NATO on Saturday opened negotiations with Afghanistan over a proposed military force to stay in the country after next year, but said no deal would be signed until after a separate agreement with the U.S. was completed.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the U.S. have been in a long and bitter stand-off over the bilateral security agreement (BSA), which would see several thousand U.S. troops deployed in Afghanistan after 2014.

Pope Francis on Saturday told Church officials to be professionals who serve their public and don't gossip, in his first address to the Catholic Church government he has set out to reform.

The Argentine pope has worked quickly since his election in March to establish a series of specialist bodies to tackle corruption and poor management in the Vatican, including at the Roman Curia, the scandal-hit, intrigue-filled government of the Catholic Church.

Nigeria's military has surrounded a village in the northeast to flush out Islamist rebels who fled there after reportedly snatching soldiers' wives and children during a daring attack on an army barracks nearby, witnesses told Agence France Presse Saturday.

Suspected Boko Haram fighters stormed the barracks in the town of Bama early on Friday, spraying it with bullets before torching the compound.

U.S. President Barack Obama was in sunny Hawaii Saturday for a 16-day vacation after a grueling year at the White House.

Obama, his wife Michelle, and daughters Malia and Sasha landed in Honolulu around 11:30 pm Friday (0930 GMT Saturday) and were met on the tarmac by Admiral Samuel Locklear, the head of the U.S. Pacific Command, Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie, and Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell.

The freed Russian ex-tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky is likely to stay out of politics but may write about Russia in the same way as the celebrated dissident Soviet author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a German analyst who helped in his transfer said on Saturday.

Political analyst Alexander Rahr, the author of several books on Russia, told the RTVi channel in an interview that Khodorkovsky's dramatic release Friday had been the result of "clandestine diplomacy" between Russia and Germany.

Brutal fighting in South Sudan has reopened deep-rooted ethnic divisions, forcing tens of thousands of terrified residents to seek shelter at U.N. bases or flee in fear of attacks.

"I am afraid," said Susan Nakiden, who still has bitter memories of the more two decades of civil war that paved the way to the young nation's independence two years ago, when when she was forced to flee her home.

Four U.S. troops were wounded in South Sudan when their aircraft were hit by small arms fire Saturday during a mission to evacuate Americans, the Pentagon said in a statement.

Three Osprey hybrid aircraft -- which can take off vertically like a helicopter but resemble a normal plane and are designed for longer-range tasks -- had been headed for the rebel-held city of Bor, but had to divert to Uganda.

Madagascar's presidential candidates both claimed victory Saturday in run-off polls, each accusing the other of rigging the run-off as results started to trickle in.

Former health minister Robinson Jean Louis, candidate of ousted president Marc Ravalomanana, told Agence France Presse he expected to win 56 percent, while his opponent Hery Rajaonarimampianina claimed to have taken between 60 and 65 percent.

Italian Foreign Minister Emma Bonino arrived in Tehran Saturday for two days of talks, on a rare visit by a senior European official to the Islamic republic, Iranian media said.

Leading a high-ranking delegation, Bonino is to meet her Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif and President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday, the official IRNA news agency said.

Kenya said Saturday it will send troops to troubled South Sudan to evacuate some 1,600 citizens, with many trapped in the flashpoint rebel-held town of Bor.

President Uhuru Kenyatta has "ordered the KDF (Kenya Defense Force) to commence immediate evacuation of the 1,600 Kenyans stranded in South Sudan", presidential spokesman Manoah Esipisu said in a statement.