Mick Hartley

Some pairings run deep, like Robert Mugabe and Kim Jong-Il. The North Koreans are training in Zimbabwe prior to the World Cup, and now, in North Korea's hour of need, Mugabe is standing firmly by his old chum:

Zimbabwe is to send pairs of endangered wildlife, including baby elephants, to a zoo in North Korea, in a bizarre version of Noah’s Ark condemned yesterday by conservationists.

The move by Robert Mugabe’s regime to sell some of its most prized species to the President’s loyal ally Kim Jong Il was attacked by wildlife organisations who fear that many of the animals will not survive the long journey, let alone conditions in the impoverished Communist state’s notoriously cruel and dirty zoos.

Sources in Zimbabwe told The Times that Mr Mugabe’s cronies were already combing the 14,600sq km (9,000sq m) Hwange National Park looking for pairs of giraffe, zebra, antelope, hyenas, and monkeys and birds for which they can charge from about £7 to £630. Two 18-month-old elephants, already held in quarantine in western Zimbabwe, were priced at £7,000 each….

Johnny Rodrigues, head of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, said that teams of trappers were working in the Hwange park around the clock to fulfil the order but his organisation was trying to garner international support to block the transfer.

“Details of what is happening are sketchy but this is another disgraceful act by a discredited regime that has destroyed one of the country’s greatest assets,” he said.