Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko laid out Thursday Kiev's terms for sending a U.N.-mandated force to conflict-hit east Ukraine, knocking back key demands in a proposal by Russia's Vladimir Putin. 

A Spanish prosecutor said Thursday that regional leaders of Catalonia would be charged over their plans to hold an independence referendum next month and that all voting material would be seized.

Five Rohingya villagers whose distraught relatives say they were shot dead by the Myanmar military were buried Thursday in Bangladesh at a mass funeral attended by hundreds of people after their bodies were carried across the border.

Journalists saw new fires burning Thursday in a Myanmar village that had been abandoned by Rohingya Muslims, and pages ripped from Islamic texts that were left on the ground. That intensifies doubts about government claims that members of the persecuted minority have been destroying their own homes.

About two dozen journalists saw the fires in Gawdu Zara village in northern Rakhine state on a government-controlled trip. Some 164,000 Rohingya from the area have fled across the border in Bangladesh in less than two weeks since Aug. 25, when Rohingya insurgents attacked police outposts in Gawdu Zara and several others, the U.N. refugee agency said Thursday.

A former Turkish economy minister is among nine people indicted in the United States on charges of carrying out hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions benefiting Iran and Iranian entities in violation of US sanctions.

There is a "real risk" of increased funding for attacks in Europe as the Islamic State (IS) group loses ground in Iraq and Syria, the EU's security chief warned Thursday.

IS, which is also known as Daesh, has lost an estimated 90 percent of its territory in Iraq. At one time, the group held around half of Syria but today controls just 15 percent, according to estimates.

Iran's Red Crescent said Thursday it has prepared an aid package for Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims as they flee a crackdown by security forces, local media reported.

No decision will be made this year on whether to end Turkey's talks to join the EU, the Estonian foreign minister said Thursday, amid growing pressure from Germany to stop Ankara's membership bid.

Russia's top military boss was set to meet with a senior NATO commander in Baku on Thursday, as concerns swirled over major war games Moscow will hold next week with Belarus. 

The European Union must avoid any break in relations with Turkey, an "essential" partner on migration and terror issues, French President Emmanuel Macron said while beginning a two-day visit to Greece on Thursday.

"I wish to avoid a rupture because (Turkey) is an essential partner in many crises we jointly face, specifically the migration challenge and the terrorist threat," Macron told the Kathimerini newspaper.