "If you are worried about them, stop supporting terrorists."

The Syrian government describes all the armed groups fighting it as terrorists. The insurgents in Syria range from the hardline Islamist Islamic State to nationalists viewed as moderate by the West.

RUSSIAN SUPPORT

Assad has been buoyed in recent weeks by signs of increased military support from his ally Russia. In his comments he made no mention of reports of Russian military activity in Syria.

The White House said on Tuesday it wanted to see Russia engage constructively with the international coalition fighting Islamic State, rather than build up its own military presence.

Moscow says the Syrian government should be part of a broad coalition to fight Islamic State.

Assad said there was no coordination between his government and the United States, even indirectly, apparently backing away from comments earlier this year suggesting there had been some contact.

"There's not a single coordination or contact between the Syrian government and the United States government or between the Syrian army and the U.S. army ... Not even any third party including the Iraqis," he said.

He played down proposals for a peace initiative that Assad ally Iran has said it presented to Syrian officials.

"There is currently no Iranian initiative, but rather there are ideas, or principles, for an Iranian initiative which are based principally on the subject of Syria's sovereignty ... and are based on fighting terrorism," Assad said.

(Reporting by John Davison and Sylvia Westall; editing by Andrew Roche)

Syrian president blames West for refugee crisis