A strong 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck off the northern coast of Japan's main Honshu island on Saturday, seismologists said, but no tsunami warning was issued and there were no immediate reports of damage.

The quake hit at 2:48 pm (0548 GMT) in the Pacific some 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Namie town near the tsunami-ravaged Fukushima Daiichi plant, the United States Geological Survey said.

The outgoing head of the IRS told Congress Friday that the U.S. tax agency made "foolish mistakes" in targeting conservative groups, but insisted the action was not politically motivated.

Lawmakers hammered Steven Miller, who resigned this week at the request of President Barack Obama, over abuse of power at the agency that Democrats and Republicans alike criticized as outrageous and unacceptable.

Russia's security services openly named the alleged U.S. intelligence agency's Moscow station chief Friday in a rare breach of protocol after arresting a purported CIA agent working undercover.

Russia announced this week that it had caught alleged agent Ryan Fogle as he prepared to recruit a member of the Russian security forces. Footage was aired showing him wearing a blond wig and his array of spying equipment, including a compass and an old-fashioned mobile phone.

A rush-hour collision between two commuter trains in a suburb north of New York City Friday injured 60 passengers, five of them seriously.

A spokesman for the Metro North commuter train line said the incident involved a train headed into the city and one traveling in the opposite direction toward New Haven, Connecticut.

Activists demanding the closure of Guantanamo prison marked the 100th day of a hunger strike there Friday by submitting a petition to the White House containing some 370,000 signatures.

A group of activists wearing orange jumpsuits and black hoods like those used on detainees at Guantanamo Bay gathered outside the White House to call for the immediate closure of the controversial jail.

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon on Friday named former Dutch government minister Bert Koenders as head of the key U.N. mission in Mali where French and African troops are battling Islamist militants.

Koenders will head U.N. efforts to help Mali's interim government to re-establish control over the African state where Islamist extremists took over the north of the country for 10 months until France intervened in January.

Spain's government Friday approved an emergency reform of the crisis-hit education sector, hoping to reduce the number of school dropouts and curb the soaring youth unemployment rate.

Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said the plan aimed to improve young people's job prospects at a time when unemployment among those aged 16 to 24 has surpassed 57 percent, and 25 percent of Spaniards drop out of school early.

Two car bombs exploded minutes apart in a popular picnic area in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar on Friday evening, killing nine people and wounding more than 60.

The target of the attack was a convoy of police vehicles, officials said, but many of the victims were local residents who had gathered in the area at the end of the Friday holiday to eat and socialize.

French President Francois Hollande was set to sign a gay marriage and adoption bill into law on Saturday after it was cleared by the Constitutional Council which turned down a challenge by the right-wing opposition.

Hollande, who had made "marriage for all" a key election pledge, made the announcement saying it was "now time to respect the law and the Republic" after the top French institution cleared the bill on Friday.

The U.N. General Assembly on Friday put French Polynesia on the global body's decolonization list at a meeting boycotted by France.

The resolution, passed by consensus in the 193 member assembly, was called for by the Solomon Islands and other Pacific states who back the Pacific territory's pro-independence parties.