World News

Gunmen staged new attacks Wednesday on health workers carrying out a nationwide polio vaccination program. On Tuesday, six workers were killed as they went house to house.

A day after eurozone lenders finally released about $45 billion in loans to Greece, a top credit agency raised its rating on the country by a six points. It's a rare piece of good news for Greece, which still faces Depression-level unemployment and at least another year of recession.

President Vladimir Putin's decision to sack his defense minister has created widespread speculation about his motives. The defense minister was embroiled in a scandal, but analysts say Putin's decision may point to a larger battle over the future of Russia's military.

Park Geun-hye's father was a military dictator who ran the country for nearly two decades. She has apologized for her father's suppression of democracy and appears to be slightly favored in Wednesday's presidential vote.

The Liberal Democratic Party won resoundingly Sunday in parliamentary elections that both Washington and Beijing were watching carefully. The conservative LDP's hawkish leader, Shinzo Abe, will become Japan's prime minister for the second time and has pledged to take a harder line on China.

Sunday's parliamentary election is taking place against a backdrop of increasing nationalist feeling in Japan. Right-wing sentiment has been growing in the face of an ongoing conflict with China over a group of disputed islands and continued economic and political instability inside Japan.

Despite more than a decade of international efforts to support women in Afghanistan, female entrepreneurs remain relatively rare. But one Afghan woman is trying to show the men a thing or two about making high-quality furniture in Afghanistan.

There's no place for chronic misplacers of keys at the 21st World Memory Championships under way in London. About 75 competitors from some two dozen countries are vying to see who can memorize the most numbers, faces, playing cards or random words in a set amount of time in this "mnemonic Olympiad."

In Egypt, voter turnout is high in the first phase of a controversial constitutional referendum. This comes after more than three weeks of mass protests for and against the document and President Mohammed Morsi, leaving Egypt deeply divided.

In many countries, the very young have zero interest in politics. After decades of conflict, however, Gaza is an intensely political place and its young people were out in force to give Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal a hero's welcome — even though many are still suffering the effects of the recent eight-day missile offensive.