■ Brazil
Police remove abused lion
Police seized a lion in poor health from a private home in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Thursday after scared neighbors squawked about the beast's roar, police said on Friday. Inspector Ione Rodrigues said the owners of the 15-year-old retired circus lion called Baby did not have a license for the animal and would face criminal charges for ill-treatment. "The lion was kept in a small cage in the covered backyard of the house. It was very skinny," she said. The animal was transferred to the Rio Zoo. "The neighbors were scared by the roaring and feared the cage did not provide enough security," Rodrigues said.
■ Cuba
Castro slams rights prize
President Fidel Castro on Friday blasted EU nations as "hypocrites" after the European Parliament granted a group of wives, mothers and sisters of jailed Cuban dissidents, its top annual human rights prize, the Sakharov prize for freedom of thought. The Cuban leader, 79, lashed out at the EU saying Cuba "can look at you in the eye, keep on staring and accuse you: You are corrupt, immoral, exploitive hypocrites ... You are the ones who created modern slavery in recent centuries, after what was called the discovery of America," Castro said. "You created colonialism, and keep it in place even today," Castro said.
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