A Thai elephant gifted to Sri Lanka two decades ago yesterday arrived back to its birth country, following a diplomatic spat over the animal’s alleged mistreatment.
Thai authorities had gifted the 29-year-old Muthu Raja — also known back in its birthplace as Sak Surin — to Sri Lanka in 2001.
They demanded it back last year after allegations it was tortured and neglected while housed at a Buddhist temple in the island nation’s south.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The 4,000kg mammal flew out from Colombo airport yesterday morning on a one-way commercial flight in an Ilyushin IL-76 cargo plane for a repatriation that Thai officials said had cost US$700,000.
“He arrived in Chiang Mai perfectly,” said Thai Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Varawut Silpa-archa said, speaking from the airport. “He traveled five hours and nothing is wrong, his condition is normal.”
“If everything goes well, we will move him,” he added, referring to plans to quarantine the elephant at a nearby nature reserve.
The elephant was moved from its temporary home at a zoo in Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, before dawn, accompanied by four Thai handlers and a Sri Lankan keeper, with two cameras monitoring its health in transit.
The chief veterinarian at National Zoological Gardens of Sri Lanka, Madusha Perera, said that Muthu Raja was in pain and covered in abscesses when it was rescued from its previous abode last year.
Animal welfare groups said the elephant had been forced to work with a logging crew and its wounds — some allegedly inflicted by its handler — had been neglected.
The elephant is to undergo hydrotherapy to treat a remaining injury on its front left leg when it returns to Thailand, Perera said.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home