Police used tear gas and water cannon to break up clashes between Kurdish and nationalist students at an Ankara university campus that left 15 people injured late on Wednesday, Turkish media have reported.

The hours-long scuffles, which saw both sides take up sticks and stones, reportedly erupted when students sympathising with Turkey's Kurdish insurgents confronted those from a nationalist group at Ankara's prestigious Middle East Technical University (ODTU).

The brothers suspected of carrying out the deadly attacks on the Boston Marathon planned to head to Manhattan to party after the explosions, New York City's police chief said Wednesday.

Either Dzhokhar or Tamerlan Tsarnaev apparently said "Manhattan" in a conversation overheard by the driver of the sports utility vehicle they carjacked in Cambridge, Massachusetts, last week before a showdown with police, Ray Kelly said.

 Two Tibetan monks in southwestern China died after setting themselves on fire, a media outlet and a rights group said, the latest in a series of such protests against Beijing's rule.

Lobsang Dawa and Konchog Woeser set themselves ablaze on Wednesday in Sichuan province's Aba prefecture, where many such incidents have occurred, said US-based Radio Free Asia (RFA) and Britain-based rights group Free Tibet.

More prisoners have joined a hunger strike to protest their indefinite detention at the U.S.-run Guantanamo military prison, with 92 out of 166 detainees refusing food, a spokesman said Wednesday.

Among them, 17 are on feeding tubes and two are hospitalized but do not have "life-threatening conditions," Lieutenant Colonel Samuel House said in a statement.

NATO insisted Thursday that the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan is being won, despite reports by other organisations of a sharp upsurge in insurgent attacks this year.

U.S. General Joseph Dunford, head of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), said there was "indisputable" progress towards the goal of a secure and stable nation.

Rescuers in Bangladesh Thursday hunted for survivors in a collapsed building as the death toll rose to 159 and criticism mounted of foreign firms that source cheap clothes from the country.

More than 1,000 people were injured when the site housing five garment factories on the outskirts of Dhaka imploded on Wednesday, allegedly after managers ignored workers' warnings that the building had become unstable.

French President Francois Hollande arrived in Beijing on Thursday on a trip aimed at boosting exports to China, with hopes that deals can be reached over the sale of aircraft and nuclear power.

Hollande, who will be the first Western leader to be received in the Chinese capital by new President Xi Jinping, is accompanied by a planeload of businessmen hoping to increase their share of the fruits of China's economic growth.

South Korea on Thursday formally offered North Korea talks on suspended operations at their joint Kaesong industrial zone, and hinted it might pull out entirely if Pyongyang declines.

The South said it was offering working-level talks to resolve the impasse over Kaesong, a rare symbol of inter-Korean cooperation that has become the most notable victim of escalating military tensions on the Korean peninsula.

The United States voiced hope Wednesday for a "productive" relationship with Venezuela as it welcomed the appointment of a new envoy to Washington by the successor of leftist leader Hugo Chavez.

President Nicolas Maduro on Tuesday named ruling lawmaker Calixto Ortega as the charge d'affaires at the embassy in Washington after the United States clarified that it was not seeking sanctions over Venezuela's disputed election.

Food, water and medical aid has reached thousands of people displaced by fighting in southern Darfur in Sudan, peacekeepers said on Wednesday, after the U.N. chief expressed concern over restrictions on access.

Almost 80 tonnes of "critical humanitarian aid" will assist needy civilians in Labado and Muhagiriya, said the African Union-U.N. peacekeeping mission (UNAMID) which delivered the supplies from United Nations agencies.