Leopard kills boy after entering house in Junnar, India: 'Very abnormal activity'

The spot where the boy was found

    

Over 48 hours after a six-year-old boy lost his life following a leopard attack at Khamundi village in Junnar, forest officials are still clueless about the big cat.

Now, to speed up the hunt before the animal decides to hit human settlement again, the forest department is planning to set up a quick response team (QRT) consisting of local villagers in order to increase vigil in the area. "Forest department staff, along with local villagers, will be keeping vigil and carry search operations to find the hiding animal. So far, there is no clarity behind the purpose of the attack and till the animal is captured, the additional staff will remain in that area," said chief conservator of forests Sunil Limaye.

As the leopard did not eat any flesh of the boy, forest officials are ruling out the possibility of the leopard being a man-eater. Now, they are taking the help of conservation experts to understand the motive behind the attacks on children.

The case so far

Early on Friday morning, the leopard attacked two children in Khamundi village. When local people called the forest officials, a search operation was carried out and Pravin Devram Dhudh-wade's body was found nearly two kilometres from his house. Initially, the forest officials were suspecting that the leopard might have attacked the children out of hunger but the body was unmarked. "We are not sure if the leopard attacked out of hunger. Since there is a fear among locals, we have increased our vigil and placed cages to catch the animal," said divisional forest officer Vitthal Dhokate and added that the forest officials were planning to take the help of nature conservationists, who could explain the psychology of the leopard and if this is a case of human- leopard conflict. According to conservation experts, it might be a case of accidental killing and not incidental killing.

"The big cats generally kill prey to eat. However, it looks like a case of accidental killing as in such cases, the leopard or other animals from the cat family attack the humans, particularly small children when they are squatting or bending, thinking of them as their prey. However, after killing them, they realise that it is not their meal and therefore not eat it," conservation biologist Pooja Bhale told Mirror

However, according to her, it might also be a human-leopard conflict due to deforestation in the area. "Leopards are territorial animals and it searches for prey in the same territory. Due to the increasing deforestation, these animals are facing scarcity of food and since the human locality is now settling near jungles, they are attacking humans," she explained.

On the other hand, Vidya Athreya, wildlife biologist and research associate with the centre for wildlife studies and wildlife conservation society, said, "This attack is a very abnormal activity as it appears that the attack was not for a meal. I know many cases where a leopard has attacked cattle but when the farmer has gone to rescue them, the big cat has not attacked the farmer. It is strange that the leopard came near the humans, entered the house and dragged away the child but did not eat the flesh. Since the leopard is a secretive animal, it is really very difficult to study its behaviour. It is difficult to understand the purpose behind this attack without a proper study."

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Sinkhole scare: Mysterious giant crater emerges in Siberian village

© RIA Novosti/Press-servis governor Yamal-Nene
A view of a giant crater discovered in Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.

    

A fresh giant crater has appeared in Siberia's Novokuznetsk region. Measuring 20 meters in diameter and up to 30 meters in depth, the hole is unnerving the local population, who fear the next one might swallow their homes.

The mysterious sinkhole was first spotted by Rinat Sharifullin, a local man whose house is a mere 100 meters away from where it emerged. He blames the sagging of earth into abandoned mine tunnels snaking beneath the ground in the area.

"We have to get out of here", Rinat's wife Natalia told local media. "There are mines under our garden, closed down in the 1990s."

Emergency ministry staff promptly arrived to the spot, fenced the crater away and filled it with earth. Experts are now investigating it to find out why it emerged.

The new crater emerged some 3,500 kilometers away from a group of similar holes not far from Gazprom's Bovanenkovo gas field. There, about 20 'baby' craters appeared in February around a giant one filled with water, which could mean there could be more to come in the new spot.

In either location, there's no full certainty as to what caused them. While locals blame old mine shafts, geologists name another possible reason: methane emissions from permafrost melting due to global warming. Methane is a highly flammable gas, and locals are being advised to avoid using fire near the craters. This also makes it a dangerous job for scientists to study the holes.

Whatever the cause, such craters always appear in groups, says professor Vasily Bogoyavlensky from the Moscow State University of Oil and Gas. "I would compare them to mushrooms. If you find one, you will most likely discover a dozen more nearby."

Geologists say similar craters in the past could have caused the formation of a number of lakes in Siberia's Yamal peninsula.

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Pit bull kills young boy in Dallas

© Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images

    

A pit bull attacked and killed a Dallas toddler Sunday afternoon, after the dog was left along with the child for a few minutes, according to the parents.

Police responded to the 6800 block of Beechnut Street, shortly before 5 pm on Sunday, to reports of an animal attack.

Police say the father told them he had stepped outside to turn off the sprinkler system and returned to find the dog attacking the child in his bouncing seat. The child's mother was also bitten twice by the dog while trying to free the child from the dog.

Police say the father grabbed the dog by the neck, took it outside and shot it twice.

No word on the mother's condition.

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Powerful earthquake hits Taiwan and Japan, tsunami warning lifted

Earthquake

    

One man died and another was hospitalised Monday after a fire caused by a powerful quake off Taiwan that set buildings shaking in the capital Taipei and sparked a short-lived tsunami warning in far southwestern Japan.

Japanese forecasters had warned the 6.6 magnitude earthquake could cause a tsunami as high as 1m affecting several islands in the Okinawa chain. But they lifted the alert around an hour later, with no abnormal waves recorded.

No damage was reported in Japan, but a four-storey apartment building in New Taipei City caught fire after an electrical box outside the block exploded in the quake.

A 65-year-old man who lived in the building "showed no signs of life" at the scene, the fire service said.

Another 18-year-old resident remains in hospital with smoke inhalation but is not in a serious condition, the fire service said.

Residents and office workers were evacuated from a building in central Taipei because of a feared gas leak and vehicles in a nearby multi-storey carpark were overturned, but no one was injured.

Three more quakes rocked the island in the evening. The Seismology Centre said one with a magnitude of 5.8 and another at 5.7 — both considered to be aftershocks — shook buildings in Taipei.

Another quake with a magnitude of 5.5, with its epicentre 42km east of the eastern city of Hualien, also jolted the island. This was not seen as an aftershock.

There were no immediate reports of damage.

In Japan, local authorities urged people to move away from the coast and seek higher ground, in a drill that has become fairly regular in a country prone to powerful earthquakes and occasional devastating tsunamis.

"We are issuing warnings via the radio," Satoshi Shimoji of the Miyako City government told NHK. "We want residents to get as far as possible from the sea."

Boats were seen sailing out to sea — common practice when a tsunami warning is issued because away from the coast a tsunami is little different from a swell.

However, an hour after the quake, the Japan Meteorological Agency cancelled the warning.

The US Geological Survey said the 6.6 magnitude quake, which Japanese authorities had originally put at 6.8, struck 71km east of Hualien at 0143 GMT.

In Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters officials were still collecting information, but that the quake did not appear to have done serious damage.

Japan sits at the confluence of four of the earth's tectonic plates and records more than 20% of the planet's most powerful earthquakes every year.

Strict building codes and a long familiarity with the dangers mean quakes that might cause devastation in other parts of the world are frequently uneventful in Japan.

However, more than 18,000 people were killed by a huge tsunami that smashed into the northeast coast in 2011 after a huge 9.0 magnitude earthquake.

Kuo Kai-wen, chief of Taiwan's Seismology Centre, warned there could be more quakes on the island.

"This was the third quake measuring more than 6.0 magnitude in Taiwan so far this year — we would not rule out the likelihood that there might be more strong quakes of this scale."

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Taking selfies after an EMP attack

    

Lifestyle magazine has written a revealing guide on how to take selfies even after an Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) attack.

An EMP attack by a rogue nation on the continental United States or Europe, or a solar flare would fry electronics from coast to coast, and electricity grids would be irreparable.

No computers, smartphones, banks or commerce would work. There would be no essential services, no water or food left in supermarkets. All vehicles apart from the horse and cart would be operational.

Selfies are a large part of modern life and the magazine suggests a vital solution to getting that all important narcissistic fix that dominates peoples' lives so much.

"First you would have to forget about feeding yourself or your family. Forget about finding fresh water or shelter. You need to take a selfie, and we're going to show you how this can be done with no smartphone, because the electronics got fried by the EMP blast.

"The only things you will need for this selfie is a piece of paper, a mirror and a pen.

"Hold the mirror up or lean it against an object, then take the pen and start to draw a picture of yourself on the paper. Et voila, you now have a selfie. You can take as long or little time on the selfie as you want, but make sure to make lots of copies to share amongst your friends, if they are still alive.

"You can even make a selfie stick yourself. Simply get a branch or stick and tie the mirror to the stick, then extend it making sure you get a good angle of yourself.

"If you are near a museum, you could always break in and find a 19th century camera, then put it on a stick, extending will be hard as they are such big cameras and each shot has to be posed for long periods of time. The only drawback is you won't be able to process the selfie because it will be hard to find the necessary chemicals. Better stick with the first selfie suggestion."

Next week: How to Share on Facebook After an EMP

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Comment: Forget the fear mongering narrative in the video.The real threat is not from 'over there' it is from 'out there' - incoming celestial bodies - comets, meteor/fireballs; and the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) which they generate.

Pierre Lescaudron discusses this in :

Unlike conventional missiles, cometary bodies, because of their electric activity, have a strong electromagnetic signature that can trigger lightning bolts between incoming asteroids and the Earth's surface, which can fry electrical devices over a wide area. One naturally wonders if this is related to the media frequently reporting , since around 2008, the development of electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons by the USA, Israel, China, South Korea, and the convenient suspect, Iran. The source mentioning the development of Iranian EMP weapons specifically states the following:

An EMP is an above-atmosphere level detonation of a nuclear device that produces enough radiation to wreak havoc with electrical systems.

Because of the protection provided by our atmosphere, an overhead cometary explosion is a far more probable event than a direct impact and could easily be mistaken for an 'above-atmosphere detonation'. And the EMP generated by such an explosion could, of course, be blamed on the 'Iranian EMP missiles'.

Victor Clube wrote, perhaps prophetically, in The Hazard to Civilization from Fireballs and Comets:

History, it now seems is repeating itself: it has taken the Space Age to revive the Platonist voice of reason but it emerges this time within a modern anti-fundamentalist, anti-apocalyptic tradition over which governments may, as before, be unable to exercise control....Cynics (or modern sophists), in other words, would say that we do not need the celestial threat to disguise Cold War intentions; rather we need the Cold War to disguise celestial intentions! [Emphasis in the original]

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Wild boar kills hunter in Malaysia

Wild boar

    

A wild boar killed a hunter in Tapah, Perak, on Sunday.

Tapah district police chief Supt Som Sak Din Keliaw said yesterday the 36-year-old victim, identified as Ali Pak Kateh, was hunting alone in the jungle when he was attacked by the animal, which bit him in the thigh.

Som Sak said the victim died from excessive blood loss and his body was later discovered by other hunters.

He said based on initial investigations, the bite wounds on the victim were from a wild boar.

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Polish politician and EU Parliament member Korwin-Mikke: Maidan snipers trained in Poland

"Maidan was also our operation. The snipers were trained in Poland. These terrorists shot 40 demonstrators and 20 police officers on the Maidan in order to provoke disorders," said the EU Parliament Deputy and presidential candidate Janusz Korwin-Mikke.

Korwin-Mikke

    

JKM: Poland does not have a conflict of interests with Russia. We have no problems on the Polish-Russian border. Fostering a militaristic state of mind is not useful to us, only to the US. It's hard to agree with people like Vladimir Zhirinovskiy, since he is crazy, but he is fair to call us as Washington's stooges.

Wirtualna Polska: But such sentiments are only natural given Russia's aggressive policies. It's difficult to ignore Iskander missiles on our borders.

JKM: Just a second! The Iskanders appeared there only recently, after Poland launched a hundred brutal verbal assaults on Russia, and after US armored cavalry paraded on Polish territory. I am a poker player, and in poker one has to think like the opponent. From Russia's perspective, the situation looks as follows: in the last twenty years NATO had swallowed up the German Democratic Republic, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria, and wants to lay its paws on Ukraine. Moreover, they tore Kosovo away from Serbia, attacked Muammar Khadafy (may he rest in peace), and now it is attacking the only defender of Christianity in the Middle East, His Excellency Bashar al-Assad, only because they are Russia's allies. One can find an internet meme which says "Russians want war. Look how they placed their country close to NATO bases." So I'm asking, who's the aggressor?

Wirtualna Polska: The Ukrainians might have a different view on this matter.

JKM: Unfortunately they can thank the Americans for all that. Russia had a fairly friendly president in Ukraine in the person of Mr. Viktor Yanukovych. And Russia had no intention of taking anything away. It was also the ideal situation for us, because it is in Poland's interest for Ukraine to exist as an independent state, but also a weak one. That's what Maidan destroyed. US State Department official Victoria Nuland openly admitted that the US spent $5 billion to destabilize the situation in Ukraine. We are dealing with US aggression in Ukraine. Putin is only pulling chestnuts out of the fire.

Wirtualna Polska: But that's the money that the US had spent since 1991 to democratize Ukraine. They were not spent to organize the Maidan. Do you believe that it was a CIA operation?

JKM: Yes—and it was also our operation. The snipers were also trained in Poland. Even Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung already wrote who was really shooting on the Maidan. The terrorists had shot 40 demonstrators and 20 police officers in order to provoke disorders. The truth is finally coming out.

WP: Why would Poland want to train those, as you call them, "terrorists"?

JKM: Let me say this again: we are doing a favor to Washington [J.Hawk note: JKM here is making a play on words, because the word "favor" is only one letter away from "blow-job", which was the word used, and also with reference to Washington, by the former Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski who complained Poland is not getting sufficient appreciation from the US.]

WP: Fine, but do you have any proof?

JKM: I sit in the EU Parliament next to Mr. Urmas Paetz, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia who acknowledged in a telephone conversation with Baroness Catherine Ashton that it was "our people" who shot on the Maidan, and not Yanukovych's people, or Putin's people. Trained by us, in Western countries.

WP: I don't know what Paetz and Ashton talked about, but Putin certainly said this. You are repeating Russian propaganda theses. It's difficult to consider as consistent with Poland's national interest.

JKM: His Excellency Vladimir Putin said it two months after Mr. Paetz. I believe in St. Augustine's principle, "may the world perish, but justice must be done." If the Russians, through the mouth of Sergey Lavrov, say that they did not violate the Budapest Memorandum, they are lying like dogs, but when they are right, we have to acknowledge it.

WP: NATO has a defensive doctrine, while Putin is arming on a massive scale, is sending tanks and heavy equipment to Ukraine, and you claim this is not an aggressive policy?

JKM: What NATO? The Americans! War is useful only from the American point of view. There are interest groups in the US which are pushing for armed conflict: defense industry, financiers, some politicians, generals, but also many people (some of whom I know personally) from among the neoconservatives. They are analyzing the situation with cold logic: we have built the mightiest army in the world, but we also have 14 trillion dollars in debt, and we can't afford further development. China, which supports Russia, will soon overtake us, therefore if we are to preserve our global hegemony, we have to start a war, in a few years at the latest. Ukraine is a very convenient pretext. At present time Poland is in a position to prevent World War III.

WP: In what way?

JKM: By declaring neutrality when it comes to Ukraine. Like Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Belarus, which don't take part in the anti-Russian frenzy. We might save the world if we deprive the US Army from access to Ukraine.

WP: The Kremlin occupied Crimea, and through the pro-Russian separatists it is lawlessly occupying the Eastern Ukraine, but we are supposed to say that nothing happened?

JKM: The Crimean situation is clear. Russia used the Kosovo precedent. Because why can one tear Kosovo away from Serbia, but can't tear Crimea away from Ukraine? The Russians warned that whoever recognizes Kosovo's independence gives assent to similar situations in the future. The Donbass is not as obvious, but here Ukraine made a mistake. It should have given up Crimea and placed its military on the border with Russia. Instead it began to scream, but the effect of screaming was that it lost Crimea regardless, while the inhabitants of the Donbass felt that they might succeed too.

WP: So we should have left Ukraine to its own devices?

JKM: It makes no difference to Poland whether Ukraine has Crimea and Donbass or not. We also have to remember that any help to Ukraine is help to people who, at least in Western Ukraine, hate us. Their heroes are Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych who are responsible for the genocide of Polish civilian population in Podolia, Volhynya, and Eastern Little Poland, where up to 100 thousand were killed. Those are fascists.

WP: Once again you are repeating Russian propaganda.

JKM: You have to admit that the Russians have a point when using the term "fascists" to describe, for example, the Right Sector. His Excellency Vladimir Putin should be thanked for one thing: thanks to his actions, the Ukrainians had begun to hate Russians more than Poles.

<...>

WP: Why do you believe that Putin would be a great president of Poland?

JKM: Because he is strong and decisive. The more unhappy they are with him in Europe, the better president he is from Russia's point of view. We also need a president whom our neighbors would fear.

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WP: Might Warsaw be hit with nuclear weapons?

JKM: I doubt Putin would use nuclear weapons against a country that does not have them and which does not threaten Russia. There is no such risk, in this matter Putin is entirely rational.

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