DELRAY BEACH, Fla., May 15, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — You can watch the sun rise from your bedroom’s private viewing deck at Lion Sands River Lodge, which is positioned on a site with trees dating back 800 years. The Lodge is about spirit, warmth, nature and relaxation, hosted by a family of staff that will make it feel like home away from home. Alternatively you can sip fine wine in one of Tinga Game Lodge’s spacious suites as the animals stop by for a drink from the Sabie River. Tinga offers the ultimate combination of total luxury and first-class service and is one of Africa’s premier destinations offering the ultimate African safari experience.

The ten-day Lion Sands in Style package includes:

• Roundtrip flights from Toronto, Montreal or Ottawa to connect with your international flight
• International flights from New York (JFK) or Washington, D.C., on top-rated South African Airways
• Flights within South Africa and all ground transfers
• Four nights at the upscale More Quarters in Cape Town
• Three nights at the 5-star Lion Sands River Lodge or Tinga Game Lodge in this big-5 wildlife paradise
• Six open-vehicle game drives
• Half-day tour of the Ernie Els Winery near Cape Town
• 13 meals: Seven breakfasts, three lunches and three dinners

Lion Sands in Style is valid for travel September 2, 11, 18 (Lion Sands) and October. 5, 12, 31 (Tinga Game Lodge)

To book any of these travel deals, call Lion World Tours at 1-800-387-2706 (USA) or 1-800-668-9968 (Canada) or visit www.lionworldtours.com for detailed itineraries of the deals offered.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Arnelle Kendall | Vice President of Public Relations

The Travel Corporation | 110 East Atlantic Avenue Suite 325 | Delray Beach, Florida 33444 | USA

E: arnelle.kendall@travcorpusa.com | T: 561.330.0850

__________________________________________________________________________

Terri Jankelow | Sales Manager

Lion World Tours | 33 Kern Road | Toronto, Ontario M3B 1S9 | Canada

E: terri@lionworldtravel.com | T: 1-416-920-5466

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About Lion World Tours

Lion World Tours specializes in group and individual tours to Southern and East Africa, and is a member of The Travel Corporation, which also includes Trafalgar, Contiki, Brendan Vacations, Red Carnation Boutique Hotel Collection, Uniworld Boutique River Cruise Collection and Insight Vacations. In its fifth decade, clients continue to benefit from Lion World Tours’ destination knowledge, expertise, and emphasis on customer service. With their safari specialists all having first-hand knowledge of Africa, Lion World Tours can confidently assist clients in creating an African adventure that fits their specific interests as well as their budget. Affordable luxury and value for money are what keep clients coming back to Lion World Tours.

This information was brought to you by Cision http://www.cisionwire.com

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A Swedish professional hunter and 10 members of his safari firm have been charged with murder after 13 miners were found dead in the Central African Republic, police said Monday.

Erik Mararv, who heads the big game Central African Wildlife Adventures company, and the 10 employees, several of them foreigners, “were charged with murder on Thursday and remanded in custody in Bangui‘s central N’garagba prison where they were being held,” a police official told AFP.

They were initially detained last month in Bakuma and Bangassu and then taken to the capital Bangui.

The bodies of the 13 miners who had been working in Ngungunza were discovered on March 29.

Photos of the dead men showed them to have been bound with their hands behind their backs and beaten or stabbed to death, police had earlier said.

“The inquiry that followed the discovery of the 13 corpses in the Ngungunza mining worksite … was carried out with utmost discretion with a view to gathering a maximum of evidence likely to lead to the truth,” the official said.

Petty hunters, corrupt wildlife officials and Asian traffickers have all been snared in South Africa‘s crackdown on rhino poaching as special prosecutors battle syndicates feeding the trade in horns.

More than 160 people are currently before the courts, exposing the complex supply chain stretching from South African parks to Southeast Asian consumers, said Joanie Spies, a prosecutor with the Rhino Project.

“Slowly but surely we’re moving upwards and getting higher people who did not pull the trigger,” Spies told AFP.

The National Prosecuting Authority set up the team to help combat the dramatic surge in poaching that has seen more than 200 rhinos killed so far this year.

The cases have exposed corruption within the systems meant to protect the animals.

Private game owners, national park rangers and veterinarians have been arrested. Authorities have also caught pilots who flew helicopters to spot and dart the rhinos, and both small-time and professional hunters who shot them.

“There is a great level of organisation involved,” Spies said.

Some rhinos are shot by small-time hunters hoping for a lucky break by capturing a horn that sells for more than its weight in gold in Asia, where it is used in traditional medicine.

Not all of these hunters know what they’re doing. One man in April sawed off a horn from a fiberglass rhino serving as decor at a safari lodge.

Other rhinos are killed by professionals who have helicopter support in tracking and darting the animals before hunters shoot and de-horn them.

Whoever does the shooting, the horns can end up in the hands of the same Asian kingpins, Spies said.

Vietnamese and Thai nationals have been arrested for trying to smuggle horns abroad.

In one case, Thai national Chumlong Lemtongthai faces trial for colluding with a South African game farm owner to stage legal trophy hunts.

He is accused of hiring Thai strippers and prostitutes as hunters who posed with the massive beasts’ carcasses to document the kills to obtain some of the handful of legitimate export licenses for mounted rhino horns.

Authorities say he bought horns at around 65,000 rand ($8,400, 6,400 euros) a kilogramme and resold them for up to $55,000 a kilo.

Horns typically leave the country through Johannesburg’s international airport, or through the port of Beira in neighbouring Mozambique, where oversight is lax.

The horns may transit in shipping containers or air travelers’ hand luggage in Asian cities like Hong Kong.

Customs officials in Hong Kong say they have seized 52 horns over the past five years. Last November 33 horns were found in a single container marked as carrying “scrap plastic.” It had come from Cape Town.

The biggest market for the horns is currently Vietnam, watchdogs say.

“The resources that you would require to coordinate getting poached horns from South Africa to Vietnam means there is little doubt there are large, organised syndicates involved in that,” Naomi Doak of conservation group TRAFFIC told AFP in Vietnam.

So far, prosecuting the top levels of such syndicates has been an elusive goal. Cracking a syndicate requires piercing through three or four layers of crime, Spies said.

Cases that have gone to trial in South Africa have landed stiff penalties.

Three Mozambican poachers were handed 25-year sentences in January after they were detained with fresh horns, rifles and an axe in the world-famous Kruger National Park, where much of the poaching happens.

Spies said South Africa is stepping up its efforts by creating a combined task force of police, military, prosecutors and environmentalists.

“You get better convictions, better sentences,” Spies said.