North Koreans voted Sunday in a predetermined election for a rubber-stamp parliament -- an exercise that doubles as a national head count and may offer clues to power shifts in Pyongyang.

The vote to elect representatives for the Supreme People's Assembly (SPA) was taking place as scheduled, the state-run KCNA news agency said, adding that voter turnout was a whopping 91 percent as of 2.00 pm (0500 GMT).

Thousands rallied in Spanish cities on Saturday to mark International Women's Day with noisy demonstrations for equality at work and against the government's bid to curb abortion rights.

The annual awareness day drew particular attention this year with campaigners defending women's labor rights as Spain struggles with a 26-percent unemployment rate despite exiting recession in 2013.

Two passengers on a Malaysia Airlines passenger aircraft that went missing in Asia with 239 people on board appeared to have been travelling on stolen EU passports, it emerged Saturday.

An Austrian, named in reports as Christian Kozel, 30, had his passport pinched in Thailand in 2012, while Italian Luigi Maraldi, 37, had his stolen last year, also in Thailand, officials and sources said.

Victims of Stalin's mass deportations in 1944, Crimea's Tatar Muslim minority look wearily on next week's referendum on joining Russia, which could well bring the crisis on the tense peninsula to new heights.

At the Great Mosque in Bakhchysaray, near the southern tip of the Black Sea region, the local Tatar representative Akhtem Chiygoz slams the March 16 vote as "illegal".

The Central African Republic's interim president on Saturday denounced atrocities being carried out against "Muslim sisters" across the country due to the brutal sectarian violence, in a speech to mark International Women's Day.

"It is deeply sad that on this special day our Muslim sisters cannot be with us, simply because they were attacked yesterday and they fear for their safety," said Catherine Samba Panza, the first woman ever to lead Central African Republic.

Ukraine's former Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, has arrived in Berlin for medical treatment, a hospital official said Saturday.

The face of the pro-Western Orange Revolution in 2004, who suffers from herniated discs, started medical examinations on Saturday morning, said Karl-Max Einhaupl, director of the Charite University Hospital, Berlin.

President Barack Obama and key European allies expressed "grave concern" Saturday over Russia's actions in Ukraine as Washington warned further military escalation could jeopardize chances of brokering a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

The White House said Obama discussed Ukraine in calls with French counterpart Francois Hollande, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Italian leader Matteo Renzi.

The United States on Saturday condemned recent attacks by government-backed mercenary fighters in Darfur, and urged the Sudan government to prevent further acts of violence.

"We are deeply concerned by the recent escalation of violence by the Sudanese government-supported Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Darfur," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement, referring to a mercenary force of about 6,000 men fighting alongside the Sudanese Armed Forces.

Tearful and angry, the friends and relatives of passengers on board missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 lashed out at the company Saturday as journalists besieged them in a Beijing hotel.

Many were taken there by the airline after going to the Chinese capital's airport to meet the flight, scheduled to land at around 6:30am.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has announced he and his deputy William Ruto will be taking a 20-percent pay cut and ministers' salaries will be reduced by 10 percent in a bid to rein in the country's soaring public wage bill.

The pay cuts will take place "with immediate effect," Kenyatta said in a speech on Friday, adding that the current spending levels were unsustainable.