Zimbabwe arrests 4 accused of eating endangered tortoises; 40 tortoise skeletons found
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By Associated Press, Updated: Thursday, February 16, 9:01 AM

HARARE, Zimbabwe — Four Chinese nationals have been arrested on cruelty charges after they cut up and ate rare tortoises, an animal protection group said Thursday.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said the men admitted to killing 40 of the Bell’s hinged species, which are listed as endangered. Investigators found 40 skeletons, 13 live tortoises and tortoise meat when they raided a house in rural southern Zimbabwe, the group said.

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These are the first arrests in Zimbabwe of Chinese citizens on charges related to their eating habits. After the arrests, villagers told police and wildlife rangers they sold the tortoises to the Chinese household. Villagers testified the reptiles were dropped into boiling water to dislodge their shells before being butchered, the group said.

Investigators said Zhang Hong Yuan, Chen Caijan, Lin Guibin and Shi Jiahua stored the tortoises in their own droppings and without food or water in 50 gallon (200 liter) drums.

The four, fined separately on charges of “extreme cruelty” under the nation’s animal welfare laws, were found to have illegally entered Zimbabwe and were now in jail awaiting deportation, the group said. The men worked without permits in the small scale mining district of Bikita, about 190 miles (300 kilometers) south of Harare.

In a recent influx from Asia, Chinese companies have won construction and mining contracts across Zimbabwe where neighborhood groups have also reported them offering to buy snakes, bullfrogs and dogs, part of their customary diet, from impoverished locals.

Authorities have frequently urged Chinese citizens to observe norms of behavior accepted in Zimbabwe and have warned communities near Chinese work camps not to provide unconventional food supplies.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Osama bin Laden ‘had stoned fantasies about marrying Whitney Houston and murdering Bobby Brown’
Terror boss said Houston was ‘the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen’
He wanted to arrange a meeting and woo her with mansion in Khartoum
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 5:02 AM on 16th February 2012
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Like all beautiful, successful women Whitney Houston had more than her share of male admirers.
But few stars could have provoked such unwanted attention as that which the singer received from one of history’s most depraved and despicable men, terror chief Osama bin Laden.
Extraordinary as it might seem, bin Laden is said to have lusted after Houston, dreamed of marrying her and at one point even plotted to murder her husband Bobby Brown.

A world apart: In the mid 1990s terror chief Osama bin Laden was infatuated with singer Whitney Houston, according to an account by writer Kola Boof who is widely believed to have been his mistress
The incredible account of the terrorist’s infatuation with Houston comes from Sudanese author Kola Boof, who it is widely accepted lived with him as his mistress.
It was 1996, and just a few years later Bin Laden would mastermind the most appalling terrorist attack ever to happen on American soil.

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But holed-up in his Moroccan compound he had different things on his mind, namely sex, smoking cannabis and dancing to western pop groups like the B52s and Van Halen.
Miss Boof, who claims she was kept as a ‘sex slave’ by bin Laden, said he thought the singer was ‘the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen’ and that he was desperate to marry her.
In an autobiography released in 2006, Boof claims bin Laden plotted to have Bobby Brown murdered before wooing Houston by giving her a mansion he owned in the suburbs of Khartoum.
And according to the her account, the strongly racist bin Laden puffed on cannabis before announcing he would be willing to ‘break his colour rule’ and make Houston one of his wives.

Jealousy: Warped Bin Laden plotted to murder the singer’s husband Bobby Brown before wooing her with a mansion in the Sudanese capital Khartoum
Inside his warped mind he believed Houston was truly Islamic but had been brainwashed by American culture.
Ms Boof, 37, who is black, claimed bin Laden scolded her for braiding her hair and ordered her to model herself on Houston instead.
She recalls in her book: ‘He smoked a little marijuana from a gold hookah, sipping his tea and instructing me that I was always to keep hot tea for his ‘kif-canbo,’ to ease the burn in his chest.
‘Osama said only monkeys braid their hair. He told me that the singer Whitney Houston was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen and that she never wore her hair braided.

Drugs: Bin Laden puffed cannabis from a gold hookah pipe
‘”I want you to fix your hair like hers from now on,” he said. “I can’t put my fingers through it when it’s braided.”
‘Osama kept coming back to Whitney Houston. He asked if I knew her personally when I lived in America. I told him I didn’t.
‘He said that he had a paramount desire for Whitney Houston, and although he claimed music was evil, he spoke of someday spending vast amounts of money to go to America and try to arrange a meeting with the superstar.
‘It didn’t seem impossible to me. He said he wanted to give Whitney Houston a mansion that he owned in a suburb of Khartoum. He explained to me that to possess Whitney he would be willing to break his color rule and make her one of his wives.
‘I tried to hide my outrage at his racist remarks, but it would come to pass that for the entire time that I would be trapped in his palm, Whitney Houston’s was the one name that would be mentioned constantly.
‘How beautiful she is, what a nice smile she has, how truly Islamic she is but is just brainwashed by American culture and her husband—Bobby Brown, whom Osama talked about having killed, as if it were normal to have women’s husbands killed.
‘In his briefcase I would come across photographs of the star, as well as copies of Playboy, but nobody in the West believes me when I tell them this. It’s like they have this totally bogus image of Osama bin Laden.
‘Anyway, it would soon come to the point where I was sick of hearing Whitney Houston’s name.’
Miss Boof’s story first surfaced in 2002 when the Guardian newspaper published an article claiming she had had a forced sexual relationship with bin Laden.
Later in a two-part interview with MSNBC she was billed as the ‘Former Mistress of Osama Bin Laden’.
Some claimed she had made up the story, and that it was impossible because of her afro-American heritage.
But Boof has stood by her account and points out that yet two of bin Laden’s twenty-five children are black and his Syrian grandmother also could be considered a Black woman.
Earlier in her account she recalled how bin Ladem who she called ‘Somi’ would abuse her.
She added: ‘We would be lying there in bed and he’d say, “African women are only good for a man’s lower pleasures. What need do you have for a womb?”
‘I would feel insulted—not just to the heart, but to the soul.

Send off: America celebrates the news of bin Laden’s death last year (left) and mourns the loss of the tragic singer earlier this week
‘He would humiliate me by making me dance naked. It was such a strange thing, because for the most part he believed music was evil. If a guest at the estate played music, he would cover his ears until the ‘poison’ was silenced.
‘But other times he would become this devout party boy who wanted to hear Van Halen or some B-52’s. To this day I hear the song “Rock Lobster” in my sleep.
‘I would be jerking around like a white girl—“Dance like a Caucasoid girl!” he would say—and his eyes would track me from one side of the terrace to the other. “Your ass is too big, show me the front,” he said.
‘Osama, you understand, did not know the difference between being vicious and being tender.’
Recalling the time she first met bin Laden at a Moroccan restaurant she said: ‘I ran out the door, gripped by terror, and drove home. Relieved that his henchmen hadn’t followed me, I ran a bath, lounged in the cold bathwater, then changed into a flowing silk robe.
‘There was a bang on the door, and I could hear shouting: “Hey, black girl!” When I opened the door, there was Osama bin Laden and his seven-man posse. A cold bolt of lightning went through me.’
But Osama was trying to be charming, despite the fear in my eyes. “Why did you run? I just think you’re lovely and I find you intriguing. I wanted to be your friend.”’
Diary of a Lost Girl: The Autobiography of Kola Boof, is published by Door of Kush and available to order through most bookshops

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