Somalia Executes Two MP Assassins

Ten people have been held in China on suspicion of hunting a panda to sell its fur and meat, Chinese state television says.

Police discovered the panda’s skin and 9.75kg (22lb) of meat in a raid in December, CCTV reported.

Officers said the panda was shot dead by two brothers in Zhaotong in southern Yunnan province.

Thousands of people responded to the news on the Chinese social media site, Weibo, and condemned the crime.

Panda poaching is extremely rare in China where the endangered animals are seen as a national treasure.

“To the Chinese, giant panda is more than an animal. It’s a spiritual symbol. The case needs to be dealt with severely to stop any further incidents like this,” said one Weibo user called Gloomy Thick Eyebrows.

Another user, Brilliant, said: “Deplorable! These guys are heartless.”

But Cuozao Worker said: “Why I can’t see as much media coverage when a man is killed?”

In 2014, there were only about 1,864 pandas left in the wild, all in China.

Images posted on the Weibo showed a bloodied black-and-white pelt laid out on the ground.

Photographs also showed a parcel of red meat and two long bones. The China Daily newspaper said parts of the panda’s skull and its gall bladder were also found.

Police said the panda was an adult female.

The two hunters and one person who allegedly bought the panda meat were among those arrested, but the identity of the other seven people was not disclosed.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature lists giant pandas as endangered, but their numbers have almost doubled since the late 1970s.

Hunting pandas can lead to a 10-year sentence - or, in what the Chinese government calls “grave circumstances”, life imprisonment or even a death sentence can be applied. Two suspected members of the Islamist group al-Shabab have been executed by firing squad in the Somali capital.

A military court in Mogadishu found them guilty of killing five people, including four members of parliament.

One of the MPs was the popular female singer, Saado Ali Warsame, who was killed in a drive-by shooting in July.

Al-Shabab advocates the strict Saudi-inspired Wahhabi version of Islam and is battling the UN-backed government to create an Islamic state.

This is not the first time al-Shabab suspects have been executed by the Somali authorities.

At the time of Ms Ali Warsame’s death, an al- Shabab spokesman told the BBC that the singing MP was targeted for her politics and not her music.

Al-Shabab often target politicians, bombing the hotels in which they stay in Mogadishu, and have attacked the presidential palace at least four times in the last three years.