The death toll after a ferry capsized in Lake Victoria has risen to 151, state-run TV station TBC said Saturday as rescue workers pressed on with the search to find scores more people feared drowned.

The Maldives presidential election on Sunday will not be free and fair because President Abdulla Yameen has used draconian laws to crackdown on rivals, a foreign monitoring group said on the eve of voting.

The Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) said the political environment in the tourist paradise was heavily tipped in favour of Yameen and they did not expect a fair contest.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif blamed "a foreign regime" backed by the United States for Saturday's attack on a military parade which killed at least eight troops and several civilians.

"Terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime have attacked Ahvaz," Zarif said in a tweet, adding: "Iran holds regional terror sponsors and their US masters accountable for such attacks.

Militants attacked a military parade in southwestern Iran on Saturday, killing several civilians, state media reported.

Women foreign ministers from around the world kicked off a first-of-its-kind meeting on Friday, bringing together more than half of the world's top women diplomats in Montreal.

Donald Trump faced a new challenge to his authority Friday after US media reported that his deputy attorney general had discussed ways to force him from office on grounds of incompetence, just months into his presidency.

In the latest bombshell to rock the troubled administration, The New York Times and The Washington Post reported that Rod Rosenstein in May 2017 had suggested secretly recording Trump for evidence of White House dysfunction -- and using that to formally remove him from power.

Pope Francis kicks off a Baltic tour in Catholic Lithuania on Saturday where he will honour victims of the region's Nazi and Soviet occupations as the Church reels from fresh clerical abuse scandals.

A Turkish court ordered an Austrian student and journalist to be kept in jail ahead of a trial on terror charges following his detention last week, his lawyer said on Friday.

Twelve villagers were killed and 14 injured in an attack by suspected jihadists on a village in a gas-rich region of northern Mozambique, a local source told AFP on Friday.

Since October, the southeast African country's golden vision to exploit its gas reserves has been thrown into doubt by an explosion of bloodthirsty assaults in the region where the industry plans to base its hub.

German police have arrested a 20-year-old woman on suspicion of serving in the Islamic State group.

Federal prosecutors said Friday the German-Algerian woman, identified as Sarah O. for privacy reasons, is accused of membership in a foreign terrorist organization.