Pakistan's election commission on Monday barred former prime minister and opposition leader Nawaz Sharif from a Jan. 8 general election because of his criminal record.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez crashed to an unprecedented defeat Monday as Venezuelans narrowly rejected his bid to run for re-election indefinitely and accelerate his socialist revolution.

A British teacher jailed after she allowed her students to name a teddy bear Muhammad was released Monday, hours after Sudan's president pardoned her, a British Embassy spokesman said.

Australia raised hopes of global action to fight climate change Monday by agreeing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, isolating the United States at UN-led talks in Bali as the only rich nation not in the pact.

How to spend a day doing a circuit of Moscow's most exciting contemporary art exhibits.

Nov. 3 marked the 50th anniversary of the first orbital spaceflight by a living being. On this date in 1957, a dog called Laika was launched into orbit aboard Sputnik 2.

We won't hand over the islands!"" is the motto of the new restaurant Kurily, named after the archipelago that Russia and Japan have been feuding over since the end of World War II.

A recipe from Andre Martin, the new consultant chef at Le Royal Meridien National Hotel.

Community Bulletin Board

Now that United Russia has claimed a landslide victory, it has secured its much-desired mandate -- and the accompanying responsibility to make good on its campaign promise to follow President Vladimir Putin's policies once he leaves office.

Ever since the first elections to the Supreme Soviet in 1937 under the Stalinist Constitution, buffets at polling places have been an integral part of the election process. My earliest recollection of these heavily discounted buffets was in the 1970s, when I accompanied my parents as they ""fulfilled their civic duty"" on election day.

I drafted this column on Sunday before the results of State Duma elections were in, but I do not need to change much after the Central Elections Commission announced their preliminary results on Monday.

No Russian politician would risk opposing pension hikes in an election year. During the State Duma campaign, the competition was fierce among all of the parties to become the greatest friend of the country's 38 million pensioners.

Chechnya and other North Caucasus republics reported nearly 100 percent voter turnout and a similarly high percentage of votes going to United Russia in the State Duma elections.

Nashi, the pro-Kremlin youth group, accused the United States of planning to incite ""thieves and traitors"" to seize key public buildings and squares and urged the crowd at a post-election celebration to help thwart the attempt.

British prosecutors will not drop charges against Andrei Lugovoi for the poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko after Lugovoi, a former security services officer, was elected Sunday to the State Duma.

A new explosion tore through a Ukrainian mine as workers were searching for bodies from the last deadly blast, killing five people and injuring dozens, officials said Monday.

A Moscow court on Monday convicted the head of a leading rocket and space research center and sentenced him to 11 1/2 years in prison for illegally selling weapons technology to China.