To prepare for the Olympic Games, China has mounted an aggressive campaign to rid Beijing from ... cats!
The cull comes in the wake of a government campaign warning of the diseases cats carry and ordering residents to help clear the streets of them.
Cat owners, terrified by the disease warning, are dumping their pets in the streets to be picked up by special collection teams.
Paranoia is so intense that six stray cats -including two pregnant females - were beaten to death with sticks by teachers at a Beijing kindergarten, who feared they might pass illnesses to the children.
China's leaders are convinced that animals pose a serious urban health risk and may have contributed to the outbreak of SARS - a deadly respiratory virus - in 2003.
But the crackdown on cats is seen by animal campaigners as just one of a number of extreme measures being taken by communist leaders to ensure that its capital appears clean, green and welcoming during the Olympics.
The cats are then taken to what animal activists are describing as "death camps" on the edge of Beijing: Link
Thanks - im due to teach in the North East later this year, personally with a view to long term as my partner is from there herself. So im looking forward to it - it should be an experience.
fear not. long posts are good because they at least get stuff aired. i'm a bit of a fan of this site because of its scattergun approach - but the natural casualty with this kind of thing is the broader context within which things happen - often clicking on the link doesn't give you that either. neatorama do seem to be daily mail fans (there was a post from the mail about muslim immigrants, 'harems' and multiple benefits payments recently which was full of the joys of spring as you'd imagine) and this exposes problems with this kind of format. who are non-u.k residents to know where the mail's coming from? this issue will only grow as print gets smaller and online gets bigger - people simply don't have the time to dig through all the crap.
good luck with the move to china...