World briefs 2/17/06

Pakistan rallies for fourth straight day over cartoons

KARACHI, Pakistan -- Thousands of people marched through a southern Pakistan city on Thursday and burned effigies of the Danish prime minister in the country's fourth day of protests over cartoons of Prophet Muhammad, police said. About 5,000 police and paramilitary forces were deployed along the two-mile route of the rally to prevent the violence that has plagued other protests throughout the country this week, said Mushtaq Shah, chief of police operations in the southern city of Karachi. Also, consumer boycotts of Danish goods in Muslim countries in protest of the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad are costing Denmark's companies millions, and have raised fears of irreparable damage to trade ties. Danish products have been yanked off the shelves of stores in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other countries around the Middle East as Muslims await an apology for the cartoons.

Employers raise health insurance for smokers

CINCINNATI -- Smokers squeezed by soaring cigarette costs and workplace smoking bans are increasingly being hit with another cost increase -- this time for health insurance. A growing number of private and public employers are requiring employees who use tobacco to pay higher premiums, hoping that will motivate more of them to stop smoking and lower health care costs for the companies and their workers.

Authorities: Dog trainer helped inmate escape

LANSING, Kan. -- A dog trainer who did volunteer work at a prison ran off with a convicted killer after helping him escape in a dog crate loaded into the back of her van, authorities say. Toby Young, a 48-year-old married mother of two grown sons, was the founder of a program that rescued dogs from animal shelters and worked with inmates to train the pets. Authorities at the state prison at Lansing said seven inmates apparently helped pull off the escape Sunday by putting 27-year-old prisoner John Manard into the crate, then hoisting it into her vehicle.

France gets closer to U.S. stance on Iran

PARIS -- France accused Iran on Thursday of secretly making nuclear weapons, ditching Europe's traditional diplomatic caution for bluntness in remarks that echoed the tough U.S. stance on Iran's disputed nuclear program. The accusation from French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy -- which Iran quickly denied -- appeared to reflect mounting exasperation and a tougher stance by one of three key European negotiators. "No civilian nuclear program can explain the Iranian nuclear program. It is a clandestine military nuclear program," Douste-Blazy said on France-2 television.

Government takes action to avoid hitting debt limit

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration told Congress on Thursday it had begun to use a government pension fund to keep from hitting the $8 trillion debt limit. Treasury Secretary John Snow warned in a letter to congressional leaders that he would run out of room to make such maneuvers in about four weeks, meaning the government would lose the ability to meet its obligations unless Congress had raised the borrowing limit by then. As of Tuesday, the government's borrowing subject to the limit stood $38.8 billion below the current debt limit of $8.184 trillion.

Brit accused of killing his family is back in Boston

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. -- Neil Entwistle pleaded not guilty Thursday to murder charges and was jailed without bail in the killings of his wife and baby daughter, who were found shot to death at the couple's Boston home. Entwistle, 27, kept his head bowed as officers led him into the building. He was ordered held without bail pending a hearing March 15. He is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of his wife, Rachel, 27, and their 9-month-old daughter Lillian, killed in their home in Hopkinton on Jan. 20.

-- From wire reports