MALE, Maldives: After two months of political bickering and repeated failure to hold an election, Maldives voters headed to polling stations on Saturday to elect a new president for their vulnerable new democracy.

LONDON: Europe is facing its biggest threat in decades of importing the crippling polio virus.

WASHINGTON: Badmouthed for promoting tawdry kitsch and tell moves, Bollywood's song-and-dance routines — most recently endorsed by first lady Michelle Obama during the White House Diwali celebrations this week - has been recognized as a tool for learning by the US Library of Congress.

CAIRO: Egypt has taken strong objection to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's comments that "Rabaa sign" adopted by the supporters of deposed President Mohamed Morsi is a symbol of denouncing injustice.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Taliban on Thursday named Hakimullah Mehsud's successor days after the dreaded terrorist alliance's chief was killed in a US drone strike in the country's tribal North Waziristan region bordering Afghanistan.

PARIS: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was poisoned to death in 2004 with radioactive polonium, his widow Suha said on Wednesday after receiving the results of Swiss forensic tests on her husband's corpse.

ISLAMABAD: Former Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf was on Wednesday freed after spending nearly six months in house arrest as he has been granted bail in four major cases registered against him, including one over the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

BEIJING: One person was killed and eight injured as series of seven blasts — triggered by homemade bombs packed with ball bearings — rocked the provincial office of the Communist Party in the northern Chinese city of Taiyuan on Wednesday.

RIO DE JANEIRO: Black Bloc anarchists joined other protesters in more than a dozen Brazilian cities on Tuesday to mark Guy Fawkes day, the anniversary of the failed 1605 Gunpowder Plot in London.

BEIJING: One person was killed and eight injured in a series of small explosions on Wednesday outside the provincial headquarters of the ruling Communist Party in the northern Chinese city of Taiyuan, officials said.