The Maldives' new president expanded his Cabinet on Sunday to strengthen the coalition government that has ruled the Indian Ocean nation since the former leader's resignation last week sparked a political crisis.

Six members from four political parties were sworn in as ministers in the government led by President Mohammed Waheed Hassan.

A top U.S. diplomat Saturday ruled out snap elections to defuse a political crisis in the Maldives as its new president agreed to probe allegations that a military-backed coup vaulted him to power.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian affairs Robert Blake said there should "breathing space" from this week's violence and a vote could be held after strengthening the elections commission and police.

White House hopeful Mitt Romney has promised to unite Republicans and defeat President Barack Obama in the "battle for the soul of America" as officials in Maine prepared to unveil the results of party caucuses on Saturday.

Romney and his main rivals for the nomination, former House speaker Newt Gingrich and religious conservative Rick Santorum, all made the pilgrimage to the Conservative Political Action Conference here to court the Republican base and lay out their plan to oust Obama in November.

Four years after U.S. drug-maker Baxter International's blood thinner heparin was contaminated in China, causing dozens of deaths, U.S. regulators on Friday issued draft guidelines for safe production.

Heparin, a blood thinner used by millions of patients during kidney dialysis and heart surgery to prevent blood clots, is normally produced from pig intestines.

The United States and Italy back efforts by the Arab League and its plan to send a new observer mission to Syria, Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi said in an interview published Friday.

"We agree with the work of the Arab League and its intention to send a new, larger and more assertive observer mission to verify responsibilities and expose the (Syrian) regime," Terzi told the daily La Stampa after meeting his U.S. counterpart Hillary Clinton in Washington.

The U.S. approved its first new nuclear power reactors in decades on Thursday, despite objections from the country's top regulator that safety issues raised by last year's Fukushima meltdown were not fully addressed.

Commissioners of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted 4-1 to approve the construction of two 1,100 megawatt Westinghouse-Toshiba AP1000 at power generator Southern Co.'s existing nuclear facility in Vogtle, Georgia.

The U.S. television series "House MD," about the unorthodox methods of a cantankerous doctor, will call it quits at the end of its eighth and current season, producers said.

"After much deliberation, the producers of 'House MD' have decided that this season of the show, the eighth, should be the last," the production team said in a statement on Wednesday.

U.S. missiles on Thursday killed al-Qaida's chief in Pakistan, one of the Americans' main targets in the volatile country and wanted for attacks that killed scores of people, officials said.

Badr Mansoor, who reputedly sent fighters to Afghanistan and ran a training camp in North Waziristan, was killed in a pre-dawn drone strike near the Afghan border, Pakistani officials and a member of his group told Agence France Presse.

Afghanistan's forces will be "good enough" to take over its security by the end of 2014, even though only a small number of them now operate independently from NATO-led troops, a top U.S. general said Wednesday.

Lieutenant General Curtis Scaparrotti, deputy commander of U.S. forces and the head of the NATO-led force's joint command, acknowledged that Afghan army and police still had a way to go to manage their country's security without major assistance from foreign troops.

The Pakistani army met with NATO and Afghan forces on Wednesday in an effort to improve coordination along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, a sign of thawing relations after American airstrikes accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers last year.

Pakistan was outraged by the Nov. 26 attack on two of its Afghan border posts and claimed it was deliberate. Islamabad retaliated by closing its border to supplies meant for NATO troops in Afghanistan and by kicking the U.S. out of a base used by American drones.