ELECTIONS

S.N.L. takes on Perry, Bachmann, Romney and whole Republican cast on the opening of the show Saturday night.

Ending the ongoing speculations in Russia over the next presidential candidate from the ruling United Russia party, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Saturday accepted President Dmitry Medvedev's proposal to stand for president in March 2012.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the UN General Assembly on September 22 to make a plea for Palestinian statehood.

Banda conceded to Sata on Friday, ending three days of riots and protesting. The presidential vote was held nationwide on Tuesday, but the government had been slow to tally the votes, a fact which angered eager Zambians.

Sata has long complained about undue Chinese influence upon the Zambian economy and political life.

After 85 of 150 voting districts have been tallied, Sata leads the race with 43 percent of the vote, compared to President Banda's 36 percent. However, Banda still leads in the most recent opinion polls.

Zambia held presidential elections Tuesday, but two days later only 85 of the country's 150 constituencies have reported results, sparking wide-scale unrest in the country and again bringing up fraud allegations. While all eyes are on Zambia, one nation's gaze is especially fixed: China.

Lal Krishna Advani, the 83-year-old veteran of opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said on Wednesday he did not want to run for prime minister again in elections due by 2014, a move that frees up younger candidates to challenge the government.

In an interview with Newsmax, a conservative news magazine, former President Bill Clinton told founder and CEO Christopher Ruddy that Obama’s approach to tackling the deficit was “a little confusing,” and said that President Obama should not increase taxes in this economy.

Is the United States capable of tax reform? U.S. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., thinks so. Still, U.S. tax code revisions are arduous because they go to the core of the United States -- commerce -- and a tax code alteration can result in a change to a company's or group's slice of the economic pie.

Twitter executives announced that they will start selling political advertisements, seeking for the first time to profit off of the social media tool's role as a forum for political activity and debate.

Multiple Republican-led states have passed new election laws that severely hamper certain groups' ability to vote, a move that many Democrats see as a move to weaken their base ahead of the 2012 presidential election.

Top Congressional Republicans on Tuesday took the unusual step of telling the Federal Reserve to refrain from further intervention in the economy on the eve of the central bank's policy decision.

Libya will likely name a new government within 10 days, interim Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril said, raising hopes of political progress in the fractured country weeks after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.

Rick Perry still holds a sizable lead over Mitt Romney among Republican primary voters, but Romney does better among the general electorate, according to the latest Gallup poll. Ron Paul came in third, and Michele Bachmann fell into single digits.

Zambians voted on Tuesday in a closely contested election between President Rupiah Banda and opposition leader Michael Sata, who has been a critic of foreign investment in Africa's biggest copper producer, most notably from China.

Libya's new flag flew at the United Nations on Tuesday for the first time since Muammar Gaddafi's overthrow as U.S. President Barack Obama called for the last of the deposed leader's loyalists to stop fighting.

Tristane Banon -- the French writer who has accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault -- said she will sue the former-banker if French authorities decide not to open a criminal trial.

Between 1960 and 2008, the percentage of eligible voters who have bothered to cast their ballots during the presidential elections have ranged from about 49 percent to 63 percent.

Madagascar will arrest exiled former president Marc Ravalomanana if he returns to the Indian Ocean island, a senior cabinet minister said a day after signing a road map aimed at holding elections within a year.

Gunmen have stormed a bar in Burundi killing at least 36 people, the deadliest attack in the Central African country this year that has heightened fears of a return to civil war.