Cable briefs

Press, 22 May 1987, Page 8

Cable briefs

Bears kill boy Two polar bears at a small New York zoo mauled to death a boy, aged 11, who climbed Into their cage with a friend to swim in the bears’ pool, the police said. The mutilated body of the dead boy was found in a cave at the back of the bears’ enclosure at Prospect Park Zoo in Brooklyn, officials said. The other boy escaped. The bears were later shot and killed.—New York. Woodland burnt Forest fires in the Chita region of Eastern Siberia have destroyed 200,000 hectares of woodland, Soviet television has reported. The report said fires were still raging at 50 separate sites despite intensive efforts to bring them under control. It said firemen lacked bulldozers and other equipment needed to halt the blazes.—Moscow. Award withdrawn A Naval Reserve award scheduled to be given to the widow of a co-pilot on the Challenger space shuttle has been withdrawn because she sued the Government for SUSI.S billion over his death, said a spokesman for the Naval Reserve Association. Jane Smith was “tremendously hurt” by the group’s decision not to give her its “Twice a Citizen” award. Michael Smith was one of seven astronauts who perished after Challenger’s launch on January 28, 1986.— Houston. Crime prospers Poor housing and unemployment are allowing crime to prosper in British cities, a senior police union official believes. Steven Barrett, the chairman of the constable’s section of the Police Federation, told the organisation’s annual conference that resources needed to be diverted to tackle the problems.—London.

Former aide shot A former aide of Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, was shot and slightly wounded in a central Vienna street yesterday, police said. It was the second attempt on the life of Ezzedin al Ghadamsi, aged 49, a former ambassador in Vienna, in just over two years. The police said Mr Ghadamsi received two slight head wounds in the shooting outside his apartment in Petersplatz, an elegant square in the busy central shopping area of the Austrian capital.—Vienna.