What happened
Trail hunting will be outlawed in England and Wales under a new animal welfare plan to be published by the government today. The activity involves laying an animal-scent trail for dogs to follow, with riders tracking them on horseback. It has remained lawful since restrictions were introduced in 2004, because it does not directly involve killing wildlife.

Who said what
“In our manifesto we said we would ban trail hunting, and that's exactly what we'll do,” said animal welfare minister Baroness Hayman. Hunting organisations opposed the move. Countryside Alliance chief executive Tim Bonner said revisiting the issue was “completely unnecessary”.

What next?
Ministers will consult on the details of the ban in the new year. Trail hunting is banned in Scotland, while hunting with dogs remains legal in Northern Ireland. Any ban will “raise questions over the future of the approximately 170 hunt packs in England and Wales”, said Jane Dalton in The Independent. They will now “face a dilemma over whether to continue in a different form or whether to fold”.

What happened
Saudi Arabia has recorded its highest ever annual execution total for a second consecutive year, with at least 347 people put to death so far, according to campaign group Reprieve. Most of those executed were sentenced for non-lethal crimes, primarily involving drugs, campaigners said, including 96 solely linked to hashish.

Who said what
“Saudi Arabia is operating with complete impunity now,” said Jeed Basyouni, Reprieve’s head of death penalty for the Middle East and North Africa. She said torture and forced confessions are now “endemic” within the Saudi justice system.

In a bid to diversify his country’s economy away from oil, de facto Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman has “opened Saudi Arabia up to the outside world, taken the religious police off the streets, and allowed women to drive”, said Caroline Hawley on the BBC. But the kingdom’s human rights record remains “abysmal”, according to the US-based campaign group Human Rights Watch.

What next?
The UN is urging an immediate suspension of executions and greater transparency, as scrutiny of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record continues from international monitors and allies.

A Belgian billionaire has a quiet, ambitious plan to create the “Dubai of the Caribbean” on the island of Nevis, said The Brussels Times. Olivier Janssens, who holds Nevisian citizenship through an investment scheme, has unveiled plans for “Destiny”, a “libertarian community with its own legal system” on the Caribbean island.

The “multibillion-dollar project” is likely to involve a “massive reshaping of the south coast of the island” where the development “is already displacing long-term residents by buying their land”, said the Financial Times. It forms part of a wider trend known as the “network state” movement, in which tech billionaires are attempting to establish “their own, more libertarian, territories”. 

Destiny is closer to fruition than most because St Kitts and Nevis recently passed new legislation to allow the creation of so-called Special Sustainability Zones, where “innovative approaches to the governance of tech and digital assets” can be trialled, said Cryptopolitan.

The optics of a “foreign-led takeover” of Nevisian land have sparked a “fiery” debate, said Jam Radio. Former prime minister Timothy Harris described the project as an instrument of “neo-colonialism” and a “return to plantation-era subjugation”.

Janssens has promised that Destiny will be “open to Nevisians and remain under government jurisdiction”, said the Daily Mail, and has pledged a “$50 million [£37.3 million] investment in Nevis’ infrastructure”. The project will serve as a “defining test of how far the island is willing to go in reimagining development, law, and partnership with global capital”, said St Maarten’s The Daily Herald.