President Barack Obama issued a stern defense of his outreach to Iran on Friday, warning U.S. lawmakers not to derail diplomatic efforts to curtail the Islamic state's nuclear program.

In an end-of-year news conference, Obama said efforts in Congress to pass tougher economic sanctions could damage recent moves to halt Tehran's alleged drive to refine nuclear fuel and build a weapon.

Domestic workers protested outside the Indian consulate in New York on Friday, calling for justice for a housekeeper allegedly mistreated by a Indian diplomat and demanding an end to slavery.

More than 30 workers and their allies took part in the spirited but peaceful protest on a sidewalk outside the mansion house used by the Indian government in New York.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday shrugged off suggestions that 2013 has been his worst year in office but conceded frustration at the failure of Congress to tighten gun regulations.

In a final news conference before flying to Hawaii for the Christmas holidays, Obama said that "we have had ups and we have had downs" throughout his five years in the White House.

Negotiators concluded the year's last round of Colombian peace talks Friday with the chief government representative praising the progress made as "important and hopeful."

"Never before have we advanced so much in terms of agreements with the FARC as we have on this occasion," said Humberto de la Calle, the lead government negotiator.

At least 29 have been killed in a fresh outbreak of sectarian violence in Bangui, the Red Cross in the Central African Republic said Friday.

Doctors without Borders said around 40 victims had been taken to a community hospital in the capital, most of them with gunshot wounds, after the latest fighting broke out late on Thursday.

Britain on Friday sent a second flight to evacuate its nationals from South Sudan, the Foreign Office said, amid spiraling violence in the fledgling nation.

The Royal Air Force C-17 military transport plane evacuated 93 people from the capital Juba to Uganda. They were to be met by consular officials at Entebbe airport.

South Sudan's President Salva Kiir has agreed to "unconditional dialogue" on ending deadly strife in the country, diplomats said Friday.

Salva Kiir made the commitment to African foreign ministers who went to Juba in a bid to end fighting in which hundreds of people have been killed, U.N. Security Council president Gerard Araud told reporters.

Two former British soldiers who firebombed a mosque in a bid to avenge the grisly murder of a soldier by Islamic extremists were jailed for six years each on Friday.

Stuart Harness, 34, and Gavin Humphries, 37, made petrol bombs and hurled them at the Islamic Cultural Center in the eastern English fishing town of Grimsby on May 26. Terrified worshipers were trapped inside.

Istanbul prosecutors Friday began charging some of the prime minister's closest allies in a huge graft scandal which he has responded to with a spectacular purge of the police.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said he was battling "a state within a state" and described the corruption probe, which comes ahead of crucial March polls, as a smear operation.

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo approved on Friday a plan for giving amnesty to some former M23 rebels whose insurgency was crushed by the army last month.

The amnesty plan would apply to ex-rebels who are not found guilty of committing serious crimes, according to the minutes of a cabinet meeting.