Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan on Wednesday sacked nine ministers in a major cabinet reshuffle amid tensions within the ruling party as his rivals manoeuvre ahead of 2015 elections.

Those sacked included Foreign Minister Olugbenga Ashiru, Education Minister Ruqayyatu Ahmed Rufai and Housing Minister Ama Pepple.

Russian President Vladimir Putin meets Iran's new president for the first time this week, reportedly armed with an offer to supply missile systems and build a second nuclear power reactor that is likely to gladden Tehran and trouble the United States.

President Hasan Rowhani is set to meet Putin on the sidelines of a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization held in Kyrgyzstan on Friday, in the newly-elected centrist cleric's first meeting with a major world leader.

The number of migrants around the world rose above 230 million in 2013 with the United States, Western Europe and the Gulf oil states the biggest draws, the U.N. said Wednesday.

The number who have left their own country has risen from 154 million in 1990 to 232 million and the proportion of migrants in rich countries is growing, said a new U.N. report.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday mourned the lives lost 12 years ago in the September 11, 2001 attacks, saying "our hearts still ache" for the nearly 3,000 people killed.

Against the backdrop of possible U.S. military action against Syria, Obama marked the 12th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks first at the White House, and then at a solemn Pentagon ceremony attended by families of 9/11 victims and senior officers.

Fighting this week between supporters of the Central African Republic's ex-president and the man who ousted him has killed almost 100 people, officials said Wednesday as an aid group warned of "atrocities" against civilians.

The two days of fighting erupted Sunday in the home region of former president Francois Bozize, who ruled the troubled nation for 10 years until the Seleka rebel coalition overthrew him on March 24 and installed its leader, Michel Djotodia, as president.

A top Emirati court on Wednesday jailed a Pakistani man for three years for spying for a foreign country, the official WAM news agency said.

The Federal Supreme Court ruled that the Pakistani, who worked as a "driver at a sensitive government department," had been recruited by an intelligence officer at a foreign embassy in the United Arab Emirates.

Mozambique's bid to end a conflict with former rebels that has unnerved investors hit an impasse on Wednesday after the group's leader refused to leave his bush camp for talks.

Former rebel leader Afonso Dhlakama has refused to leave his base in the Gorongosa Mountains to meet President Armando Guebuza, unless armed forces withdraw from the area.

Americans on Wednesday marked the 12th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks in somber fashion, with ceremonies of remembrance in New York and Washington.

President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and their wives observed a moment of silence on the White House lawn. The president was to deliver remarks at the Pentagon -- scene of one of the strikes.

Catalans massed in a vast human chain stretching hundreds of kilometers along the Mediterranean coast on Wednesday, demanding independence from Spain in the face of fierce opposition from the national government.

Hundreds of thousands of people in yellow t-shirts joined in, according to organizers, yelling "Independence!".

Turkey's Interior Minister Muammer Guler said Wednesday that protesters were attempting to use the death of a young man during a demonstration to "spread chaos" as pockets of anti-government unrest flared once again in the country.

As tensions rose, the country's Kurdish rebels for the first time called on their supporters to join demos against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, seen by critics as increasingly authoritarian.