Nevada rancher, armed militias win standoff with Feds, govt returns cattle
The tense stand-off between hundreds of protesters and police has ended in the Nevada desert, forcing the authorities to cancel the round-up of 300 animals and to return the cattle to their owner. ● The standoff between rancher Cliven Bundy and the US Bureau of Land Management has lasted over a week, after hundreds of armed agents with the United States Bureau of Land Management and the FBI turned up in the Clark County to execute the court-ordered confiscation of nearly 1,000 cattle. The US government says the animals have trespassed on federal property. This provoked a fierce backlash from anti-government groups, right-wing politicians and gun-rights activists, who gathered near 67-year-old Cliven Bundy’s farmhouse to support him in the standoff against the government. At the height of the protests, there were about 1,000 protesters outside the rancher’s home. Among them were militia members from California, Idaho and other US states, camouflaged, with rifles and side arms.