Eight-time world boxing champion Manny Pacquiao apologized on Tuesday for describing homosexuals as "worse than animals" after his remarks sparked a firestorm of criticism in his native Philippines.

Nearing the end of a glorious decades-long boxing career, the 37-year-old is reinventing himself as a conservative Bible-bearing politician before the country's May elections, when he is running for a senate seat.

Pope Francis asked Mexico's indigenous population on Monday for forgiveness over the exclusion they have suffered as he led a mass in native languages in impoverished Chiapas state.

The pope also used the open-air service in San Cristobal de las Casas to warn that the world faces "one of the greatest environmental crises" in its history.

Poland's national library on Monday said there was "no basis" for suggestions that pope John Paul II had improper relations with a married woman, after a BBC documentary, based on letters from its archives, detailed their "intense" 30-year friendship.

While the report does not claim the late pontiff broke his vow of celibacy with Polish-born philosopher Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, it does say that the tone of some of his letters to her point to intense feelings between them.

Pope Francis is under fire in Ukraine after his historic meeting with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, with the head of the country's Greek Catholic Church saying believers felt "betrayed."

"Today, a lot of believers spoke to me and said they feel betrayed by Vatican," Major Archbishop Svyatoslav Shevchuk said in an interview published late Saturday.

The chief minister of India's popular tourist state of Goa moved to smooth ruffled feathers Saturday after a proposal to reclassify the national bird, the peacock, as vermin sparked an outcry.

Laxmikant Parsekar appeared to rule out including peacocks in a list of "nuisance animals" being drawn up by the state to make them easier to cull, according to the Press Trust of India.

Elbowing each other in the stampede to buy Valentine's Day chocolate for the men in their lives, Japanese women brought stores to a standstill Saturday.

In Japan, the menfolk do sweet nothing on February 14 while the women do battle in heaving aisles, loading up on confectionery treats for the object of their desire.

Saudi Arabia's foreign minister defended his country's treatment of women on Friday, saying it had made progress on female education but would take time to let them drive cars.

"When it comes to issues like women's driving, this is not a religious issue, it's a societal issue," Adel al-Jubeir told an audience at the Munich Security Conference.

Iran says it is cracking down on Valentine's Day celebrations and shops engaging in them will be guilty of a crime.

Iranian news outlets reported the police directive Friday warning retailers against promoting "decadent Western culture through Valentine's Day rituals."

A large fire torched the roof of the Czech National Museum in Prague's central Wenceslas Square in the early hours of Friday morning, firefighters told AFP.

"The fire hit about 200 square metres (2,150 square feet) of the roof and the attic," Prague fire brigade spokeswoman Pavlina Adamcova told AFP, adding the museum's collections were not affected.

Spanish police said Thursday they had dismantled an international ring that smuggled falcons to the United Arab Emirates, where bird-of-prey racing is an elite sport.

"Over the past few years, more than 500 specimens of these birds may have been exported at a value of over one million euros ($1.1 million)," the Guardia Civil police force said in a statement.