U.S. President Barack Obama will cap a challenging political year by giving a news conference at 2:00 pm (1900 GMT), the White House said Friday.

The president has seen his second term agenda stall in 2013, a year spent in furious political and fiscal showdowns with Republicans, and is also facing fierce foreign policy challenges, including over Iran, Syria and an increasingly belligerent foreign policy by China.

Medical facilities in the conflict-ravaged Central African Republic have come under attack, the U.N. health agency said Friday, as aid groups warned of difficulties in getting supplies to those in need.

"Health centers and hospitals continue to be targeted by unidentified militias," World Health Organization spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told reporters in Geneva.

The United Nations said Friday that two Indian peacekeepers were killed and one badly wounded when attackers stormed a base in South Sudan on Thursday.

Confirmation of the deaths came just ahead of U.N. Security Council emergency talks on the crisis in South Sudan, where troops loyal to President Salva Kiir are battling soldiers who follow former vice president Riek Machar.

Pakistani troops pounded suspected militant hideouts in a lawless tribal district for a third day Friday, as the death toll rose to 40 and local residents claimed the operation had left a number of civilians dead.

Clashes between security forces and militants have been rocking North Waziristan district, on the Afghan border, since Wednesday evening when a suicide bombing killed five soldiers at a checkpoint in the town of Mir Ali.

Moscow's pressure on former Soviet states in eastern Europe -- Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova -- is piling further pressure on already strained EU-Russia ties, European leaders said Friday.

"We have differences, even a long list of differences" with Russia, said European Council president Herman Van Rompuy at the close of a two-day summit.

European Union leaders hailed France's intervention in the Central African Republic on Friday and promised a decision on a possible EU support mission in January.

"This is the second time in a year that France has courageously taken the lead in a serious crisis," EU President Herman Van Rompuy said, referring to French intervention in Mali early this year.

Bangladesh said Friday it will deploy thousands of troops next week in an effort to contain deadly political violence ahead of controversial general elections slated for January 5.

Heavily armed troops have already fanned out in major trouble spots across the country but "official deployment" will start December 26, the Election Commission said.

Nigeria's police said Friday they had raided a home where 19 pregnant women were staying with plans to sell their newborns, in the latest discovery of a so-called baby factory.

The owner of the property, suspected of being a broker in a child trafficking ring, is on the run, said Geoffrey Ogbonna, police spokesman in southeastern Abia state.

Sudan expressed fears Friday over the fate of vital oil flows and an influx of refugees and weapons, as fighting between rival army factions spread in South Sudan.

"This will affect all the neighboring countries. In Sudan we are going to suffer even more than the others," Information Minister Ahmed Bilal Osman told Agence France Presse.

Poland said Friday it would send a manned military transport aircraft to back French troops in the Central African Republic in February.

"We will give France logistical support with a military transport aircraft and service crew," of 50 soldiers starting on February 1, 2014 for three months," Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said on his official Twitter feed.