U.S. authorities urged residents to evacuate a small North Dakota town Monday night after a mile-long (1.6-kilometer) train carrying crude oil derailed outside of town, shaking residents with a series of explosions that sent flames and black smoke skyward.

The Cass County sheriff's office said it was "strongly recommending" that people in the town of Casselton and anyone living five miles (eight kilometers) to the south and east evacuate. A shelter has been set up in Fargo, which is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) away. Casselton has about 2,400 residents.

Myanmar on Tuesday announced there were "no more political prisoners" after issuing a sweeping amnesty order aimed at fulfilling a presidential pledge to free all dissidents by the end of the year.

The country has released scores of prisoners of conscience as part of dramatic reforms, implemented since the end of outright military rule in 2011, that have ended the former pariah's international isolation and seen most western sanctions disbanded.

Thousands of people have fled a South Sudan town fearing an attack by rebel forces as the country's conflict spreads, the United Nations said Monday.

The provincial capital of Bor has become the focus of a bloody power battle between President Salva Kiir and his former vice president Riek Machar that has already left more than 1,000 dead.

French and Chadian troops have destroyed almost six tons of explosives and weapons found in Mali's rebel-infested desert north, the United Nations said on Monday.

The Chadian soldiers, from the U.N.'s MINUSMA peacekeeping mission, were patrolling an area near the Algerian border with troops from France's Operation Serval when they made the discovery, a U.N. statement said.

At least two children have been beheaded in the fighting which has gripped the Central African Republic, the U.N. agency for children said Monday, adding "unprecedented" levels of violence were being committed against youngsters.

UNICEF said that of the two children beheaded, one had also been mutilated.

Iran on Monday arrested on corruption charges a tycoon who reputedly played a major role in busting sanctions imposed on Tehran over its disputed nuclear program, media reports said.

The news of Babak Zanjani's arrest was announced by prosecutor general Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei, who did not provide any other details, the official IRNA news agency reported.

War-torn Somalia flew back home Monday some 130 citizens who had been working in troubled South Sudan, the latest of thousands of foreigners to flee violence in the world's youngest country.

Western nations including the United States and Britain flew in military aircraft to evacuate their citizens after fighting began in South Sudan two weeks ago.

Congolese security forces repelled a wave of coordinated attacks against symbols of power in the capital Kinshasa and other cities on Monday, leaving dozens of assailants dead in a day of fierce gunbattles.

Armed youths believed to be loyal to a pastor who challenged President Joseph Kabila in elections seven years ago stormed the state television station RTNC and took several reporters hostage.

The United States on Monday called for closer security cooperation with Russia ahead of the Sochi Winter Olympics, after two deadly bombings in the city of Volgograd.

"The U.S. government has offered our full support to the Russian government in security preparations for the Sochi Olympic Games, and we would welcome the opportunity for closer cooperation for the safety of the athletes, spectators, and other participants," National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said in a statement.

President Goodluck Jonathan was on Monday urged to hold talks on the future of Nigeria, as the country prepared to mark the centenary of the unification of north and south.

The Movement for New Nigeria (MNN), a civil society group made up of a number of different ethnic groups, said a national dialogue was the only way of resolving contentious issues gripping the country.