A strong 6.5 magnitude earthquake struck parts of southern Guatemala and El Salvador on Friday, U.S. seismologists said, with only minor damage and no casualties immediately reported.

Guatemalan broadcast stations in the western part of the country lost power, according to reports. Landslides clogged up roads and there was slight damage to some homes.

The U.S. Treasury blacklisted Friday a key Iranian businessman and five others whom it said were trying to help Iran circumvent international sanctions to export oil.

The Treasury identified a Seyed Seyyedi, the director of Sima General Trading, as a key player in the network that includes Greek shipowner Dimitris Cambis, the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and the Naftiran Intertrade Company Sarl (NICO).

U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday met Russian gay rights activists after the G20 summit, in a symbol of U.S. support for the community amid a furore over an "anti-gay" Russian law.

Two gay rights activists were among a group of nine Russian civil society members Obama briefly met just before taking off from Saint Petersburg after the two-day G20 summit hosted by President Vladimir Putin.

The president of the Maldives on Friday promised a free and fair election this weekend 18 months after a violent change of leadership shook the Indian Ocean archipelago.

"The atmosphere is ready for free and fair elections," Mohamed Waheed told Agence France Presse as the candidates standing in the presidential poll wrapped up campaigning in the popular holiday destination.

Aid workers who carried out an emergency mission to the north of strife-torn Central African Republic found villages abandoned and burned, and evidence of widespread rights abuses, the U.N. refugee agency said Friday.

"The UNHCR team confirmed widespread lawlessness in the region. Local people spoke of physical assaults, extortion, looting, arbitrary arrest and torture by armed men," said Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

A strong 6.0 magnitude earthquake struck off the northern Philippines late Friday, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties, officials said.

The quake was recorded at 7:33pm local time (1133 GMT) with an epicenter about 42 kilometers (26 miles) south of Uyugan town in the Batan Islands, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said.

Turkish riot police on Friday confronted hundreds of university students in Ankara throwing stones and erecting barricades in protest against a project to build a road across part of their campus.

Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at between 200 and 300 protesters who gathered at the entrance of Middle East Technical University (METU), images broadcast on local television showed.

President Barack Obama moved to defuse a row with Brazil and Mexico over alleged U.S. spying on leaders of the Latin American countries, promising them that the United States would cooperate to address concerns over the claims.

Obama told Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto in separate meetings at the G20 summit that he understood their concerns.

The Taliban on Friday denied shooting dead Indian writer Sushmita Banerjee, whose murder Afghan officials blamed on the insurgent militia fighting against the government for 12 years.

The 49-year-old was dragged out of her husband's house by masked gunmen in Afghanistan's eastern Paktika province late Wednesday and repeatedly shot.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's top critic Alexei Navalny prepared Friday to rouse supporters at the final rally of his fierce campaign for Moscow mayor before facing a Kremlin-backed incumbent in polls this weekend.

In a warning shot to the authorities, the charismatic leader of the Russian protest movement threatened protests if officials rigged Sunday's vote.