KATHMANDU, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - A contest to choose the next 'Miss Nepal' slated for Thursday was cancelled after Maoist female lawmakers denounced the beauty pageant.

The former rebels emerged as the single largest party in the country's newly elected assembly and are poised to form the next government.

LONDON, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - The remains of a London theatre where William Shakespeare's early plays including 'Romeo And Juliet' were first performed have been discovered by archaeologists, a museum said Wednesday.

BEIJING, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - China is expected to set a record for box office receipts in 2008, boosted by John Woo's epic 'Red Cliff,' Jet Li's 'The Warlords' and the animated hit 'Kung-Fu Panda,' state media reported Wednesday.

MOSCOW, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - Nobel Prize-winning Russian writer and dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn was laid to rest in a historic Moscow monastery on Wednesday after an ornate church service attended by President Dmitry Medvedev.

MOSCOW, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - Nobel Prize-winning Russian writer and dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn was laid to rest in Moscow's historic Donskoy Monastery on Wednesday after an emotional service attended by President Dmitry Medvedev.

MOSCOW, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who was buried in Moscow on Wednesday, toiled obsessively to expose the darkest secrets of Stalinist rule and ultimately dealt a crippling blow to the Soviet Union's authority.

Born in 1918 amid the bloody aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Solzhenitsyn was initially a loyal Communist.

MOSCOW, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - Nobel Prize-winning Russian writer and dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn was laid to rest in Moscow on Wednesday, as his family and President Dmitry Medvedev looked on, live television images showed.

MOSCOW, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - Russian writer and dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn was to be laid to rest in Moscow's historic Donskoy Monastery on Wednesday after a church service attended by President Dmitry Medvedev.

MOSCOW, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev arrived for the funeral of writer and dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn in Moscow's historic Donskoy Monastery on Wednesday, an AFP photographer said.

MOSCOW, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - The funeral of Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn began Wednesday with a church service at Moscow's historic Donskoy Monastery, with his burial set for about noon (0800 GMT).

About 100 people were in the church as the famed Soviet-era dissident lay in an open coffin with a wooden cross on his chest, surrounded by hundreds of candles.