Bin Laden assails Europe on cartoons

CAIRO - Osama bin Laden slammed the publication of drawings insulting to the Prophet Mohammed in a new audio message posted late yesterday and warned Europeans of a strong reaction to come. The message, which appeared on a militant website that has carried Al Qaeda statements in the past, showed a still image of bin Laden aiming with an AK-47. The tape was posted less than a week after the Danish intelligence service said the reprinting of a cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammed had brought negative attention to Denmark. (AP)

KINSHASA - A park ranger has been arrested after allegedly masterminding the massacre of endangered mountain gorillas, conservationists said yesterday. Honore Mashagiro, a ranger in Democratic Republic of Congo's Virunga National Park, is the chief suspect in the slaying last summer of 10 gorillas who belonged to a group known to environmentalists as the Rugendo family. Mashagiro is accused of arranging the mass killing to deter conservationists who were trying to prevent the destruction of the animals' rainforest habitat. (AP)

MOSCOW - Russia's foreign minister said new American proposals for a missile defense system in Eastern Europe would offer Moscow an opportunity to closely monitor activities at the planned US bases, according to an interview released yesterday. Sergey Lavrov reaffirmed the Kremlin's strong opposition to the US plan to put a battery of missile interceptors in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic, but said Washington's new proposals reflected US acknowledgment of Russia's concerns. "The American side is ready to offer us an entire series of trust-building measures," Lavrov said in an interview posted on the website of the newspaper Izvestia. (AP)