All tag results for 'international'

Several animal rights groups have written the London 2012 organizers to try and persuade the director of the opening ceremony, Danny Boyle, to not use live animals.

The opening ceremony planned to use 100 farm animals in the show, but animal groups warn them they may face severe consequences.

Under the 2006 Animal Welfare Act, it is illegal to intentionally cause undue fear and distress to animals.

There are six groups in total agreement that the experience of being in the show would be "highly stressful and probably terrifying experience for them."

The groups are Animal Aid, Animal Defenders International, Captive Animals Protection Society, Compassion in World Farming, Peta and Viva.

They want Boyle to use puppets and animatronics.

The lead organizers of the Olympics said that they will be working closely with the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals to make sure the animals are "better looked after than the volunteers."

We bet it's too late at this point to just scrap the whole animal part.

Let's hope the show really conforms to all the animal laws or else Danny Boyle might have a whole lotta angry people to deal with.

[Image via Nikki Nelson/WENN.]

Tags: animal, animal rights, animals, danny boyle, director, farm, illegal, international, law, london, people, pet, peta, pets, protect, protection, show, terrifying

Ricky Gervais is so funny and he LOOOOVES animals.

So naturally he would partner with Cruelty Free International to try and stop animal testing.

Just look at him petting that cute bunny.

He's just the best.

Tags: animal testing, animals, bunny, cruelty, cruelty free, cute, international, ricky gervais, testing

Looks like Madagascar 3 will have its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.

So far, Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom is the only officially announced film as the Festival's opener.

Madagascar 3's Cannes debut is expected to be announced soon.

Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted was described by IMDB as:

"Alex, Marty, Gloria and Melman are still fighting to get home to their beloved Big Apple. Their journey takes them through Europe where they find the perfect cover: a traveling circus, which they reinvent - Madagascar style."

Jeffrey Katzenberg, the CEO of DreamWorks, is a huge fan of Cannes and loves to do international junkets there, even if his film isn't in the festival.

The movie features the whole original cast returning, but also has Bryan Cranston, Martin Short and Jessica Chastain as new characters.

Sounds like a great film full of cute digital animals and talented actors!

Tags: animals, cute, dreamworks, film, international, jeffrey katzenberg, madagascar 3, movie, premiere

Kate Middleton has been caught up in the middle of a fight between PETA and the International Fur Trade Federation (IFTF).

The Duchess of Cambridge was spotted wearing a fur-lined jacket one day and the IFTF described it as "a classy fur-lined coat."

The IFTF likes to post pictures of celebs wearing fur garments.

But PETA saw that post and is now demanding the IFTF take it down.

PETA checked with the Duchess's reps and the coat has a fake fur lining.

They wrote in a letter to the IFTF website:

"Her Royal Highness was not wearing fur. The coat was not lined with fur.

We therefore insist that you remove the photo from your social media page and issue an immediate public retraction of your claim.

To state that the Duchess is wearing fur is not only false but offensive…to portray the new Duchess wearing something so blatantly cruel and contrary to her country's values is insulting."

PETA has threatened legal action against the IFTF but hasn't heard back from them yet.

Let's hope they get that photo taken down before they wrongfully smear Kate any more.

[Image via WENN.]

Tags: cruel, feud, fight, fur, international, kate middleton, peta, photo, threatened

You should know by now that Leona Lewis is a huge animal lover.

So she's used Valentine's Day as an opportunity to send a Valentine's Day card to the European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy to ask for his support in the Humane Society International's CrueltyFree2013 initiative against animal testing.

She wrote:

"Like most girls, I love make-up, but my ethical principles are also very important to me. No new lipstick, eye-liner or other cosmetics ingredient can ever be worth the suffering and death of defenseless animals forced to endure painful toxicity tests."

Making sure to drive her point home, she continued:

"These gentle animals are killed by the hundreds in some tests, despite the fact that manufacturing products free of new animal testing is perfectly possible through the use of thousands of existing, safe ingredients.

Animals have suffered enough – if their pain has been deemed immoral within the EU, it must also be immoral outside the EU. To trade in their pain would be hypocrisy."

This may seem confusing to some because animal testing has been banned in the European Union (EU) but the problem is on products imported.

Products tested on animals in other countries can still be imported and sold within the EU.

Let's hope her letter has an effect on the EU because then maybe America will follow suit and stop testing on the poor animals.

[Image via WENN.]

Tags: america, animal testing, animals, cruelty, humane society, international, leona lewis, product, testing

So, if you thought we were doing a pretty good job at discovering species, we hope your definition of "good job" doesn't rely on "speed or scope."

Why? Because we've only found 1.9 million species.

That sounds like a lot, right? Well, not really when a new study is out saying there are 8.8 million species on the planet.

WOW!

"Of those species, 6.5 million would be on land and 2.2 million in the ocean, which is a priority for the scientists doing the work since they are part of the Census of Marine Life, an international group of scientists trying to record all the life in the ocean.

The research estimates that animals rule with 7.8 million species, followed by fungi with 611,000 and plants with just shy of 300,000 species."

Researchers should get on this, as it could take up to 500 years to complete the catalogue if those numbers are correct!

Check out the video above to hear all about it, and to see some of the newest species to be found!

Tags: animals, international, marine, ocean, record, research, scientists, species, study, video

The former Agent 007 likes his whales alive! Pierce Brosnan is calling for an end to Iceland’s whale hunt.

National Resources Defense Council and is leading their campaign to stop Icelandic whaling.

In a recent post on OnEarth, the actor said:

“Last December, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and other groups filed a petition to stop Iceland’s rogue whaling. In response, the U.S. Commerce Secretary recently declared that Iceland is defying the international ban on commercial whaling. That declaration started the clock ticking on a 60-day period during which President Obama must decide whether or not to impose trade sanctions on Iceland. President Obama should begin by targeting imports from those Icelandic seafood companies directly tied to the whaling industry.”

We think this is a great idea!!

But instead of writing about it we think the action star should do what he does best: face off against the whale hunters man to person!!

We just hope he doesn't try to win them over with song. We all know what happened in Mamma Mia.

[Image via WENN.]

Tags: campaign, hunting, international, pierce brosnan, president, response