Lions eat man after he runs into closing park
South Africa
JOHANNESBURG -- A man was eaten by lions after running past guards into Kruger National Park at dusk just as the gates were closing, park officials said yesterday. Park spokesman Raymond Travers said guards and rangers searched for the unidentified man in the dark after he ran into the park on Thursday, but failed to find him. He was found after dawn yesterday as the lions ate his corpse. ''We have no idea why he ran in," Travers said. ''We suspect the man was mentally deranged. No one in their right mind would run into the bush at Kruger at night. It's far too dangerous." Kruger National Park is home to between 4,500 and 5,000 lions spread across an area roughly the size of Belgium. Rangers shot one lion as he devoured the body and were looking for a female lion, he said. (Reuters)
China
Cities set checkpoints to block diseased pork
BEIJING -- Beijing and other cities set up checkpoints yesterday to block diseased pork linked to the deaths of 32 people in China as authorities ordered a halt to the slaughter of infected pigs in Sichuan province. A veterinary inspection official said screening was tightened on highways leading into the capital from surrounding Hebei province to prevent a health threat to nearly 15 million people. Authorities said victims in southwestern Sichuan were suffering from Streptococcus suis bacteria, an infection contracted from slaughtering, handling, or eating infected pigs. One new death and 13 new infections, bringing the number infected to 163, were reported yesterday. (Reuters)
Germany
US Army repositions; to hand over 13 bases
BERLIN -- The US Army will pull out of 13 bases in southern Germany as part of a repositioning of American forces around the world, its European headquarters said yesterday. The 11 bases in and around the Bavarian city of Wuerzburg will be handed over to the German government by September 2007, a statement from the Army's European headquarters in Heidelberg said. Two more bases near Wuerzburg will be closed and handed over in subsequent years. The closures are part of plans to return the headquarters of the US Army's First Infantry Division to the United States next year and relocate other units. (AP)
United Nations
Panel adopts resolution to expand sanctions
The UN Security Council unanimously adopted a US-sponsored resolution yesterday that expands UN sanctions against Al Qaeda terrorists and Afghanistan's former Taliban rulers to affiliates and splinter groups. Sanctions currently require all 191 UN member states to impose a travel ban and arms embargo against Osama bin Laden, the Taliban leaders and those ''associated with" them, and to freeze their financial assets. The new resolution adopted by the council spells out for the first time who is included among those ''associated with" Al Qaeda and the Taliban. It states that sanctions will apply to people who participate in financing, planning, facilitating, preparing or perpetrating acts to support the outlawed groups and who recruit, supply, sell or transfer weapons to bin Laden, Al Qaeda, the Taliban ''or any cell, affiliate, splinter group or derivative thereof." (AP)
Bangladesh
Protest follows hint at bombing of Mecca
DHAKA -- Thousands of Bangladeshi Islamic activists staged a protest in the capital yesterday after a US congressman suggested the United States might consider bombing holy sites, including Mecca. ''Allahu Akbar (Allah is the greatest)," ''Be aware, Bush-Blair," ''World Muslims unite to fight US-British Aggressions," protesters chanted. Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican, made the comment on July 14 in answer to a question about a possible response to any hypothetical nuclear terrorist attack on the United States. (Reuters)
