Polls were due to open at 8 am and close at 6 pm. Voting is mandatory for the 106 million Brazilians aged between 18 and 55. Because of the time it will take to collect votes cast in remote areas of the Amazon, it is likely to take several days before official results are announced. But the outcome should already be evident within hours of the vote, as 58 per cent of the voters will use computerized ballot boxes. While opinion polls suggest President Fernando Henrique Cardoso is virtually guaranteed re-election, the question remains whether he will win on Sunday or whether a runoff election will be held on October 25.

TEHRAN: Four members of the ultra-Islamic Taliban militia have been arrested in southeastern Iran on charges of espionage and intention to commit acts of sabotage, the Tehran dailyAssr Azadegan reported today.

Quoting unnamed local intelligence sources, the daily reported that the four were arrested in Zahedan, the capital of the border province Sistan-Baluchistan. The report gave no further details. Last month, several drug traffickers allegedly linked to the Taliban were arrested in the border areas in eastern and southeastern Iran.

ISLAMABAD: A spurt in the murders of new actresses in the past five years has cast a long shadow on the Pakistan film industry as producers have begun to shrink from investing crores of rupees on new faces. Nargis, one of the most popular actresses, nowadays fears that a police-officer is after her life. Film-makers now avoid giving her a role.

An investigative report in the Urdu daily Jang says that most of the murders are the result of professional rivalries between the new actresses or an outcome of their extra-curricular activities. While some actresses employ criminals to teach a lesson to their rivals, others befriendpolice officers to ensure their security.

ANKARA: The Turkish government, which sent about 10,000 soldiers into northern Iraq to attack Kurdish rebels, has said it might send forces into Syria to eradicate guerrilla bases there, say news reports. Turkey's incursion into northern Iraq on Friday followed two days of airstrikes against suspected rebel bases, the daily Hurriyet said yesterday.

Kurdish rebels fighting for autonomy in southeastern Turkey wage cross-border raids from camps in Iraq, Iran, and Syria. The Ankara government accuses Syria of aiding the rebels, a charge Damascus denies.

Turkey warned the Syrian government on Friday that its ``patience was running out''. General Huseyin Kivrikoglu, chief of the general staff, has described the mounting tension with Syria as ``an undeclared war''.