The White House said Tuesday an economic deal between Russia and the Ukraine does not address the concerns of Ukrainian protesters calling for an accord to move closer to the European Union.

The agreement, in which Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to buy $15 billion of Ukrainian bonds and slash its gas bill by a third, "will not address the concerns of those who have gathered in public protest across Ukraine," spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.

The civilian death toll in Afghanistan has risen in 2013 amidst widening conflict before foreign troops leave at the end of next year, a top U.N. envoy said Tuesday.

The United Nations recorded 2,730 dead and 5,169 injured in attacks in the first 11 months of this year, Jan Kubis, U.N. special representative to Afghanistan, told the U.N. Security Council.

Prostitutes and other sex workers in Macedonia marched on Tuesday along the central streets of Skopje in a rare public protest, demanding decriminalization of their profession and more rights.

Carrying red umbrellas, a symbol of the global fight for sex workers' rights, about 100 prostitutes and human rights activists marched in silence to call for "respect of rights and better conditions" for prostitutes in the Balkan country.

Six U.S. troops from the NATO mission in Afghanistan were killed and one was wounded in a helicopter crash on Tuesday, with officials saying it was not a suspected Taliban strike.

The Afghan insurgents, however, immediately claimed responsibility for the deaths, using their main Twitter account to report that their fighters had shot down the U.S. chopper in the southern province of Zabul.

The U.S. Agency for International Development has decided to end its operations in Ecuador next year after failing to reach an agreement with its leftist government, a U.S. embassy official said Tuesday.

"The great majority of USAID's activities will end in March 2014. The process of reducing personnel has already begun. The office will close next year," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Bulgaria's foreign minister said Tuesday he had postponed a December trip to Britain because of a row triggered by London's fears of an influx of Bulgarians and Romanians next year.

"We felt the atmosphere was not suitable," Kristian Vigenin was quoted by Bulgarian media as saying on the sidelines of a Brussels meeting of EU foreign ministers.

Up to 13,000 people have fled to U.N. compounds in the South Sudan capital to escape clashes between army factions, U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday after talks with the country's president.

Ban called on President Salva Kiir to make "an offer of dialogue" to his opponents to end deadly fighting that erupted Sunday, said U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky.

Training of Somali soldiers by the EU will be shifted from Uganda to Somalia early next year, with an improvement in the security climate there, the EU said in a statement Tuesday.

The EU Training Mission in Somalia (EUTM Somalia), launched in early 2010, has so far trained 3,600 Somali troops, mainly at a camp in Bihanga, 250 kilometers (155 miles) west of the Ugandan capital Kampala where the EUTM headquarters is located.

The government of South Sudan said Tuesday it has arrested 10 leading figures, many of them former ministers, as clashes raged for two days in the capital.

The clashes, which have left scores of people dead, most of them soldiers, pitted troops loyal to President Salva Kiir against those allied to deposed vice-president Riek Machar.

A Turkish man who called the 1915 Armenian genocide "an international lie" had a right to express his views and should not have been convicted by a Swiss court, the European Court of Human Rights ruled Tuesday.

The 2007 conviction of Dogu Perincek, an Ankara-based chairman of the Turkish Workers' Party, on charges of racial discrimination was "unjustified", the judges said.