Animals Asia Foundation recently released photos of bicycle-riding bears and boxing bears in Chinese circuses, and the pictures are poignant reminders of the misery that animals endure in circuses throughout China. Not that the atrocities done to animals who are touring (if you can call living in a smelly boxcar and then in a dungeonlike stadium basement “touring”) with circuses in the U.S. have been stopped. After all, in the U.S., elephants are routinely beaten with rods, sticks, and bullhooks, whipped into submission, and chained so that they are barely able to move.

Of course, no one had to get out the bullhook to convince PETA Asia staffers to work hard on China’s first-ever animal protection laws. Earlier this year, they met with Chinese government officials and discussed ways to help animals—including improving conditions for animals in circuses. These photos are further proof of how urgently animals need us. Get the “Hot and Sour Scoop” on PETA Asia’s work by visiting the group’s blog. And help animals here at home by boycotting the circus.

Posted by Jennifer O’Connor

All the way on the other side of the world, the folks at PETA Asia are tireless in their campaigns for animals. We routinely get e-mails from them at midnight their time (and ours) updating us on their newest campaigns and victories. Recently, PETA Asia gathered a group of sexy supermodels to pose in a new ad protesting the large zoo that’s on the sixth and seventh floors of a Bangkok department store!

PETA Asia fights for animals throughout a huge region, from protesting vivisection in a Malaysian laboratory and animal fights in Indonesia to weighing in on China’s first-ever animal protection laws.

You can keep up with everything these folks are doing by subscribing to the RSS feed for their recently launched “Hot & Sour Scoop” blog.

Posted by Jennifer O’Connor

We’re all for reaching for the lettuce, but hands off this salad, bucko!

Posted by Shawna Flavell

The folks at PETA Asia-Pacific are pros at cranking up the heat to deliver sizzling-hot demonstrations and ads. So I can guarantee that this sneak peak of the upcoming “All Animals Have the Same Parts” ad, which features Filipina model, singer, and vegan Geneva Cruz, is sure to have you turning your thermostat down a few notches.

“For me, being vegan is not about the diet. It’s really about my love for all creatures,” Geneva says.

Geneva and PETA Asia-Pacific want to remind people that animals are made of flesh, blood, and bone, just as humans are. It’s just as wrong to kill a pig, cow, or chicken for your dinner as it would be to kill your tennis partner or the kid next door (even if he does play Metallica a smidge too loud).

Posted by Shawna Flavell

Pop quiz—Tokyo’s bustling Shibuya Crossing is famous for:

1. The statue of Hachikō, a dog who used to wait at Shibuya Station every day for his guardian to return from work.
2. Its appearance in scenes from the Bill Murray/Scarlett Johansson movie Lost in Translation.
3. Being the home of one of the busiest Starbucks coffeehouses in the world.
4. Being the site of a recent PETA Asia-Pacific Lettuce Ladies demonstration.
5. All of the above.

All of you who answered “e” would get a big, sloppy wet kiss from Hachikō if he were still with us, but since he isn’t, you’ll have to content yourselves with a pretty picture of the Lettuce Ladies in action:

Posted by Alisa Mullins

Though 27 greyhound tracks have closed in the U.S., with Rhode Island's last two tracks closing on August 8—and while countries around the world have all shuttered their once-active tracks—a legislature in the Philippines has just introduced a bill that would allow a company to build and operate a brand-new greyhound racetrack.

If approved, this bill has the potential to doom thousands of greyhounds to miserable existences. But have no fear: PETA Asia-Pacific has teamed up with Senator Maria Ana "Jamby" Madrigal—and her fearless dog, Prasad—to urge senators in the Philippines to vote "no" on this cruel bill. Check out Senator Jamby and Prasad in action at Tuesday's press conference inside the Senate building:

Photo © Erving Go
Prasad, a seasoned doggy-do-gooder, is howling mad about the introduction of this bill.

Senator Madrigal has pledged her opposition to this so-called sport because greyhounds who are forced to compete are kept muzzled and confined to cramped cages when they're not training or racing. Once they have slowed down or suffered career-ending injuries, the dogs are often abandoned, killed, or sold to laboratories to be used in experiments.

Don't all greyhounds deserve a loving home like Prasad's?

Posted by Liz Graffeo