A plan to reimpose immigration quotas in Switzerland and give existing residents an advantage in the job market could pass in a plebiscite next February, an opinion poll showed Thursday.

Fifty-two percent of voters backed the "Stop Mass Immigration" proposal, while 40 percent are against it, pollsters Isopublic said, adding that the margin of error was 4.2 percent.

Portuguese authorities said Thursday they are reopening their probe into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann from an Algarve beach resort in 2007, news hailed by the British girl's parents.

"The attorney general's office has decided to reopen the inquiry into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann following a request by police due to new elements," it said in a statement.

South Africa on Thursday said violent clashes in Mozambique were a serious concern, with stability in the neighboring country critical to the rest of the region.

A 21-year peace deal was declared over earlier this week by the former Renamo rebels who fought against the Frelimo-led government in the country's brutal civil war, amid a fresh spate of skirmishes with government troops.

Iran has temporarily halted its production of enriched uranium to 20 percent purity as it has sufficient stocks to fuel its Tehran research reactor, a lawmaker was quoted Thursday as saying.

"There is no production at all ... as right now there is no need for the production of 20 percent (enriched) uranium," the parliament website reported conservative MP Hossein Naqavi Hosseini as saying.

Pakistani security officials and former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani Thursday denied a report that they had approved U.S. drone strikes on the country's soil.

The Washington Post on Wednesday quoted leaked secret documents as saying Pakistan had been regularly briefed on the strikes and in some cases helped choose targets.

The United States is "seriously concerned" about NATO ally Turkey's controversial decision to select a Chinese company for its long-range air and missile defense system, the U.S. ambassador said on Thursday.

"We are very concerned about a prospective deal between Turkey and Chinese firm that is sanctioned (by the United States)," ambassador Francis Ricciardone told reporters.

Germany on Thursday summoned the U.S. ambassador to Berlin over suspicions that Washington spied on Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone, a foreign ministry spokeswoman said.

Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle will personally meet with U.S.. envoy John B. Emerson later Thursday, the spokeswoman told AFP, in a highly unusual step between the decades-long allies.

Israel's international affairs minister on Thursday said there were "small differences" with the United States over the Iranian nuclear issue, a week after direct talks between Tehran and world powers.

"We generally see eye to eye with the Americans on the final objective, which is to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, but there are sometimes small differences over the way to do that," Yuval Steinitz, who is also intelligence minister, told Israeli public radio.

North Korea will return six unidentified South Koreans across the two countries' heavily-militarized land border, it said in a surprise announcement Thursday.

The South's Unification Ministry said it had been informed the transfer would take place on Friday, but was given no details of the identities of the people being returned.

Destroyers, fighter jets and 34,000 troops are to take part in a huge exercise aimed at bolstering Japan's ability to protect its remote islands amid a territorial spat with China.

The wargames, which will include live-firing, come as Tokyo steps up its global PR campaign by posting videos it hopes will swing world opinion behind its claims to two archipelagos that are the focus of disputes with Beijing and Seoul.