The United States has deployed naval ships equipped with ballistic missile defenses and is monitoring North Korea "very closely" ahead of an anticipated rocket launch, the head of U.S. Pacific Command said Thursday.

It was "logical" that U.S. naval ships in the region would be employed to track North Korea's launch and "to the degree that those those ships are capable of participating in ballistic missile defense, then we'll position them to be able to do that," Admiral Samuel Locklear told reporters at a Pentagon news conference.

A South Sudanese journalist often critical of government was shot dead at his home in the capital Juba, colleagues said Thursday, adding that he been recently threatened to stop writing.

Diing Chan Awuol, who wrote for news websites including Sudan Tribune and Gurtong under the pen-name Isaiah Abraham, was shot dead by unidentified men in his home in the early hours of Wednesday morning, police said.

The only Darfur rebel group to have signed a peace deal with the Sudanese government on Thursday accused the army of launching a deadly attack which the authorities then lied about.

"Yesterday (Wednesday), Liberation and Justice Movement forces came under attack from SAF (Sudanese Armed Forces) near El Fasher," the rebels' chief Eltigani Seisi said in a statement to reporters.

South Africa's foreign ministry has summoned Israel's ambassador in protest against his government's decision to build 3,000 new settlement homes on the West Bank, a senior diplomat said Thursday.

"We felt we had to do this to show how concerned we are about this," said deputy minister of international relations Ebrahim Ebrahim.

Afghanistan's intelligence chief was wounded in an assassination attempt in Kabul on Thursday, officials said.

Asadullah Khalid, head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), was injured in a grenade attack in a guesthouse, police and a senior government official told Agence France Presse.

Former Thai prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is to face a charge of murder over the death of a taxi driver who was shot by soldiers during 2010 "Red Shirt" rallies, authorities said Thursday.

The Department of Special Investigation, police and Thai prosecutors announced the decision, which marks the first charges for deaths during the mass rallies in Bangkok against Abhisit's government.

Four crew members died and seven were missing in the icy waters of the North Sea, after a cargo ship collided with another vessel and sank off the Dutch coast Wednesday night, rescuers said.

"We can confirm that four bodies have been found, along with 13 people rescued alive," said Coast Guard spokesman Marcel Oldenburger.

A military plane has crashed in South Africa's mountainous east, killing 11 people, local media reported Thursday.

The Dakota air force plane, which crashed late Wednesday, was not carrying members of Nelson Mandela's medical team, as earlier unconfirmed reports suggested.

Nearly 200,000 people were homeless and 475 confirmed dead after the Philippines' worst typhoon this year, officials said Thursday, as the government appealed for international help.

Typhoon Bopha ploughed across Mindanao island on Tuesday, flattening whole towns in its path as hurricane-force winds brought torrential rain that triggered a deadly combination of floods and landslides.

One person has died hours after a bomb blast in the Kenyan capital that wounded eight others, the latest in a string of attacks, police said Thursday.

The attack, a "roadside bomb which had been placed in a hole in the ground,” according to Nairobi police chief Moses Nyakwama, was detonated during rush hour on Wednesday evening as people returned home from work.