Serbian police routinely harass and abuse illegal immigrants and asylum seekers, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday, a claim immediately denied by the country's interior ministry.

The watchdog interviewed dozens of migrants and asylum seekers who "described violent assaults, threats, insults, and extortion, denial of the required special protection for unaccompanied children, and summary returns to the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia," an HRW report released in New York said.

A man flying a mini helicopter illegally landed his aircraft on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol Wednesday, triggering street closures around the building and prompting a police investigation.

"The U.S. Capitol Police continues to investigate, with one person detained," USCP officer Shennell Antrobus told AFP.

The gravestone of Hillary Clinton's late father was pushed to the ground in a Pennsylvania cemetery after his daughter announced her second run for the presidency, police said Wednesday.

Hugh Rodham, who managed a textiles business and died in 1993, is buried in the Washburn Street Cemetery in the Pennsylvania town of Scranton, which is largely Democrat.

In small-town Iowa, Hillary Clinton is starting a new chapter. Her sights glued to the White House, she says she wants to engage "everyday Americans," but she has remained vague about her policy plans.

"I'm happy to be back," the famous Democrat told a group of small-business owners and activists early Wednesday at the Tremont Grille in Marshalltown.

A suicide bomber attacked a U.N. barracks in northern Mali on Wednesday, the United Nations said, killing three civilians and wounding 16 people, including several peacekeepers.

The militant was attempting to drive into a camp used by the U.N.'s MINUSMA peacekeeping mission in Ansongo, in the northern region of Gao, when the explosives went off.

Pope Francis on Wednesday met the husband and daughter of Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman sentenced to death over blasphemy charges, the Vatican said.

"I pray for Asia, for you and for all Christians who are suffering," Francis told Bibi's husband Ashiq Masiq and their 15-year-old daughter, according to the Vatican Insider website.

Switzerland said Wednesday it had paid $1.7 million in compensation after a Swiss embassy driver, who once worked for the Gadhafi family, hit and killed a woman in Washington in 2011.

The embassy driver, a former servant of Hannibal Gadhafi -- one of the sons of toppled Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi -- has since been sacked, the Swiss foreign ministry said.

Divisions surfaced in German Chancellor Angela Merkel's government Wednesday on whether the country which is Europe's top destination for asylum seekers should take in more refugees.

Merkel ally Volker Kauder, parliamentary leader of Merkel's conservatives, said that "Germany can welcome significantly more refugees. We can and must be able to afford this act of humanity."

Spain's foreign ministry on Wednesday summoned Venezuela's ambassador in Madrid to protest against comments made by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro describing Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy as "a racist."

"The government considers that these statements, insults and threats made by president Maduro against Spain are intolerable," the Spanish foreign ministry said in a statement.

Poland's prime minister on Wednesday criticized a fiercely nationalistic Russian biker gang's plans to ride through Europe to celebrate the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. 

The two-week 6,000-kilometer (3,750-mile) rally by Russian bikers including the Night Wolves, a motorcycle club backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, comes as tensions run high between Russia and the West over the crisis in Ukraine.