- for who?

Jamil el-Banna is in Guantánamo Bay, shackled to the floor, as he has been for the past four and a half years. In 1992, Mr Banna arrived in Britain and was granted refugee status by Britain after it was accepted he had been tortured in Jordan. Back in London are his wife and four children, the youngest of whom, a daughter, he has never seen. Letters from them take up to 16 months to arrive.

In 2002 he was seized by the CIA after MI5 wrongly told the Americans that his travelling companion was carrying bomb parts on a business trip to Gambia. He was taken to Bagram airbase in Afghanistan and then to Guantánamo. He alleges ill treatment in both places and has never been charged with any offence.

He has now been cleared for release from Guantánamo but Britain has yet to state whether it will grant him re-entry. It is either that, or returning to Jordan where, again, he faces torture.

- or what?

Pangolin is a Malaysian word for 'rolling up into a ball', which the pangolin, also known as the scaly anteater, does to protect itself from enemies. The Sunda Pangolin is increasingly rarely found in Southeast Asia; in Indonesia, it lives in Java, Sumatra, Borneo and Lesser Sunda Islands/Nusa Tenggara.

However, as the Guardian reported this week, they are under a greater threat here, not so much through deforestation as because Chinese foodies consider them to be a delicacy. As a result of demand, the pangolin populations of China, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia have been wiped out. With traders moving further and further south, the animal is declining even in its last habitats in Java, Sumatra and the Malaysian peninsula.

Last week 31 pangolins were found aboard a wooden vessel abandoned off the Coast of China. The boat contained some 5,000 endangered animals.

How To Cook Pangolins
"We keep them alive in cages until the customer makes an order. Then we hammer them unconscious, cut their throats and drain the blood. It is a slow death. We then boil them to remove the scales. We cut the meat into small pieces and use it to make a number of dishes, including braised meat and soup. Usually the customers take the blood home with them afterwards."

If you want one, why not make an origami version instead. But remember that Jamil el-Banna can't.

Labels: Justice

 

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¶ 3:05 pm