Angola
LUANDA — More than 60,000 people were displaced in September in Angola where the civil war is taking a heavy toll on civilians, the United Nations said. The war, land mines, bandits, diseases and malnutrition continued to decimate the population, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a report.
Bulgaria
SOFIA — Pope John Paul II will visit Bulgaria next May, the foreign minister announced. Solomon Pasi told reporters he had received a confirmation of the visit from Monsignor Antonio Mennini, the apostolic nuncio in Sofia. The exact date was left open.
China
BEIJING — The Beijing consulate was closed on Thursday for a second time during an investigation into a package containing white powder, an embassy spokesman said. The embassy closed its consular and visa office in the Kerry Centre near the British embassy on Wednesday after a suspect package containing white powder was opened by a member of staff, sparking fears of an anthrax attack.
England
LONDON — Anti-abortion campaigners launched a High Court battle to overturn new regulations that allow the creation of cloned human embryos for medical research.
Indonesia
JAKARTA — A magnitude 5.6 earthquake rattled western Indonesia's Aceh province on Thursday, seismologists said. There were no reports of damage. The temblor was centered beneath the Indian Ocean, 100 miles west of the regional capital, Banda Aceh, the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said.
Ireland
DUBLIN — Prime Minister Bertie Ahern will hold talks with President Bush in Washington next week, the Irish government announced. The two leaders will discuss the military campaign in Afghanistan and the recent breakthrough in the Northern Ireland peace process.
Japan
TOKYO — Old guard rivals in Japan's ruling party openly challenged reformist Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, urging him to shift priority to propping up the economy and pledging to draft their own proposals to do so.
Malaysia
KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said Thursday that a local group linked to the Taliban conspired to attack American sailors who arrived in this Southeast Asian country but the plans fell through. In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp., Mahathir said members of the group studied in Pakistan and traveled to Afghanistan, where they became involved with the ruling Taliban militia and what the Malaysian leader called "the Osama bin Laden group."
Nova Scotia
LUNENBURG — A suspicious Halloween night fire heavily damaged one of the oldest Anglican churches in North America, police said. Smoke was still rising from the blaze at St. John's Anglican in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. The 248-year-old building is one of the reasons the coastal town enjoys the status of a U.N. World Heritage site.
Portugal
LISBON — A fire in a home for the elderly in the Lisbon suburb of Cascais killed six people on Thursday, authorities said. Lusa news agency said the home had nine elderly residents and quoted its owner as saying it had no fire extinguishers.
Russia
MOSCOW — Russia's Supreme Court threw out a bid to rehabilitate Gen. Andrei Vlasov, the Soviet Union's best-known World War II traitor, who joined forces with the Nazis in an attempt to overthrow Josef Stalin. The court's military collegium rejected the request to grant a post-Soviet rehabilitation to Vlasov, who surrendered to German forces after being surrounded while trying to break through the siege of Leningrad.
South Korea
SEOUL — A Web site is offering the first commercial e-mail link to North Korea, which has virtually shut out the world of the Internet. Silibank.com — a company based in Shenyang in northeast China, and supported by the North Korean government — said it installed server computers in the city and in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, in early October and is running an experimental e-mail service.
Turkey
ISTANBUL — Tugboats hauled a half-built aircraft carrier through Istanbul's narrow Bosporus strait on Thursday, forcing Turkey to temporarily shut down one of the world's busiest waterways. Normal traffic through the Bosporus — the sole passageway between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean — resumed by mid-afternoon after the unfinished flattop completed its six-hour passage. A normal oil tanker would make the trip in 1.5 hours.