France's prime minister said Friday he was "open" to a temporary ban on the foreign financing of mosques, after a spate of attacks in the country claimed by jihadists.

Australia refused Friday to back former prime minister Kevin Rudd's bid to be the next secretary general of the United Nations, saying he was not suited to the job.

Rudd was spectacularly dumped as prime minister by his own Labor Party in 2010, with colleagues subsequently alleging that his office was chaotic and he was difficult to work with.

Racial tension and inequality across society are preventing the United States from meeting its "ideals", a U.N. expert said Thursday following his first-ever visit to the country.

Former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Thursday filed a petition with the U.N. Human Rights Committee outlining alleged abuses of power in the corruption case he is embroiled in.

Ukraine's U.N. ambassador on Thursday dismissed as "null and void" a decree by President Vladimir Putin incorporating annexed Crimea into the southern region of Russia.

Volodymyr Yelchenko said he will ask the Security Council to issue a statement reaffirming Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity in response to the decree, even though he fully expects Russia to block it.

Five U.S. special forces troops have been wounded fighting the Islamic State group in eastern Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, the U.S. commander said Thursday.

Hillary Clinton faces the test of a lifetime Thursday as she accepts the Democratic White House nomination in a defining speech aimed at prizing voters away from Donald Trump -- and convincing America to entrust her with the world's biggest job.

It is the center-stage opportunity she came so close to seizing eight years ago during her first White House campaign, only to be defeated in her party's primary race by Barack Obama.

European monitors observing Ukraine's separatist conflict on Thursday urged pro-Russian rebels and government forces to avoid a return to "large-scale military operations," as ceasefire violations escalate and casualties rise.

Turkey on Thursday warned the ex-Soviet state of Kyrgyzstan over the risk of a coup by followers of the U.S.-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, saying they had infiltrated every state institution in the country.

South Sudan stands on the brink of an abyss, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday after a fresh flareup in fighting unleashed a wave of sexual violence.

Ban told the Security Council that he was "appalled by the scale of sexual violence," with U.N. rights officials reporting at least 120 cases of rape over the past three weeks.