Latest news with #HAWS
Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Wild horses shown trying to outrun grizzly bear; not all of them succeed
Wild horses on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, Canada, are under threat of attack each spring and summer by grizzly bears. It's especially true of foals, which are younger, weaker, and slower than adult horses. The accompanying trail-cam footage, courtesy of the Help Alberta Wildies Society, might sadden viewers when they learn that one of the foals was likely caught by the bear. (Click here if the video doesn't appear below.) The fleeing horses enter the frame at 32 seconds. The bear's capture of the foal is not shown, but HAWS later explained that the third foal shown in the footage has not been seen since the June 20 chase. 'I believe this is the day we lost Benji,' HAWS stated. HAWS, which strives to protect wild horses in the region, has a passionate social-media audience and some followers are emotionally attached to animals that regularly appear in trail-cam footage. ALSO: Tense moments in Yellowstone as German Shepherd leaps from vehicle to chase wolf The top comment on the post announcing that Benji had been lost: 'Poor little buggar! Gets mugged by mares in his herd, and then ends up bear food. Not a fun time for the short life of this baby.' The top reply, which alludes to the mares' rough treatment of the foal in a previous video: 'My heart hurts for precious little Benji. I think he stole it when I saw the mares being mean to him in the first hours of his short life. I wanted to snatch him up and bring him home right then.' HAWS has featured lots of footage showing bears chasing wild horses, repeatedly countering an old argument by the Alberta government that the horses have no natural predators. This article originally appeared on For The Win: Wild horses try to outrun grizzly bear, but no happy ending this time
USA Today
4 days ago
- General
- USA Today
Wild horses try to outrun grizzly bear, and not all of them succeed
Wild horses on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, Canada, are under threat of attack each spring and summer by grizzly bears. It's especially true of foals, which are younger, weaker, and slower than adult horses. The accompanying trail-cam footage, courtesy of the Help Alberta Wildies Society, might sadden viewers when they learn that one of the foals was likely caught by the bear. (Click here if the video doesn't appear below.) The fleeing horses enter the frame at 32 seconds. The bear's capture of the foal is not shown, but HAWS later explained that the third foal shown in the footage has not been seen since the June 20 chase. 'I believe this is the day we lost Benji,' HAWS stated. HAWS, which strives to protect wild horses in the region, has a passionate social-media audience and some followers are emotionally attached to animals that regularly appear in trail-cam footage. ALSO: Tense moments in Yellowstone as German Shepherd leaps from vehicle to chase wolf The top comment on the post announcing that Benji had been lost: 'Poor little buggar! Gets mugged by mares in his herd, and then ends up bear food. Not a fun time for the short life of this baby.' The top reply, which alludes to the mares' rough treatment of the foal in a previous video: 'My heart hurts for precious little Benji. I think he stole it when I saw the mares being mean to him in the first hours of his short life. I wanted to snatch him up and bring him home right then.' HAWS has featured lots of footage showing bears chasing wild horses, repeatedly countering an old argument by the Alberta government that the horses have no natural predators.
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Winston-Salem's housing authority leader to resign effective June 30
Activists and tenants gather near Housing Authority of Winston-Salem headquarters in April to protest conditions in public housing. (Photo: Greg Childress) Kevin Cheshire, the executive director and general counsel of the Housing Authority of Winston-Salem (HAWS), is stepping down, effective June 30, after five years in the role. Cheshire said he will remain with the housing authority in an advisory role to maintain continuity while his replacement is 'brought up to speed' on the workings of the organization. 'This has been in the works for almost two years, at least a year and a half,' Cheshire said. 'My board has known this is the plan and the mayor (Allen Joines) has known this is the plan.' Cheshire said his pending departure is unrelated to the call from some tenants and local housing activists for his resignation over concerns about his management of the city's aging public housing high rises. Tenants have complained that Cheshire is inattentive to their concerns and has failed to maintain safe and sanitary housing at several apartment complexes managed by HAWS. 'I had sort of anticipated that the folks who were being the most vocal demanding my resignation had already gotten wind of the fact that my resignation was imminent, and that they were planning strategically to take credit for something they knew was already coming,' Cheshire said. 'Whether that's the case, I still have no idea. But no, it [calls for his resignation] didn't [play a role] because that decision had already been made.' In an online post, the group Housing Justice Now, a tenant advocacy group that has been critical of Cheshire's leadership, celebrated the departure as a victory. 'He has ignored needed public housing renovations while pouring millions into the HAWS office building, underutilized Section 8 vouchers, bungled a $30 million Choice Neighborhoods grant, pursued retaliatory evictions, and pushed through a meaningless rebrand of the agency,' the group said. 'Tenant organizing at Crystal Towers, Healy Towers, Cleveland Avenue, and across our city made it impossible for Cheshire to push through even more bad policies. Make no mistake, this resignation is an organizing victory! And we demand the next executive director be truly dedicated to low-income housing!' Dan Rose, an activist with Housing Justice Now, said Cheshire has not served Winston-Salem well. 'The fact that Mayor Joines believes he did shows that the problem is not isolated to one public official,' Rose said. 'Residents that are directly affected by the housing crisis should be selecting the housing authority's next leader; not the mayor's out-of-touch board of commissioners.' Andrew Perkins, chairman of the HAWS Board of Commissioners, said the board will be 'genuinely sorry' to see Chesire step down. 'We have known for over a year that he wanted to transition once he completed some very important initiatives for the Housing Authority,' Perkins said. 'Kevin and his team have worked closely with the board and have accomplished everything we asked of them and more.' Perkins said Cheshire and his team have made great progress in creating more affordable housing. He noted the $30 million Choice Neighborhoods Initiative redevelopment grant Cheshire helped to secure from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development – the first to be awarded in North Carolina. Cheshire joined HAWS in 2013 as vice president of real estate development and general counsel. After a national search following the retirement of former executive director Larry Woods, Cheshire was promoted to the position in January 2020. 'I've been here 12 years, and this was never something I intended to do for 20 or 30 years,' Cheshire said. 'There were some very specific tasks that the board and I discussed when I first stepped into the role. I was committed to doing everything in my power to completing those tasks and then stepping aside to allow someone else to build on that foundation.'
NDTV
26-04-2025
- Politics
- NDTV
When Pakistan Tried To Alter Line Of Control - The Siachen, Kargil Story
Pakistan has claimed it may put the 1972 Simla Agreement "in abeyance" after India's move to put a hold on the Indus Waters Treaty following the barbaric attack on tourists in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam in which 26 innocent civilians were killed. Pakistan said it "Shall exercise the right to hold all bilateral agreements with India, including but not limited to the Simla Agreement in abeyance", questioning the validity of the Line of Control mutually agreed by the two governments after the 1971 war. The existing LoC is based on the ceasefire line established on December 17, 1971. Advertisement - Scroll to continue Context - What Happened After 1971? Seven months after the 1971 war, the Prime Ministers of both countries met in Shimla to sign a peace treaty aimed at putting an "end to the conflict and confrontation". The Simla Agreement made provisions for the establishment of the Line of Control based on the ceasefire of December 17, 1971. However, Pakistan tried to unilaterally alter the Line of Control at least twice after signing the Simla Agreement. Siachen - A Battle Fought At 20,000 Feet The origins of the conflict lie in the 1949 Karachi Agreement, a boundary that divided the militaries of India and Pakistan. After the first India-Pakistan war over Kashmir, which started in 1947, India and Pakistan Delegations authorized the establishment of a UN-brokered ceasefire line (CFL) in 1949. The CFL started from Manawar in Jammu and ran north to Keran in the Kupwara district, and then east to glaciers and then north to the glaciers. NJ 9842 was the last demarcated point on the CFL since the areas north of it were considered "inaccessible". (Map Of CFL) In the late 1970s, Colonel Narendra Kumar, also known as 'Bull Kumar', was the commander of the Army's High-Altitude Warfare School (HAWS). Two German mountaineers approached Colonel Kumar, requesting permission for an expedition to the Siachen glacier. The mountaineers brought maps which showed Siachen as part of Pakistani territory and the line from NJ 9842 running north-east to the Karakoram range instead of north to the glaciers as per the Karachi Agreement. It was later learned that Pakistan was allowing expeditions to the glacier from its side. The Pakistani objective was to draw a new ceasefire line, not as per the agreement, without firing a single shot. Siachen Glacier, which lies between the Saltoro Range to its west and the eastern Karakoram range to its east, is the source of the Nubra River, which joins the Shyok River, a major tributary of the Indus. India's claim was based on the universally accepted watershed principle of demarcating boundaries, where the ridge line of the Saltoro Range will be the LoC (now known as the Actual Ground Position Line - AGPL) as the watershed for the Dansam river to its west and Nubra to its east. However, Pakistan had a different understanding, claiming the extension of the LoC northeast to Karakoram, therefore occupying the Saltoro range, the Nubra river basin and the Siachen glacier. Sia La, Bilafond La, Gyong La and Indira Col are present along the Saltoro Range Photo Credit: Google Earth Colonel Kumar then started expeditions to the Siachen glacier. On September 26, 1978, Flying Officer Man Mohan Bahadur (later Air Vice Marshal) of the 114 Helicopter Unit flew Colonel Kumar and his men to the glacier, which started a chain of events and several expeditions were carried out. In August 1983, Pakistani troops protested against Indian patrols in the Siachen glacier. In a message, the Pakistani soldiers wrote, "Requesting instruct your troops to withdraw beyond LoC south of the line joining NJ 9842 and Karakoram pass. Any delay in vacating our territory will create a serious situation." A few days later, a similar warning was issued by Pakistan suggesting that Islamabad was planning something big in the region, i.e occupying Siachen. It was now a race against time. Air Marshal Arjun Subramaniam, in his book 'Full Spectrum', writes "Pakistan displayed tactical nimblesness and dispatched a small force with machine guns and mortars in the winter of 1983 to occupy Bilafond La (La means to Pass) or Sia La, two of the highest passes in the northern sector of the had to turn back due to inclement they succeeded, Pakistan might have succeeded in occupying the Saltoro Range." India wargamed how to prevent Pakistani occupation of the glacier without any localised escalation. It was decided that control of Sia La and Bilafond La was crucial for the defence of Siachen, and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi gave a go-ahead to the plan in early 1984 and thus began Operation Meghdoot. 4 Kumaon and the Karakoram Wing of Ladakh Scouts were chosen for a mission to take control of Gyong La, Bilafond La, Sia La and Indira Col. Brigadier Vijay Channa, the brigade commander of 26 sector, decided that Indian troops would take control of these passes in April instead of the summer months in June. April 13, the day of Baisakhi, was chosen as D-day for the operation. The first troops set foot on April 13, hoisting the tricolour. Within the next few days, the Saltoro Range was taken over by India, but Pakistan refused to stay silent. On June 23, 1984, the first shots were fired by Pakistan toward Bilafond La, in which Lance Naik Chanchal Singh, who was manning a 'Listening Post', was shot in the head. Captain Kulkarni and his men retaliated and repelled the Pakistani attack. Over several days and weeks, multiple Pakistani attacks took place to take control of the Saltoro range, and each attack was repelled. Three years later, in 1987, the Quaid Post on the Pakistani side of the glacier region began firing on the Sonam post, located at a lower elevation along a narrow ridgeline, cutting off the supply of essentials to Indian troops. India decided to take over the post, and 2/Lt Rajiv Pandey of 8 JAK Li led a patrol to take over the post. The Pakistani troops fired on Indian soldiers, killing 2/Lt Rajiv and nine other men. Operation Rajiv was launched to avenge the death of 10 soldiers and to take control of the Quaid post located at over 21,000 feet. Naib Subedar Bana Singh led a patrol and successfully fought with the enemy and took control of the position. The post was later renamed Bana Post, and he was awarded the Param Vir Chakra. Naib Subedar Bana Singh of 8 JAK LI was awarded the Param Vir Chakra. Photo Credit: Operation Meghdoot is the longest-running active military operation in the world. Kargil - Pakistan's Second Misadventure Siachen laid the foundation of the Kargil conflict. The plan, made on flimsy grounds, had a taste of revenge mixed, stemming from the Siachen conflict. In 1999, General Pervez Musharraf wanted to avenge his defeat as a Brigade commander following several failed attempts to capture Siachen glacier. Nasim Zehra, a Pakistani journalist and author of 'From Kargil to Coup: Events That Shook Pakistan', writes that the plan to take control of NH-1 was presented to General Zia Ul-Haq, who rejected it because of Pakistan's involvement in the Soviet-Afghan war and later to Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Operation Koh-e-Paima (KOP), as it was called, was planned by the 'gang of four' comprising: General Musharraf, Lt Gen Aziz, the Chief of General Staff, Lt Gen Mehmud, the 10 Corps Commander, Rawalpindi and Major General Javed Hassan, Force Commander Northern Areas (FCNA). The objective was to take over mountain peaks overlooking NH-1 from Mushkoh valley near Zoji La to Turtok in the far east, which lay west of the foothills of the Saltoro Range, covering a total area of over 100 km. In 1999, the first intrusions into Indian territory were detected on May 3 in Batalik, followed by multiple sightings in different sectors by the second week of May. It was clear that it was a large-scale intrusion and not a localised incursion. Read more: Revisiting Kargil At 25: Air Power That Turned The Tide At 18,000 Feet Pakistan's objectives, as stated by India's Kargil Review Committee, were to cut off supply lines between Kashmir and Ladakh, isolating troops in the Siachen glacier. Alter the Line of Control, forcing the Indian and Pakistani governments to negotiate with a threat of nuclear escalation and further internationalise the issue of Jammu and Kashmir, achieving a better trade-off against positions held by India in Siachen and creating a security vacuum in the Kashmir valley by pulling troops toward Kargil. General Musarraf even told Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, while briefing him about the Army's operation in May 1999, "Sir, based on the wisdom and experience of my entire professional career, I could guarantee the success of the operation." India responded with full force. The Army and the Air Force jointly operated to reclaim all of the occupied territory, though 527 Indian soldiers and officers were killed in action in one of the toughest high-altitude battles fought at heights over 15,000 feet in military history. Share
Yahoo
04-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
As grizzly bear tries to rip camera from tree, thoughts turn to horses
A group that supports the conservation of wild horses in Alberta, Canada, has shared footage from last July, showing a grizzly bear cub's prolonged assault on a trail camera fixed to a tree. 'Another few weeks and we can start watching for tracks as these guys wake up come out looking for something to eat,' Help Alberta Wildies Society stated Sunday via Facebook. 'This cub was totally committed to getting our camera off of that tree.' While the cub seemed intent on claiming a new toy, many HAWS followers expressed concern about the threat grizzly bears pose for the region's free-roaming horses. (Click here to view the footage if a video player doesn't appear below.) Another few weeks and we can start watching for tracks as these guys wake up come out looking for something to eat. This cub was totally committed to getting our camera off of that tree. Posted by Help Alberta Wildies Society on Sunday, February 2, 2025 'Prayers for all the horses and their babies on the way,' reads the top comment. To be sure, when grizzly bears emerge from hibernation on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, wild horses, especially foals, will be on the menu. HAWS cameras have captured several scenes showing bears chasing horses. One of the more dramatic scenes was captured in May 2022, showing horses running for their lives with a grizzly bear perhaps 40 yards behind charging at full sprint. In its description, HAWS wrote: 'The next time someone tells you that the Wild Horses have no natural predators, send them to me. We are losing a lot of horses this year, sooner and quicker than in past years. Not just the foals. Adults also.' This article originally appeared on For The Win: As grizzly bear tries to rip camera from tree, thoughts turn to horses
