Government officials from Japan and North Korea will hold talks in China next Monday, the first such meeting since November 2012, the Japanese foreign ministry and Red Cross Society said Thursday.

The talks will be held on the sidelines of meetings by Red Cross officials from the two countries, a Japanese Red Cross spokesman said.

A car bomb exploded near a cafe in Somalia's capital Mogadishu Thursday in an area close to the intelligence headquarters, killing at least seven people, police said.

"We have counted seven civilians killed in the car bomb, but the toll could be higher as many people were also wounded," police official Ahmed Mumin told Agence France Presse.

Four South African police officers and a driver were killed Thursday when a truck carrying blasting cartridges exploded after a crash with another lorry, police said.

The explosives truck was rear-ended by another heavy vehicle on a road near the northern town of Polokwane in the early hours of the morning.

Two Indian naval officers who went missing after a submarine accident off the coast of Mumbai have been found dead, the defense ministry said Thursday.

Wednesay's incident on board the Russian-built INS Sindhuratna, the latest in a string of naval mishaps, also left seven crew members injured and led the chief of naval staff to resign.

Dozens of pro-Russian gunmen in combat fatigues seized parliament and government buildings on Ukraine's volatile Crimea peninsula Thursday as the country's ousted leader won assurances that Moscow would protect him.

The dawn raid in Crimea came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered snap combat readiness drills to be held near the Ukrainian border, raising fears the Kremlin might use force to sway the outcome of a three-month crisis that has pitted Moscow against the West in a Cold War-style confrontation.

Outgoing U.S. ambassador to China Gary Locke on Thursday urged Beijing to improve its human rights record, in parting remarks just days before he is to leave the country.

Rights are "universal" values that represent more than economic benefits, he said, speaking to journalists at the U.S. embassy.

A South Korean missionary arrested in North Korea in October told a news conference staged in Pyongyang on Thursday that he had been working for South Korean intelligence.

Kim Jeong-Wook, wearing a dark suit and in apparent good health, detailed a number of "anti-government" activities as he read out a statement.

War crimes have been committed by all sides in conflict-wracked South Sudan, Human Rights Watch said Thursday, reporting widespread atrocities in weeks of carnage in the world's youngest nation.

Thousands have been killed and almost 900,000 forced from their homes by over two months of battles between rebel and government forces, backed by troops from neighboring Uganda.

Australia said it remained in the dark Thursday on the whereabouts or wellbeing of a Christian missionary detained in North Korea after leaving a pamphlet in a Buddhist temple.

Hong Kong-based Australian citizen John Short, 75, was taken from his Pyongyang hotel by police earlier this month for allegedly distributing Korean-language Christian pamphlets and attempting to proselytise.

The U.N. Security Council urged Guinea-Bissau's transitional government Wednesday to abide by announced election plans, warning of sanctions against those opposing a return to constitutional order.

After several delays, Bissau announced April 13 presidential and parliamentary elections to end a period of political instability that began with a coup two years ago.