Afghanistan
KABUL — Supporters of Afghan President Hamid Karzai appeared to have won a majority of seats in the country's landmark parliamentary elections, observers said Saturday, as final results were announced amid continued violence. The polls were hailed as a success in the country's slow march toward democracy.
Azerbaijan
BAKU — President Ilham Aliev dismissed the possibility of a revolution in his former Soviet republic following disputed elections, saying in comments released Saturday that people were satisfied with his government and the opposition was too weak to pose a challenge. The president's party won more seats than any other, retaining its grip on parliament, according to official results from Nov. 6 elections that international observers said fell short of democratic standards.
China
BEIJING — China tested an ill poultry worker for bird flu on Saturday, and Vietnam reported two new outbreaks of the virus. The Chinese woman was hospitalized with a 102 degree fever in Liaoning province in the northeast, which has suffered four bird flu outbreaks in poultry, news reports said. She was among 121 people who fell ill in Liaoning's Heishan County with fevers and flu-like symptoms this week.
Cuba
HAVANA — Cuba is home to some 11.2 million residents, three-quarters of whom live in urban areas, according to the communist island's third census since the 1959 revolution that launched Fidel Castro to power.
Germany
BERLIN — Some 2,000 neo-Nazis clashed with police on Saturday outside Germany's largest World War II soldiers cemetery, where the extremists had hoped to stage a demonstration in honor of the Nazi soldiers.
BERLIN — The son of Yehudi Menuhin was ousted as head of the German branch of the music foundation set up by the violinist and humanist after comments he made to a newspaper run by Germany's leading far-right party, the foundation said Saturday. Menuhin said it was "not healthy" to hold Germany to the crimes it committed 60 years ago.
BERLIN — Chancellor-designate Angela Merkel on Saturday pledged that her left-right coalition will work to reverse Germany's "downward trend." Amid criticism of a program that features hefty tax hikes, she insisted that her government would not shrink from "doing what we consider right."
Italy
ROME — Pope Benedict XVI urged Iraqi Catholics on Saturday not to be discouraged and to continue working for peace and reconciliation. Benedict made the appeal during an audience with the patriarch of Chaldean Catholics, Emmanuel III Delly, and other bishops from the Chaldean church at the end of their weeklong meeting, or synod, in Rome.
Liberia
MONROVIA — Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, all but assured of becoming Africa's first elected female head of state with an insurmountable lead in Liberia's presidential vote, on Saturday rebuffed suggestions by her opponent of fraud and laid out her priorities for governing the country.
North Korea
North Korea on Saturday stood by its demand for aid in exchange for shutting down a plutonium-producing nuclear reactor, saying it won't act until Washington offers concessions. "As we have to follow the 'action for action' principle, we will act if action is made," the North's envoy to six-nation disarmament talks, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan, told The Associated Press. "We will never move first."
Pakistan
MUZAFFARABAD — Health authorities Saturday launched a two-week campaign to immunize 800,000 children in divided Kashmir to prevent infectious disease from thriving in the crowded and sometimes squalid tent camps for earthquake survivors.
LAHORE — Hundreds of Muslims attacked and burned two churches in Pakistan on Saturday after reports that a Christian man had desecrated Islam's holy book. No one was injured in the blazes.
South Africa
DURBAN — South Africa's dismissed deputy president, Jacob Zuma, cheered by thousands of supporters and surrounded by blocks of tight security, was indicted Saturday on corruption charges involving his financial adviser and two French arms companies.