Keith Somerville

Private rhino horn owner John Hume recently held South Africa’s first online rhino horn auction, a major event in the ongoing fight by private rhino owners to be able to sell legal horn stocks. But in a statement released on Hume’s behalf, it was admitted that there were very few bidders for the 264 horns.

A bizarre story has recently come out of Zimbabwe. Grace Mugabe, the politically powerful wife of the aging president Robert Mugabe, has come up with a plan to settle a debt to China with 35 young elephants, eight lions, 12 hyenas and a giraffe. The debt was incurred in 1998 when Zimbabwe sent troops and bought equipment from China to help president Laurent Kabila in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Kabila needed help fighting off a rebel movement backed by Uganda and Rwanda.