Thai elephant maimed by land mine a decade ago damages newly fitted artificial limb

October 3rd, 2009 BUENOS AIRES - A UN conference to battle spreading desertification agreed Saturday to increase funding to halt its dangerous effects. Representatives from 190 countries that are signatories to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification agreed to a 4.29 percent increase in spending to $16.3 million.

September 15th, 2009 RAIPUR - About a hundred families in Chhattisgarh's Jashpur district have not slept since Sunday after a group of wild elephants sneaked into villages from a nearby forest, officials said Wednesday. Some 20 families have migrated temporarily to safer areas after five villagers were injured Tuesday while chasing away the jumbos from Sargawa and Chilma villages, some 420 km north of state capital Raipur.

September 1st, 2009 PATNA - An elephant Wednesday trampled a young man to death in a village in Saran district of Bihar, police said. Madan Thakur, in his 20s, was killed by the elephant near Chamrahiya village in Saran.

August 16th, 2009 Thai elephant takes 1st steps with artificial legLAMPANG, Thailand — Motola, an elephant who lost a foot and part of her leg when she stepped on a land mine 10 years ago, happily if tentatively stepped out Sunday after being fitted with an artificial limb. In her first stroll with the permanent prosthesis, the 48-year-old female walked out of her enclosure for about 10 minutes, grabbed some dust with her trunk and jubilantly sprayed it in the air.

August 15th, 2009 Thai elephant hurt by mine gets artificial legLAMPANG, Thailand — Motola, a female elephant who stepped on a land mine 10 years ago and endured painful operations, was fitted Saturday in Thailand for a permanent artificial leg. The 48-year-old pachyderm became a symbol of the plight of today's elephants, and her injury sparked international sympathy and donations.

August 15th, 2009 KOLKATA - An adult female elephant was killed after getting entangled in electified fencing at an army cantonment in West Bengal's Jalpaiguri district late Friday night, a forest department official said Saturday. "An elephant was electrocuted when it entered an army cantonment near Binnaguri forest area and got entangled in electrified fencing.

July 31st, 2009 Report: Land mine contamination vast in VietnamHANOI, Vietnam — More than one-third of the land in six central Vietnamese provinces remains contaminated with land mines and unexploded bombs from the Vietnam War, according to a study released Friday. Nearly 35 years after the war's end, Vietnamese civilians are still routinely killed and maimed by leftover mines and other explosives.

July 24th, 2009 Donated land mine _ luckily_ a dudARVADA, Colo. — A land mine recently left at a thrift store was authentic — but luckily inert.

July 22nd, 2009 Land mine left in Colorado Goodwill donation boxARVADA, Colo. — A land mine found in a suburban Denver Goodwill donation box forced the evacuation of a strip mall.

July 5th, 2009 16 UN deminers kidnapped in eastern AfghanistanKABUL — Gunmen abducted 16 mine-clearing personnel working for the United Nations in eastern Afghanistan, a provincial police chief said Sunday. The men were kidnapped as they traveled between Paktia and Khost provinces on Saturday, said Paktia's police chief Azizullah Wardak.

July 1st, 2009 Enraged elephant stomps 3 Thai workers to deathBANGKOK — A rampaging elephant stomped three rubber tappers to death in southern Thailand on Wednesday after it was left to wander freely by its handler, police said. The 38-year-old domesticated elephant is believed to have attacked the workers in three separate plantations in Trang province before it was recaptured.

June 27th, 2009 Gulls killed, maimed by cooking oil in Ohio riverCLEVELAND — Hundreds of gulls were killed or maimed in Cleveland after what investigators believe was cooking oil spewed from a sewer pipe into the Cuyahoga (keye-uh-HOH'-guh) River. Investigators said Friday that several hundred gallons of the substance killed or disabled hundreds of gulls near the Kingsbury Run tributary.

June 20th, 2009 LALGARH - Two security personnel were injured when a land mine planted by Maoist rebels exploded in Goaltor in West Midnapore Saturday - on the third day of the operations launched by the West Bengal government to free this trouble-torn area from leftwing radicals. "Two personnel got minor injuries in their hands and the gunfight between the security forces and the Maoists is still on in the Goaltor area intermittently," Inspector General of Police (Law and Order) Raj Kanojia told IANS.

June 15th, 2009 Official: Sumatran elephant poisoned in IndonesiaJAKARTA, Indonesia — An endangered Sumatran elephant found dead with its tusks removed in northwestern Indonesia may have been killed by poachers using poisoned pineapples, conservationists said Monday. It was the ninth dead elephant found in that region of Sumatra island in three months.

May 30th, 2009 RAIPUR - Worried over the increasing incidences of man-elephant conflict, the Chhattisgarh government is planning to set up villages for wild elephants in areas hit hard by jumbo attacks, an official said Saturday. Such villages are proposed to be set up in the state's northern region where jumbo attacks have claimed the lives of dozens of people in the past two decades.