Ivory Coast said Friday it would not transfer former first lady Simone Gbagbo to the International Criminal Court in the Hague, but would try her at home instead.

The decision came 18 months after the ICC issued a warrant for the wife of former president Laurent Gbagbo for suspected crimes against humanity.

Efforts by Greek authorities to contain aggressive neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn, implicated in the shock murder of an anti-fascist singer, will be difficult given the party's rising popularity among recession-weary Greeks, experts warned Friday.

Outlawing Golden Dawn "would be technically very difficult and politically dangerous," noted Dimitris Christopoulos, an associate professor of law at Athens' Panteion University.

Pakistan will release on Saturday its most senior Afghan Taliban detainee, Abdul Ghani Baradar, a one-time military chief often described as the insurgents' former second-in-command.

"In order to further facilitate the Afghan reconciliation process, the detained Taliban leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, would be released tomorrow," Pakistan's foreign ministry said in a statement on Friday.

French President Francois Hollande will meet his Iranian counterpart Hasan Rowhani on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly next week, Hollande's office announced Friday.

The announcement comes amid growing signs the recently-elected Rowhani could also meet with U.S. President Barack Obama in New York in what would be a landmark moment for Iran's relationship with the United States and the broader international community.

Three Baltic NATO states on Friday questioned the purpose of major war games by Russia and Belarus close to their borders, accusing their Soviet-era master Moscow of a secret "anti-West" agenda.

Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, former Soviet states that are now members of the western alliance, all expressed concern about the scale of military manoeuvres publicly intended to prepare defenses against terrorism.

Amanda Knox on Friday justified staying away from her upcoming murder retrial in Italy, calling the decision to do so an "admission of innocence."

But the American also said that everything was at stake and that she does think about what would happen if she were found guilty.

A shallow 5.7-magnitude earthquake struck close to Myanmar's second-biggest city on Friday evening, seismologists said.

The quake hit at 6:54 pm local time (1224 GMT) at a depth of 10 kilometers (six miles), the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The African Union on Friday urged the international community to do more in the poor and strife-torn Central African Republic, describing the situation there as "dire".

"CAR needs a lot of assistance, the humanitarian situation is dire, we need all to do more, whatever can be done to that end is welcome," El Ghassim Wane, the AU's Deputy Commissioner for Peace and Security, told Agence France Presse.

In the end game of a tight election race, German Chancellor Angela Merkel promised voters Friday they will be in safe hands if she stays leader of Europe's economic giant.

"Germany has had four good years," she wrote in a letter mailed to five million households ahead of Sunday's election, in which she seeks a third term for her Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

The United States said Friday it granted access to its airspace so Venezuela's president can fly to China, denying claims by Caracas that permission was denied.

On Thursday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro bristled with outrage at the "serious offense" of denying his plane rights to U.S. airspace for the weekend voyage.