Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau said in a video released Sunday that he led an October 24 attack in which 35 people found in military uniform were killed in the Nigerian city of Damaturu.

"Look at what happened in Damaturu (capital of northeastern Yobe state)," the head of the Islamist group said in the video obtained by Agence France Presse through the same intermediary as previous clips. "Since we killed them with our hands -- in fact I was the commander of the operation -- so, you cannot say I'm making conjecture."

Iran on Monday marks the anniversary of the 1979 U.S. embassy takeover with its customary "Death to America" chants despite a taboo-breaking telephone call between their presidents.

Islamist students stormed the embassy compound in Tehran 34 years ago, holding 52 U.S. diplomats hostage for 444 days, rupturing diplomatic relations and provoking decades of mutual hostility.

At least six passengers including three foreigners died after a tourist ferry sank on Sunday off the Thai resort of Pattaya, police said, amid fears people may still be trapped in the stricken vessel.

"There are six dead -- three Thais and three foreigners," a police official told Agence France Presse, without giving details on the nationalities of the foreigners.

U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden says mass secret service surveillance poses a threat to freedom of expression and open society, in a text published in a German news magazine Sunday.

Snowden, who faces criminal charges in the U.S. for leaking top-secret documents about the U.S. National Security Agency's (NSA) activities, said systematic snooping was a global problem that needed global solutions.

The leader of the M23 rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday urged all fighters to "immediately end hostilities" with army troops.

M23 president Bertrand Bisimwa said in a statement his aim was to "allow the continuation of the political process" with Kinshasa in a bid to end the insurgency.

Gunmen have attacked a wedding convoy in Nigeria's northeastern state of Borno, killing more than 30 people including the groom in a suspected ambush, witnesses and survivors said Sunday.

The attack took place Saturday on the notorious Bama-Banki road when the wedding revelers, including friends and relatives of the groom, were returning to the state capital Maiduguri after the ceremony in Michika, in nearby Adamawa State, they said.

Paris on Sunday blamed terrorist groups for the murder in "cold blood" of two radio journalists in northern Mali, and said French troops would boost security in the restive zone.

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Radio France Internationale (RFI) journalist Ghislaine Dupont and sound technician Claude Verlon were shot dead after being abducted by armed men on Saturday.

A boat carrying almost 70 Rohingya Muslim refugees fleeing sectarian tensions capsized Sunday off Myanmar's coast, police said, leaving dozens missing in treacherous seas.

The boat was believed to be taking the Rohingya from Myanmar's western state of Rakhine to Malaysia, where thousands of members of the Muslim minority have sought sanctuary since violent clashes with Buddhists erupted last year.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has thrown his weight behind a controversial nationalist march in Moscow as rights activists warn of growing xenophobia in the country.

The top critic of President Vladimir Putin is known for his ability to mobilize mass street protests, although he said he himself would have to skip Monday's Russian March.

The Pakistani Taliban have appointed an interim leader to head the group temporarily after the death of commander Hakimullah Mehsud in a U.S. drone strike, a spokesman told Agence France Presse Sunday.

Mehsud, who had a $5 million U.S. government price on him, was killed along with four cadres in North Waziristan tribal district near the Afghan border on Friday.