Afghanistan
KABUL — A suicide car bomb exploded Saturday morning outside a NATO base in the western town of Herat, killing an Afghan police guard and a passer-by and wounding seven others, officials said. The attack, claimed by the Taliban, was the second in two days on foreign military bases in Afghanistan, as NATO prepares to expand its military presence in the country.
Belarus
MINSK — Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko was sworn in for a third term Saturday and assailed the West for fomenting unrest after an election protested as fraudulent and undemocratic. Several thousand officials and lawmakers gave a standing ovation to a somber-looking Lukashenko, who took his oath during a ceremony at the huge, concrete Palace of the Republic.
Canada
SHEDDEN, Ontario — The bodies of eight men were found Saturday inside four vehicles abandoned in a remote wooded area on a farmer's property in rural Ontario. Police were not disclosing many details about the deaths, except to say that four vehicles were involved, including a tow truck, and that the dead were all men.
England
LONDON — A 300-year-old book that appears to be bound in human skin has been found in northern England, police said Saturday. The macabre discovery was made on a central street in Leeds, and officers said the ledger may have been dumped following a burglary. Detectives were trying to trace its rightful owner. Much of the text is in French, and it was not uncommon around the time of the French Revolution for books to be covered in human skin.
France
PARIS — French students disrupted a Davis Cup tennis tournament and staged a supermarket sit-in amid impromptu protests Saturday to push the government to revoke a youth-jobs law that has divided the nation. President Jacques Chirac was to announce plans for modifications to the law on Monday, based on the results of talks between labor unions and the governing UMP party, his aides said.
Nepal
KATMANDU — The Royal Nepalese Army shot dead a pro-democracy protester and injured another in the Himalayan resort town of Pokhara Saturday, as thousands of Nepalis poured into the streets, defying a curfew and ban on political rallies. By the end of the day — the third of a four-day strike called by a coalition of Nepal's seven largest political parties demanding a return to parliamentary rule — more than 500 people had been detained, according to monitors with the U.N. human rights agency.
Poland
WARSAW — Pope Benedict XVI will travel to Poland next month on a visit that will include the hometown of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, and the Auschwitz concentration camp, Archbishop Jozef Kowalczyk said Saturday. The May 25-28 trip, the pope's second foreign visit, will take Benedict through Warsaw, the capital; Krakow; and Wadowice, the late pope's hometown. The pope will also hold a meeting at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Turkey
ISTANBUL — Turkish forces killed seven Kurdish rebels and arrested a Kurdish suspect in a deadly bombing at a seaside resort last year, but also lost two soldiers to a land mine blast, officials said Saturday. The worst clashes between Turkish security forces and Kurdish protesters in decades have left 16 civilians dead in rioting and attacks in the past week. The funerals of 14 Kurdish guerrillas killed by Turkish troops two weeks ago had sparked the fighting.
Venezuela
CARACAS — Venezuela condemned a crowd of protesters for pelting the U.S. ambassador's car with eggs and tomatoes, but suggested Saturday there were areas in the country that the top U.S. diplomat might consider avoiding. Venezuela's acting foreign minister, Alcides Rondon, criticized the "excesses committed" as inexcusable, but said the U.S. Embassy was no longer giving police escorts advance word of the ambassador's travel plans.