Slaughter

This is not a place where buffalo are welcome to roam. When 32 bison lumbered across a fence that separated their owners' vast, wind-swept expanse of land from a neighboring ranch in March, they ended up dead. Some fell where they were shot. Others scattered, galloping for miles before they succumbed in the snow. They were victims, contend the bison's owners, of a murder plot hatched by the neighbor, a Texan frustrated by what he called the repeated trespassing of the herd onto his land.

One day during the rise of the Khmer Rouge regime in the mid-1970s, American journalist Sydney Schanberg asked his Cambodian assistant, Dith Pran, a gnawing question. How would Dith respond to the American diplomat in Phnom Penh who had been publicly criticizing Cambodians for not rising up against the communist insurgents, who were killing innocent countrymen every day? Was it because, as the diplomat insinuated, Cambodians did not value human life as highly as Westerners did?

Thursday's horrific terrorist attack on a Jerusalem yeshiva ought to be a wake-up call to American voters. Presidents really do receive calls on the red phone in the middle of the night. And though the slide into domestic recession is bound to dominate the electoral consciousness, this campaign does have -- or ought to have -- a critical foreign policy dimension that extends well beyond the disastrous war in Iraq and the botched Afghan incursion.

The number of Yellowstone National Park bison killed through disease management and hunting is on track to hit an all-time high this winter, after 87 more animals were caught Friday. The planned slaughter of those animals would bring to 1,090 the number of bison killed by government agencies and hunters this winter. The prior high mark was 1,084, in 1997. Of this year's total, the overwhelming majority were captured to guard against the potential spread of brucellosis by bison leaving the park.

Re "EPA listens to lobbyists, boots expert" and "Official defends meat inspections," Feb. 29 The article about the Environmental Protection Agency succumbing to industry pressure and firing a highly regarded toxicologist (and erasing her very existence from all paperwork in a frighteningly Orwellian manner) is extremely disturbing on many levels. When you combine that with the article about the U.S. Department of Agriculture defending the slaughter of "downer" cattle, it becomes apparent why Americans are so cynical about the federal government and desperately hoping for some sort of change in the way it operates.

Agriculture Secretary Edward T. Schafer sparred with Senate lawmakers Thursday, insisting that regulations governing inspections of slaughterhouses are sufficient to ensure the safety of the nation's meat supply. Schafer rejected senators' calls to completely ban from slaughter any cattle unable to walk. "Downer" cows are at higher risk of carrying E. coli and salmonella bacteria and of having the wasting neurological illness known as mad cow disease.

A California congressman and other lawmakers called Thursday for an independent investigation into the safety of food supplied to schools across the nation through a federal program. The action comes in response to allegations that at-risk cattle were slaughtered at one of the school nutrition program's top suppliers. In a letter to the Government Accountability Office, California Rep.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has 7,800 pairs of eyes scrutinizing 6,200 slaughterhouses and food processors across the nation. But in the end, it took an undercover operation by an animal rights group to reveal that beef from ill and abused cattle had entered the human food supply.

Former President Suharto, an army general who rose to power in Indonesia with the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people and ruled for 32 years over an era of rapid economic growth and extraordinary graft, died Sunday in Indonesia. He was 86. Like many Javanese, Suharto went by only one name. He had been in poor health for years after suffering several strokes and other ailments. He was rushed to the hospital Jan. 4 with anemia, low blood pressure and other ailments.

"Help me, please," pleads the chiru on the poster that adorns several up-market boutiques across this capital city and beyond. The chiru, or Tibetan antelope, indeed requires help, and the poster goes on to explain why. "Five chiru are slaughtered to make one shahtoosh shawl," making the wild animal a highly endangered species. "Say no to shahtoosh."