Abu al-Waleed al-Ghamdi, the leader of Arab fighters in Chechnya, was killed in the rebel Russian region a few days ago, his brother said yesterday. Antonio Figueiredo Lopes, its Interior Minister, said Portugal might withdraw its 128 police officers from Nasiriyah “If … the conflict deepens and the police cannot carry out their mission, they will have to withdraw,” he said.But Portugal’s Foreign Minister, Teresa Gouveia, insisted: “The government is not going to pull its forces out of Iraq.”Portugal’s conservative government, which backed the US-led invasion of Iraq, provided police after the socialist President, Jorge Sampaio, who is head of the armed forces, refused to deploy troops without a mandate from the UN.Portugal’s Prime Minister, Jos?urao Barroso, rebuked Mr Zapatero for “making concessions to terrorism” by promising to bring the troops out. His main campaign pledge was to bring the 1,300 troops home unless the UN took political and military control of the situation in Iraq. Spain’s new socialist Prime Minister, Jos?uis Rodriguez Zapatero, honoured his pledge to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq yesterday, making the order his first public action. The decision lends urgency to the imminent visit to Washington by Spain’s new Foreign Minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, who will present the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, with a fait accompli, while soothing Spain’s erstwhile coalition partner with offers of co-operation after Spanish troops have gone.Cracks have also started to appear elsewhere in the coalition and could leave George Bush and Tony Blair stranded.Portugal, hitherto a staunch American ally, sent mixed signals at the weekend.

The government will not and cannot act against Spaniards’ wishes.” Withdrawal “would contribute to the international community’s fight against terrorism from a position of international legality”. “With the information we have, and which we have gathered over the past few weeks, it is not foreseeable that the UN will adopt a resolution that would satisfy Spain’s terms,” he said.He said the decision “responds to my wish to honour my promise. The move, which came just hours after Mr Zapatero’s cabinet had occupied their ministries, risks unnerving other coalition members at a time when violence against Allied troops has begun to spread across Iraq.Mr Zapatero said he had ordered the troops to return home, and had instructed his Defence Minister, Jos?ono, to “do what is necessary for the Spanish troops stationed in Iraq to return home in the shortest time possible”. And Jose Montilla, architect of Catalonia’s ruling tripartite alliance between socialists, communist-leaning greens and pro-independence nationalists, occupies the key ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade.And at Mr Zapatero’s right hand, most senior of all, the deputy prime minister who will co-ordinate government activities is the magistrate Teresa Fernandez de la Vega who has a long track record as a legal reformer and feminist.. Mr Alonso is flanked, at Justice, by Juan Fernandez Lopez Aguilar, a hyperactive Canarian with a law doctorate from Bologna university, who wants to simplify Spain’s arcane legal system.Mr Zapatero’s close allies who orchestrated his election victory, Jesus Caldera and Jordi Sevilla, take ministries of labour and social affairs, and public administration respectively.

It involves a government minister, the RSPCA, the country’s top hunting brass, William the Conqueror and – incongruously – the art critic Brian Sewell. It has cost one man £50,000, and goes right to the heart of the future of hunting in England and Wales.In his bowler hat, black jacket, cream jodhpurs and gleaming riding boots, Michael Thomas, 60, looks every bit the hunting gent. His family has hunted in the New Forest for five generations, and he has been riding since he was a boy. His imposing house is a treasure trove of hunting memorabilia: antlers and deer hooves are mounted on the walls, alongside enormous oil paintings of hunting scenes; there are photographs from the several years he spent as chairman of the prestigious New Forest Buckhounds (NFB) hunt; and by the back door, more riding boots than you can shake a whip at.The New Forest holds a special place in hunting history. Foxes and deer have been hunted here since William the Conqueror declared it a royal hunting ground in 1079.

In the 1980s, it became a major battleground in the fight to ban hunting with dogs: anti-hunting campaigners targeted the NFB relentlessly and with great effect. When, in 1997, they captured some particularly gruesome footage of a young hunter jumping on the back of a buck and drowning it in a river, there was a public outcry, and shortly afterwards, the NFB announced that it would stop hunting – though it claimed the decision was a response to increasing urbanisation and pressures from tourism. A socialist veteran who has won six elections as regional leader of Castilla-Leon with an absolute majority, he was pipped as socialist leader by Mr Zapatero in 2000.Newcomers to the public eye are Jose Antonio Alonso, Interior Minister, a magistrate and old friend of Mr Zapatero who harangued conservatives mercilessly for supporting President George Bush and for politicising judicial bodies supposed to be independent. Jose Bono at the Defence Ministry is to bring home the troops. He flies to Washington after today’s inaugural cabinet meeting to propose formulas for co-operation in Iraq after the troop withdrawal.Pedro Solbes, at finance, reoccupies his old ministry, after a stint as EU economics commissioner: he is unexciting, non-confrontational, an international guarantee that Spain’s finances are in safe hands. She must find options for the scrapped Ebro river transfer plan and reconcile demands of rainy north-eastern regions and the parched south.Other figures likely to become household names are Miguel Angel Moratinos, at Foreign Affairs, a diplomat and former EU envoy to the Middle East, who must rebuild alliances to overcome international discrepancies over Iraq and the future of Europe.