RSPCA's annual prosecutions report shows rise from 3,114 in 2011 to 4,168 last year

We have once again joined forces with Bradt Travel Guides  to offer readers the chance to win our travel-writing competition, with a top prize this year of a holiday for two to the Croatian region of Istria. PLUS have your winning story published in 'The Independent on Sunday' and Independent.co.uk

There has not been much animal magic in this year's Britain's Got Talent after a string of pet performers failed to live up to the success of last year's winners - dog trick act Ashleigh and Pudsey.

There are some lovely things in it, and there's one riotous surge of profane comic energy, but a faint sense of disappointment lingers over this much-anticipated reunion of director Tom Morris and South Africa's Handspring Puppet Company, the team that conquered the world with the wondrous War Horse.

A law banning horses from Romanian roads may be responsible for the surge in the fraudulent sale of horsemeat on the European beef market, a French politician said yesterday.

Would-be criminals stole the donkey to use as their getaway 'vehicle'

Google has denied accusations that one of its Street View cars struck and injured a donkey in Botswana. The California-based company was forced to respond after a Google Street View image of what some claimed was an injured beast was widely shared online.

Denial comes after Twitter users posted images from Google Maps of what appears to be a dead donkey lying in a road

Ever since 1652, on the first Sunday after the Epiphany, the Cistercian nuns of Lazkao, a rural town in the Basque Country's Gipuzkoa region, have staged a re-enactment of the flight of Joseph, Mary and Jesus from King Herod's soldiers.

Never mind the controversy feel the fiction

This is a brave and ambitious choice for an RSC family Christmas show.

Donkey-milk cheese is not thought to have many fans. But the few it does have are likely to be sadder than Eeyore to discover that all of next year's output has been bought by Novak Djokovic.

The latest addition to Reaktion's animal series – surely one of the most successful publishing ventures of recent years – reveals the donkey, "generally considered beneath notice", to be a creature of the utmost fascination.