Former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo's party announced Thursday it would boycott the regional and local elections scheduled for April 21, saying the vote would not be fair.

A Singapore court on Thursday sentenced two Chinese workers to four weeks in jail each for staging a high-rise protest atop construction cranes in December, local media reported.

Egyptian villagers lynched a suspected car thief on Thursday, security sources said, in the latest in a spate of such vigilante killings in the face of growing lawlessness.

A video of a French family of seven kidnapped last month which also purports to show the alleged leader of Nigerian Islamist extremist group Boko Haram was obtained by AFP on Thursday.

Environmental group Sea Shepherd has filed a suit against the crew of Japanese whaling ship Nisshin Maru alleging piracy and attempted manslaughter after they clashed in the Antarctic Ocean in February, their lawyers said on Thursday.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame said Thursday all support would be given to ensure the swift extradition of Democratic Republic of Congo warlord Bosco Ntaganda to the International Criminal Court.

North Korea on Thursday threatened strikes on US military bases in Japan and Guam, escalating tensions as suspicion deepened that Pyongyang was behind a cyber attack on South Korean broadcasters and banks.

South Korea said Thursday it had sourced a damaging cyber attack on its broadcasters and banks to an IP address in China, fuelling suspicions that North Korea may have been responsible.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto urged his countrymen to give his anti-crime strategy one year to bear fruit as the wave of violence persisted, with gunfights, police killings and terrorized parents pulling kids from school.

Exchanges of gunfire broke out in Mali's Timbuktu on Wednesday night after armed men attempted to enter the fabled city by force, a local government source said.

Police arrested eight Greenpeace activists Thursday after members of the group chained themselves to a bridge in Jerusalem demanding US President Barack Obama halt exploratory drilling in the Arctic, an official said.

India's top court upheld the death penalty Thursday for a mastermind of a series of bombings which killed 257 people in Mumbai in 1993, the deadliest set of attacks in the country's history.

Ten years after the "Black Spring" arrest of 75 Cuban dissidents, some in the opposition perceive signs of greater openness while others see a regime that is merely changing tactics to improve its image.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto urged his countrymen to give his anti-crime strategy one year to bear fruit as the wave of violence persisted, with gunfights, police killings and terrorized parents pulling kids from school.

Wednesday's concerted cyber attack against South Korean broadcasters and banks originated from an IP address in China, but the identity of the hackers cannot be confirmed, officials said Thursday.

Britain, France and the United States called Wednesday for a United Nations inquiry into accusations by the Syrian government and the opposition of chemical weapons attacks.

Guantanamo Bay guards have not desecrated or mishandled the Koran in any way, despite allegations by inmates on hunger strike there, a top US general said Wednesday.

A US-based group monitoring human rights in North Korea said Wednesday it was hit by a cyber attack that disabled its website for several hours.

Congolese warlord Bosco Ntaganda, who turned himself in at the US embassy in Rwanda for extradition to the International Criminal Court, will be transferred to The Hague within days, the court's chief prosecutor said Wednesday.

The International Criminal Court will not drop the crimes against humanity charges against Kenyan president-elect Uhuru Kenyatta, The Hague-based court's chief prosecutor said Wednesday.