WORLD

Thousands of Russians joined hands to form a human chain around the Moscow city center Sunday in protest against Vladimir Putin's likely return as president in the election next week.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who had a finger-pointing confrontation with President Barack Obama last month, on Sunday endorsed Mitt Romney for president.

Seven U.S. military trainers were wounded Sunday when a grenade was thrown at their base in northern Afghanistan, as fury deepened over the burning of the Koran at a NATO base. The Afghan Interior Ministry identified one of its employees as a suspect in the fatal shooting of two U.S. officers in its headquarters a day earlier.

Five months into her tenure, is new Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman really up to the job? Chances are no and the indications she gave last week are that she may never measure up.

Greece has set a March 8 deadline for investors to participate in its unprecedented bond swap aimed at sharply reducing its debt burden, according to a document outlining the offer.

With gasoline prices already approaching a distinctly unseasonal $4 a gallon in a presidential-election year, the United States is considering tapping its Strategic Petroleum Reserve as one way to control the prices of crude oil and its derivatives. Herewith is a look at past SPR loans and sales.

White House hopefuls Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum battled over who was the most conservative Republican on Saturday -- while knocking President Barack Obama on account of accelerating gasoline prices -- as the high-octane race in Michigan moves toward a still-uncertain finish.

The German government will decide whether to boost the European bailout fund in March and its parliament is very likely to support any decision for more resources, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Saturday at a meeting of finance officials from the Group of 20 economic powers.

Dozens of democracy activists -- 16 Americans among them -- go on trial in Egypt Sunday in a politically charged case that has led to a crisis in relations between Cairo and Washington while threatening $1.3 billion in annual U.S. military aid to the North African nation.

Only a month ago, Newt Gingrich was atop the Republican Party's presidential-nomination race. Now he is in a fight for a win even in his home state of Georgia as his campaign stakes its future on the Super Tuesday primaries to be conducted March 6.

Germany is easing its opposition to a bigger European bailout fund, officials said, smoothing the way for the world's leading economies to secure nearly $2 trillion in firepower to prevent more fallout from the euro-zone's sovereign-debt crisis.

The world's major emerging economies on Saturday rejected the tradition that an American automatically is selected to head the World Bank and they will look at putting forward their own candidate for the open job.

Two American officers were shot dead at close range in Afghanistan's Interior Ministry on Saturday, a U.S. official said, as rage gripped the country for a fifth day over the burning of the Muslim holy book at a NATO base.

The victims were both American, but their identities have not been revealed yet.

Amid UN nuclear inspectors' findings that Iran has accelerated its enrichment of uranium, the U.S. intelligence community maintains that no hard evidence exists that Tehran has decided to build a nuclear weapon, according to current and former American officials interviewed by the New York Times.

The youth vote is often assumed to go more to Democrats than to Republicans, but an impressive number of young conservatives made the trek to Washington in mid-February for the Conservative Political Action Conference -- more than one-half of the attendees were between 18 and 29 years of age.

On Monday, Saleh will formally transfer power over to Hadi in a formal ceremony.

Iran has yet to clarify a discrepancy in uranium quantities at a Tehran research site, as measurements by international inspectors last year failed to match the amount declared by the laboratory, according to a United Nations nuclear watchdog report released Friday.

According to reports Iran possesses missiles with a range of about 1,250 miles (which would easily place Israel within the target area).

It was an ordinary blue felt pen, and not a bullet, that killed Mohamed Nasheed's term as the first democratically elected president of the Maldives.

Leaders in the euro zone may not be able to meet international demands to bolster their own funds for bailing out the bloc's debtors when they meet next week because Germany is showing no sign of dropping its opposition to the plan, officials in the euro zone said.

American NGOs fund the protests that hold India back from building the nuclear reactors it needs to meet fast-growing energy needs, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in an interview published in Science magazine on Friday.

Former South African president Nelson Mandela was admitted to hospital on Saturday for treatment for a long-standing abdominal complaint, the government said.

After a week when Rick Santorum's presidential campaign often appeared focused on issues like abortion, prenatal testing, and religion, the message from the Republican Party's establishment was becoming clear on Friday: We've had enough.

A report by the U.N. nuclear agency Friday revealed that Iran has sharply improved its controversial uranium enrichment drive, increasing Israel's fear that the Islamic Republic is pushing ahead with the atomic bomb plans.

President Bashar al-Assad's forces killed 103 people in Syria on Friday in the bombardment of the besieged city of Homs and in attacks on the countryside of Hama and the east and north of the country, the activist group Local Coordination Committees said.

A solid U.S. candidate to head the World Bank would be good for the United States and the bank because the world's largest economy should be represented in top international bodies, outgoing President Robert Zoellick said on Saturday, while emphasizing he has no role in the selection process.

Hinting at the possibility of a military strike, the Pentagon is bolstering the U.S. defenses in the Persian Gulf as a preemptive measure to counter any attempt by Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz.

The first wounded and sick women trapped in the most embattled district of the Syrian city of Homs have been evacuated, and talks were held to evacuate more on Saturday, while pressure mounted on President Bashar al-Assad's government to call a ceasefire and let in humanitarian aid.