President Francois Hollande on Wednesday called on French citizens to deck their homes with the national flag during a day of mourning later this week for victims of the Paris attacks.

Friday will be a day of homage to the 130 people killed by jihadists in the November 13 assaults, and the president urged citizens "to participate by decorating their homes with the blue, white and red flag," government spokesman Stephane Le Foll said.

Rival Cypriot leaders are making progress in United Nations-brokered peace talks aimed at reunifying the long-divided island "in the near future," U.N. envoy Espen Barth Eide said Wednesday.

Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot counterpart Mustafa Akinci met Wednesday, wrapping up six face-to-face meetings in November as part of an intensified process.

Pope Francis landed in Kenya's capital Nairobi Wednesday on the first leg of a landmark three-nation trip to Africa, greeted with cheering crowds and traditional dancers.

As the papal plane trundled across the tarmac, a Kenyan and a Vatican flag flying from the front, crowds decked in brightly-colored clothes, arms around each other's shoulders, bounced up and down waiting for the plane to halt.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Zagreb on Wednesday for a Western Balkans summit, highlighting renewed interest from Washington in the fragile region as it deals with an unprecedented influx of refugees.

A 4,000-strong police deployment lined the Croatian capital and some schools were closed downtown ahead of the afternoon summit, which brings together eight heads of state and European Union president Donald Tusk.

The Afghan army launched an operation Wednesday to rescue 18 hostages captured by the Taliban after their helicopter crash-landed in the north, as the private firm operating the aircraft said it was shot down.

The Taliban killed three of those on board -- two Afghans and a foreigner -- in an initial firefight and took the rest captive after the Tuesday crash, the Afghan defense ministry said in a statement.

Turkey's downing of a Russian fighter jet "sends the wrong message to the terrorists" in Syria, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov late Tuesday.

"Such actions will lead to an escalation of the Syrian crisis and sends the wrong message to the terrorist groups," foreign ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber-Ansari quoted Zarif as saying. 

Several hundred young activists on Wednesday hurled stones and eggs at Turkey's embassy in Moscow and brandished anti-Turkish placards after Ankara downed a Russian warplane on the Syrian border.

The activists threw eggs, paint and paper planes at the diplomatic mission and broke several windows as Moscow police urged them to stop the protest but did not intervene, an AFP photographer reported from the scene. 

Two people were confirmed killed and a third feared dead as a bushfire blazed out of control in South Australia Wednesday, officials said.

More than 300 firefighters were tackling the blaze north of the city of Adelaide and reinforcements were on their way.

Poland wants a 1997 deal on NATO-Russia ties to be scrapped to let the alliance install permanent military bases in Polish soil, something that Moscow insists the agreement rules out.

Poland's new right-wing Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski insisted in an interview published Wednesday that the deal must go because it causes "inequality" between new and older NATO members.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday that Moscow was not planning on going to war against Turkey after Ankara's downing of a Russian fighter jet.

"We do not plan to go to war with Turkey, our attitude toward the Turkish people has not changed," Lavrov told reporters after speaking with his Turkish counterpart, but warned that Moscow would "seriously reevaluate" its ties with Ankara.