Benin

Divers retrieve bodies from plane crash

Mourning relatives watched from a debris-littered shore Friday as divers retrieved bodies from a jet that crashed off the West African nation of Benin with 161 people on board.

More than 20 people, including the pilot, survived the Christmas Day crash. Dozens of others were still missing and feared dead, officials said.

The Boeing 727, carrying mostly Lebanese, clipped a building at the end of the runway and plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, scattering bodies and debris along the beach and into the sea.

LONDON

British fox hunters, protesters face off

Thousands of scarlet-clad fox hunters rode out Friday for traditional post-Christmas hunts, defying the boos and jeers of protesters demanding an end to blood sports.

The pro-hunting Countryside Alliance said up to 275,000 riders and supporters attended 350 Boxing Day hunts around the country. Enthusiasts pledged to fight any attempt to ban the sport, which has polarized Britain and created a dilemma for the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Opponents say fox hunting, in which horseback riders in red jackets chase foxes across the countryside with packs of hounds, is a barbaric practice that has no place in modern society.

Bosnia-Herzegovina

Serbs appoint panel to investigate massacre

The Bosnian Serb republic, facing international pressure to admit atrocities committed during the 1990s, has appointed a commission to investigate Europe’s worst massacre since World War II.

The government of Bosnia’s Serb-run republic said Friday it had appointed a seven-member team to review the massacre of up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica, a Muslim enclave in eastern Bosnia overrun by Serbs in 1995.

“The commission’s main task is to establish the complete truth about the events in and around Srebrenica … in order to achieve permanent peace and trust in Bosnia,” the government said in a statement.