Search the Community

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WpErsFURCI Crammed into tiny cages, caked in filth, riddled with sores and in agony from broken beaks and wings, these are the ducks used to make foie gras at Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants. Campaigners last night branded the horrific conditions the “worst ever seen” after being shown the pictures of shocking cruelty at plants that supply the celebrity chef with the posh dish. Ducks lie dead and dying, many have painful eye injuries and abscesses and all are force-fed grain through a tube to make their livers 10 times the normal size during a two-week ordeal in a ­windowless shed before they are slaughtered. In one pitiful scene, an exhausted and clearly distressed bird can be seen on its side with its tongue hanging from its beak. A vet who saw the disturbing footage, obtained by the Mirror, said if pets were kept in such appalling conditions their owners would be hauled before a court. Justin Kerswell, campaigns manager for animal rights group Viva!, said: “This is torture, pure and simple. “I can’t imagine Gordon Ramsay would dare defend this. We have seen many images of animal suffering in our 20-year history, but this footage from a supplier to Gordon Ramsay has to rank as among the worst and the most heart-breaking. “Ducks caged and filthy in their own vomit and clearly in distress, all to produce a dollop of fat as a choice on expensive menus that no one needs. “How long can he say that taste trumps ethics when faced with this?” Ramsay last night stopped all purchasing from the French firm Ernest Soulard that supplies his foie gras. Delicacy created by misery Every year 38 million ducks and geese are killed in France to make foie gras, a delicacy there. At slaughter they are hung upside down, have their throats slit and are left to bleed to death. About a million birds die in the force-feeding process. Only males are used. Females, which do not put on weight so fast, are typically destroyed at a day old by being dropped into electric mincers. France is by far the world’s largest producer and consumer of foie gras, which by law can only have that definition if force-feeding is used. But small producers in other countries – amid growing fury over the cruel methods – let birds eat freely before killing them when their livers are naturally bigger. Source: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/video-cruelty-chef-gordon-ramsays-2688593

Soccer star Ronaldo socked by scandal involving transvestite prostitutes By HAROLD EMERT in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and CORKY SIEMASZKO in New York DAILY NEWS WRITERS Thursday, May 1st 2008, 1:27 AM Ronaldo, one of the world's best soccer players, is up to his knee socks in scandal today after his run-in with a pair of transvestite prostitutes wound up on YouTube. The Brazilian superstar told cops he had no idea the "ladies" he picked up were men until he brought them to a hot sheets hotel early Monday. Footage of Ronaldo recoiling from them was taken by the spurned hookers, one of whom is under investigation for trying to extort $30,000 from the superstar, Brazilian media reported. Andre Albertini, who goes by Andrea, denied he tried to blackmail Ronaldo and insisted the soccer star tried to buy his silence. "Ronaldo begged me not to ruin his career and asked me if 50,000 reais would shut my mouth," Albertini said. The other hooker, Junior Ribeiro da Silva, aka Carla Tamini, added, "when we entered his car he asked if we knew who he was. "I said yes, but didn't make a fuss because I have gone out with handsomer men," he told a Brazilian newspaper. "At the motel he was polite and very gentle - treating a woman like a princess." Brazil's most famous transvestite, Rogeria, scoffed at Ronaldo's claim that he didn't know what he was buying. "Ronaldo needs a pair of glasses," Rogeria said. "It