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.

BEIJING, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - Two US and two British nationals who unfurled a giant 'free Tibet' banner near an Olympic venue in Beijing on Wednesday have been ordered to leave China, the state Xinhua news agency said.

Two of the protesters, members of the Students for a Free Tibet group, will leave on Wednesday and the other two on Thursday, the report said, citing police.

LONDON, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - Two campaigners from the group which staged a dramatic protest in Beijing Wednesday carried out a similar action hours later by scaling London's Tower Bridge.

SOFIA, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - Hundreds of Bulgarian farmers imposed road blockades around the country Wednesday in a new action to demand agricultural state subsidies.

Traffic was stopped on major roads between Silistra and Dobric in the northeast, between Stara Zagora and Plovdiv in the south and at the Shipka pass in the Balkan mountains, national radio reported.

BEIJING, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - US and British activists staged a dramatic protest in Beijing on Wednesday, scaling a pole and unfurling giant 'Free Tibet' banners close to the stadium where the Olympics will open in two days.

HONG KONG, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - Two days before the Beijing Games, Christina Chan is planning how to get around Hong Kong's Olympic security so she can make her point about China's human rights record.

'I bought my ticket for the games this Saturday so there is no way they can stop me from getting inside,' she said.

BEIJING, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - American swimmer Amanda Beard staged the first athlete protest of the Beijing Olympics, unveiling a nude photo of herself Wednesday outside the Athlete's Village to back an anti-animal cruelty cause.

BEIJING, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - Four foreign activists staged a dramatic protest in Beijing on Wednesday, scaling a huge pole and unfurling giant 'Free Tibet' banners close to the stadium where the Olympics will open in two days.

BEIJING, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - China's Olympic organisers expressed their strong condemnation on Wednesday over a protest by Free Tibet campaigners outside the main stadium for the Games.

'As far as we know, four foreigners gathered illegally and we express our strong opposition to that,' Sun Weide, a spokesman for the Beijing Olympic organising committee, told reporters.

BEIJING, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - Chinese police detained four foreigners near Beijing's Olympic Stadium on Wednesday after they unfurled giant 'Free Tibet' banners, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.