The United States slapped sanctions Wednesday of three senior South Sudan officials accused of fomenting and profiting from the four-year civil war in Africa's youngest country.

Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said Thursday that China would support the United Nations taking further measures against North Korea following its recent nuclear test.   

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called Thursday for the world to put the "greatest possible pressure" on North Korea to abandon its nuclear missile programme.

Voters in Spain's prosperous Catalonia region will be asked to choose in less than a month if they want to secede from Spain, the region's pro-independence ruling government announced Wednesday in a move that puts it in open defiance of central authorities in Madrid.

Regional President Carles Puigdemont signed a decree that officially calls for a "self-determination referendum of Catalonia" to be held on Oct. 1. His entire cabinet, which includes politicians from various pro-independence parties, also approved the document to dilute responsibility in case of prosecution.

Aid agencies were struggling to cope with a nonstop flood of Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh, where some 146,000 have arrived hungry and terrified after fleeing renewed violence in Myanmar — a crisis the country's leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, dismissed as a misinformation campaign.

With the influx pushing existing Rohingya refugee camps to the brink, Bangladesh pledged to build at least one more. The International Organization for Migration has pleaded for $18 million in foreign aid to help feed and shelter tens of thousands now packed into makeshift settlements or stranded in a no-man's land between the two countries' borders.

Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo on Wednesday accused French President Emmanuel Macron of "trying to introduce protectionism" amid their clash over his proposals to overhaul a controversial EU rule on sending workers abroad.

A coalition of US states sued the Trump administration Wednesday over its decision to end an amnesty program for 800,000 people brought illegally to the United States as minors. 

Hurricane Irma has killed at least eight people and injured 23 in French Caribbean island territories as the dangerous Category 5 storm roared over the Caribbean, France's interior minister said Thursday.

Speaking on French radio France Info, French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said the death toll in Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthelemy could be higher because rescue teams have yet to finish their inspection of the islands.

Catalonia's regional parliament passed a law Wednesday paving the way for an independence referendum on October 1 which is fiercely opposed by Madrid, setting a course for Spain's deepest political crises in decades.

NATO on Wednesday demanded tougher implementation of sanctions against North Korea in the wake of the country's sixth and most powerful nuclear test to date, and called for new efforts to draw the reclusive state away from its "threatening and destabilizing path."