England

Hunters decry new ban on hunting with dogs

For two foxes in northwestern England, the ban on hunting came too late.

Caught and killed by the dog pack of the Lunesdale Hunt on a bright winter morning, they were casualties on the last day before the centuries-old sport is banned. Now it’s the hounds — in kennels across England and Wales — who face an uncertain future.

The majority of hunts in England and Wales held events Thursday before the start of the ban on hunting with dogs. Scotland, with a separate legal system, already had banned such hunting.

The legislation, forced into law by the House of Commons in November, bans all hunting with hounds, including the pursuit of rabbits and deer. Shooting foxes will remain legal.

In photo above, hounds with the Bilsdale Hunt — the oldest foxhunt in England that dates back to 1658 — head out Thursday near Thirsk before the new ban on hunting comes into force.

Paraguay

Ex-leader’s kidnapped daughter found dead

The family of former President Raul Cubas on Thursday mourned the slaying of his kidnapped daughter after her body was discovered in a pit near an abandoned house, bringing a gruesome end to the country’s highest-profile kidnapping.

The abduction of 32-year-old Cecilia Cubas — allegedly with the involvement of Colombian guerrillas — has added to a heightened sense of fear in this impoverished South American country, long plagued by organized crime, drug trafficking and corruption.

Cecilia Cubas was found dead Wednesday night, nearly five months after she was abducted in a commando-style operation, the latest and most dramatic in a string of highly publicized abductions in the country.

Jose Nicolas Lezcano, a forensic doctor hired by the Cubas family to observe the autopsy, said Cecilia Cubas likely died after an overdose of sedatives about a month ago.

Raul Cubas served as president from August 1998 to March 1999.

Brazil

Forest reserves created in wake of nun’s death

Brazil’s president signed decrees Thursday creating two massive new forest reserves, succumbing to intense pressure to protect a lawless Amazon region from violent loggers and ranchers after the killing last weekend of an American nun who fought to protect the jungle.

The measures signed by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will form a reserve of 8.15 million acres and a national park spanning 1.1 million acres in the state of Para, where 73-year-old Dorothy Stang was shot to death Saturday in a dispute with a powerful rancher.

Logging companies and wealthy landowners have steadily pushed deeper into the world’s largest rain forest, vying for its abundant natural resources.

Poland

Pope’s new book recalls ‘confidence’ after shots

In his new book, Pope John Paul II for the first time described publicly the moments after he was gravely wounded in 1981, saying he was fearful and in pain but had “a strange feeling of confidence” that he would live.

The Polish pontiff also said his would-be assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca, “understood that above his power — the power of shooting and killing — there is a greater power.”

In “Memory and Identity: Conversations Between Millenniums,” the pope said he remembered being rushed to the hospital but didn’t recall much of what happened after he arrived.

The book, his fifth, is essentially a transcript of conversations he had with his friends political philosopher Krzysztof Michalski and the late Rev. Jozef Tishner in 1993. It will be published Feb. 23 in Italy by Rizzoli, which also plans an English version soon for the United States.

Iran

Iran warns of harsh response to attack

Iran warned that any strike on its nuclear facilities would draw a swift and crushing response and called Thursday for an expansion of its newly emerging strategic alliance with Syria to create a powerful united Islamic front that could confront the United States and Israel.

Such an expansion appears unlikely to go far, because many key Arab states — Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia — are close U.S. allies and have long been suspicious of Iran’s Shiite Muslim clerical regime.

The statements came a day after Syria and Iran declared they would form a united front against any threats, and a mysterious explosion near a nuclear facility in southwestern Iran that initially was reported as a missile strike but later was attributed to construction work on a dam.

Nepal

King forms strong anticorruption panel

King Gyanendra on Thursday announced the formation of an anti-graft commission that will be given broad powers to investigate and jail corrupt politicians and government bureaucrats under Nepal’s sweeping state of emergency.

Amnesty International, meanwhile, warned the king’s moves were destroying human rights and taking the country to the “brink of disaster.”

The group’s secretary general, Irene Khan, called on donor nations to suspend military aid to Nepal’s government to pressure it to change its policies.

The move follows a series of draconian measures put in place since Feb. 1, when Gyanendra dismissed the government and declared the state of emergency and a suspension of civil liberties.

Thailand

Car bomb kills five

In an escalation of the sectarian violence plaguing Muslim-dominated southern Thailand, a powerful car bomb exploded Thursday in a busy nightlife district, killing five people and injuring more than 40. The car bomb was believed to be Thailand’s first.

A series of smaller attacks during the past year has been blamed on Islamic separatists in the mostly Buddhist country, but Thursday’s car bomb raised questions whether foreign militants were involved.

The bomb was planted in a car parked near the Marina Hotel in Sungai Kolok, a town on the Malaysian border popular with tourists. No one has taken responsibility for the attack, which police believe was triggered with a mobile phone.

It was not known whether foreign Islamic militants might have been involved, said the acting army commander for the area, Maj. Gen. Khwanchart Klaharn.

The southern Thai militants so far have limited attacks to their own territory and have not targeted Westerners.

Beijing

China will send envoy to North Korea

China said Thursday it would send a top communist party official to North Korea for talks with its longtime ally in an effort to break a stalemate over the North’s nuclear program.

U.S. and South Korean envoys visited Beijing to seek help in persuading the isolated North to rejoin six-nation nuclear talks that were suspended in June. Those talks involve the United States, the two Koreas, China, Russia and Japan.

China, the North’s biggest backer and a major source of aid to the impoverished country, has been wary of openly testing its influence with Pyongyang.

Last week, Pyongyang announced it has produced nuclear weapons.

Georgia

Parliament approves new prime minister

Georgia’s parliament approved the president’s nomination of Zurab Nogaideli as prime minister on Thursday, bringing in a new government two weeks after the previous premier died from apparent carbon monoxide poisoning.

Nogaideli, who had been finance minister, will fill the post left empty by Premier Zurab Zhvania’s sudden death Feb. 3. Lawmakers postponed the confirmation vote last week to give Nogaideli more time to present his policies and his team, which were both approved Thursday by a 175-24 vote.

Nogaideli, 41, served in parliament from 1992 to 2001, when he was named finance minister by longtime President Eduard Shevardnadze. He resigned a year later to protest Shevardnadze’s policies and was appointed to the same post in Zhvania’s government in February 2004.