A German court Wednesday rejected a lawsuit by relatives of victims of a deadly air raid in Afghanistan four years ago that was called in by NATO's German command.

In a landmark ruling, the judges found against a father seeking 40,000 euros ($55,000) after the death of two of his children and a widowed mother-of-six whose claim came to 50,000 euros.

Food shortages and fighting between government forces and rebels have forced almost 3,000 people to flee their homes in Sudan's Blue Nile state, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

The latest displacement comes after Defense Minister Abdelrahim Mohammed Hussein said in November that an operation had begun to crush Sudanese rebels.

The U.N. atomic watchdog and Iran said Wednesday that they aimed to agree next month additional "practical steps" to increase transparency over Tehran's nuclear program.

International Atomic Energy Agency chief inspector Tero Varjoranta said after talks in Vienna that the January 21 meeting would also cover long-standing allegations of nuclear bomb research by Tehran.

Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych on Wednesday vowed not to use force against peaceful protesters and urged the opposition to sit down for talks after several dozen were injured in fresh clashes with riot police.

"For the sake of achieving compromise I am calling on the opposition not to reject (talks), not to follow the path of confrontation and ultimatums," Yanukovych said in a statement.

Three of the six countries not covered by the Chemical Weapons Convention are close to joining the agreement, the head of the world's chemical watchdog said Wednesday.

Speaking in Oslo the day after the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) formally received the Nobel Peace Prize, director general Ahmet Uzumcu said Angola, Myanmar and South Sudan "are very close."

Torrential rains unleashed floods and landslides in the state of Rio de Janeiro Wednesday, leaving one person missing and playing havoc with commutes and air travel in Brazil's most iconic seaside city.

Sirens sounded in Rio's hillside slums as authorities declared a state of emergency and made preparations to evacuate areas threatened by landslides.

Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta on Wednesday won a parliamentary confidence vote triggered by the fall of Silvio Berlusconi, promising to push through a pro-European reform agenda and fight populism.

Letta vowed to bring political stability and economic growth to a country on the point of exiting its longest post-war recession, condemning "chaos" after anti-austerity protests this week across Italy.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday to stress the need for talks with the opposition to resolve an election standoff.

The phone calls stepped up diplomatic pressure on Bangladeshi leaders to find a solution to the stalemate amid a worsening of political violence that has left nearly 80 people since late October.

A mob killed a man and wounded three others over the alleged desecration of a Koran in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta on Wednesday, officials said.

The violence started when some vendors allegedly found torn-out pages of Koran in a pomegranate crate they received in a shipment from neighboring Iran, witnesses and officials said.

Thailand's premier said Wednesday she was confident the military would not launch another coup to try to end the kingdom's political crisis, despite a history of seizing power.

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said the coup-makers who ousted her older brother Thaksin as prime minister seven years ago realized that it "doesn't solve any problems".