The United Nations envoy to Myanmar on Sunday viewed the devastation wrought by deadly communal riots in the center of the country and met some of the estimated 9,000 people displaced.

Religious violence in the town of Meiktila has claimed at least 32 lives and displaced thousands since starting Wednesday, according to officials, leaving swathes of the town in ruin and prompting an army-enforced state of emergency.

A suicide bomber rammed a water tanker into a Pakistani check post late Saturday, killing 17 soldiers in the notorious tribal district of North Waziristan, the military said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. North Waziristan is perhaps the most notorious of Pakistan's tribal districts on the Afghan border, a known stronghold of the Taliban and al-Qaida-linked operatives.

China's new leader Xi Jinping flew out off Moscow on Sunday morning to begin a tour of Africa after declaring his first foreign visit as president a success and overseeing the signing of a number of energy deals.

Xi flew out at 8:00 am local time (04:00 GMT) to Tanzania, where he was set to give a major speech on relations with Africa.

A 6.1 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of far-eastern Russia early Sunday, the US Geological Survey reported.

The quake, which hit at 0418 GMT at a depth of 9.7 kilometers (six miles), was centered 269 kilometers from the eastern Russian city of Ozernovsky, on the southern tip of the Kamchatka peninsula.

President Barack Obama returned home to Washington late Saturday after a four-day tour seeking to rekindle his engagement on Middle East peace and dominated by his embrace of Israel.

Air Force One landed at Andrews Air Force Base just outside the U.S. capital at 8:08 pm (00:08 GMT), hours ahead of schedule.

Twenty-five people were killed in eastern Nigeria when attackers blasted a jail, a police station and a bank with bombs, machine-guns and rocket-propelled grenades, police said Saturday.

"We have 25 dead from yesterday's attacks in Ganye, which included a chief prison warder, a policeman and a prominent politician," said Adamawa state police chief Mohammed Ibrahim.

Rebel forces in the Central African Republic said Saturday that they had entered the capital Bangui and called on the army not to fight them and for the country's president to leave.

The claim by rebel spokesman Eric Massi came after a regional stabilization force commander said explosions and gunfire were heard on the outskirts of the city.

The death toll from religious violence in central Myanmar rose to 32 Saturday as rescuers found bodies in the ashes of homes torched during an eruption of communal unrest, officials said.

Almost 9,000 people have been displaced by Buddhist-Muslim unrest that tore through the town of Meiktila, according to the information ministry.

The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) will only pull its fighters out of Turkey once it sees concrete steps from Ankara following the outlawed group's ceasefire, a top rebel commander said Saturday.

Murat Karayilan made the warning in a video message in which he said the PKK was officially proclaiming the ceasefire which jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan called for on Thursday.

China's new leader Xi Jinping said Saturday his first foreign trip as president to Russia had exceeded his expectations and hailed the strong partnership between the two countries after signing numerous energy deals.

"I can say that from my point of view, my visit has already achieved its aim and the results have already far exceeded my expectations," Xi told Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in comments translated into Russian and posted on the Russian government website.