NEW DELHI - The Hindu festival of colors, which comes at the end of the winter season and marks the beginning of spring, exploded to life across the world on Monday.
WARSAW, POLAND - Dressed in a white skintight full bodysuit and helmet, Maja Kuczynska spins furiously before diving into a fast-moving sequence of airborne gymnastic moves with the elegance of a ballet dancer.
BAGHDAD - Kadhim Flayeh taps three fingers on his watch. It's the sign for kickoff: one of Iraq's top soccer coaches has lost his voice.
MILTON, MASSACHUSETTS - Sweaters for chickens? It sounds like a joke, but a plucky group of retirees in suburban Boston has hatched a plan to keep poultry warm during the New England winter.
ALGIERS, ALGERIA - An archaeological treasure trove on the site of a planned metro station in central Algiers is set to become a museum, opening a window on 2,000 years of history.
ISLAMABAD - Pakistan will this week embark on the enormous task of conducting its first census in almost two decades, after years of bickering between politicians concerned about power bases and federal funding.
TOKYO - King Salman and hundreds of business leaders from Saudi Arabia are in Japan for talks on Monday mainly focused on economic relations.
SEOUL - Ousted South Korean leader Park Geun-hye faced criticism on Monday over a defiant vow that the truth of her impeachment would be revealed, with the main opposition party urging prosecutors to investigate her quickly.
ISTANBUL - A diplomatic crisis between Turkey and the Netherlands deepened on Monday as both sides traded bitter accusations after Turkish ministers were blocked from holding rallies to win support for plans to expand the powers of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
ANKARA/THE HAGUE - Turkey told the Netherlands on Sunday that it would retaliate in the "harshest ways" after Turkish ministers were barred from speaking in Rotterdam in a row over Ankara's political campaigning among Turkish emigres.
SEOUL - The liberal politician expected to succeed disgraced Park Geun-hye as the Republic of Korea's next president could significantly soften Seoul's stance towards the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and possibly delay deployment of a US missile-defence system.