Nelson Mandela's wife has said the 94-year-old icon is "fine" and his health is improving after he was hospitalized more than a week ago for pneumonia, a report said Friday.

"Madiba is fine, Madiba is getting better and better," said Graca Machel late Thursday, referring to 94-year-old Mandela's clan name, the private eNCA news channel reported.

Thousands of U.S. and Filipino troops began annual military exercises on Friday which the Philippines said were vital to building its defense capabilities against the rising threat of China.

Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario used the launch of the 12-day Balikatan manoeuvres to accuse China of destabilizing Asia with aggressive and illegal actions in the South China Sea.

Iran and world powers met in Kazakhstan Friday for new talks seeking an elusive breakthrough on the Iranian nuclear crisis, with Tehran defiantly insisting its rights must be recognized.

The decade-old nuclear dispute has left the Islamic republic's economy badly hurt by U.N. sanctions and Tehran risking military action from its arch foe Israel.

Mexican prosecutors said Thursday they have broken up a plot by an armed gang to assassinate two federal legislators in Mexico City.

The plan, had it succeeded, would have marked a rare attack on federal officials, who have largely escaped the drug-fueled violence that has claimed the lives of many state and local officials.

A group of Myanmar Muslims beat eight Buddhists to death at an Indonesian detention center Friday after becoming enraged at news of deadly communal violence in their homeland, officials said.

The Rohingya Muslims launched the attack at the immigration center on Sumatra island using weapons fashioned from smashed up beds and broom handles after seeing pictures of religious violence in Myanmar last month that left dozens dead.

At least 30 people were crushed to death on the outskirts of Mumbai after a building collapsed while under construction, police said Friday, but two toddlers were among more than 50 pulled from the wreckage alive.

The seven-storey illegal structure collapsed on Thursday evening, creating a mangled heap of steel and concrete of about eight meters (26 feet) high that rescuers and local residents struggled to cut through, officials said.

The South-North Korean industrial complex that has become a chip in a high-stakes game of military brinkmanship on the Korean peninsula was closed Friday for a scheduled holiday, officials said.

The 53,000 North Koreans who work at the 123 South Korean companies in the Kaesong joint industrial zone, 10 kilometers (six miles) inside the North, took the day off, the South's Unification Ministry spokeswoman said.

The United States said it was taking "all necessary precautions" after North Korea rang fresh alarms in an escalating crisis by moving a medium-range missile Thursday to its east coast.

Seoul's defense minister Kim Kwan-Jin said the missile could reach a "considerable distance" but not the U.S. mainland, telling lawmakers it "could be aimed at test-firing or military drills".

The U.N. Security Council on Thursday strongly condemned the attack on an Afghanistan courthouse by Taliban forces that left more than 40 people dead.

In an unanimous statement, the 15-member panel said it "condemned in the strongest terms" Wednesday's attack in the remote western province of Farah.

The Chadian government on Thursday strongly denied accusations by ousted Central African leader Francois Bozize that it had helped the Seleka rebels who overthrew his regime 10 days ago.

"The former president (Bozize) has engaged in a series of very serious accusations which the Chadian government categorically denies," the government said in a statement.