The United Nations said Thursday it had ordered its first unarmed surveillance drones from an Italian company to patrol volatile regions of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

The announcement was made as tensions rise again around the major eastern city of Goma where the DR Congo army and U.N. peacekeepers set up a weapons-free security zone on Thursday.

A U.S. judge jailed an unemployed bus driver for life plus more more than 1,000 years on Thursday for the decade-long kidnap, rape and torture of three women.

Ariel Castro's vain pleas that he was not a violent man fell on deaf ears, as Judge Michael Russo accepted a plea deal that saw him convicted on 977 criminal counts.

Spanish authorities have seized 500 kilos (1,100 pounds) of cocaine from a yacht off the Canary Islands, in an operation that smashed a ring that smuggled drugs from Latin America to the archipelago, the interior ministry said Thursday.

Five people were arrested -- two Spaniards, an Irish national, an American and an Australian woman -- in the probe, the ministry said in a statement.

An African migrant died while seven others were rescued as they tried to make land on Spain's southern shore in an inflatable boat, the Spanish coastguard said Thursday.

A coastguard ship intercepted the boat about 30 kilometers (18 miles) south of the Spanish port of Tarifa in the early hours of Thursday and rescued its eight passengers, but while they were being transported to land one of the migrants died of unknown causes, a coastguard spokesman said.

Italy's top court on Thursday confirmed a prison sentence for former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi in his first ever definitive conviction, which could upset the country's fragile coalition government.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Enrico Letta urged "serenity" for the good of Italy after the country's highest court's verdict.

The United States said it would close an unspecified number of embassies around the world on Sunday over security concerns.

State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf on Thursday called the step "precautionary" but declined to specify the threat or list which missions would be closed.

The White House said Thursday it would review plans for a U.S.-Russia presidential summit in early September after Moscow's decision to grant asylum to U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden.

"We're extremely disappointed," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters. "We're evaluating the utility of a summit in light of this and other issues."

Four months after a violent coup, the people of the Central African Republic are "living in a constant fear" as rule of law has collapsed, a top U.N. rights official said Thursday

U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic outlined a state of chaos in the troubled nation, joining several others in urging the international community not to forget the plight of the country.

Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday that U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan could end "very soon", in unusually outspoken remarks welcomed in Islamabad but immediately downplayed by American aides.

It is the first time such a senior member of the U.S. administration has indicated there could be a definitive end to the program, which the CIA has in the past called an effective counter-terrorism weapon.

The tiny British-held territory of Gibraltar complained to the European Union Thursday over delays at its border crossing with Spain which it said were "deliberately" caused by Spanish authorities.

Over the weekend the government of Gibraltar said cars entering and leaving the territory on Spain's southern tip were made to wait up to six hours to cross the border as Spanish authorities searched "practically every vehicle".