U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon will go to the typhoon-stricken Philippines city of Tacloban this week to highlight the growing number of weather disasters.

"2013 was another year of extreme weather -- as we saw most recently with Typhoon Haiyan. On Thursday, I will depart for Manila and Tacloban for a firsthand assessment of the aftermath," Ban said Monday as he announced the visit.

An allegedly bogus sign language interpreter hired for a Nelson Mandela memorial service addressed by the likes of Barack Obama, on Monday dismissed media claims he had faced murder charges in the past.

The signer, Thamsanqa Jantjie, had stood just feet from the United States president and other world leaders on the stage at last Tuesday's event at Soweto's World Cup stadium.

The second round of Mali's parliamentary polls met international standards, the European Union's chief election observer in the troubled west African nation said on Monday.

Louis Michel told reporters in the capital Bamako his team had positively evaluated 98 percent of the 705 polling stations observed on Sunday.

Greenland wants former colonial master Denmark to compensate what could be thousands of people who were left legally fatherless after being born out of wedlock, a lawmaker from the territory said on Monday.

While all Danes have been able to find out who their father is since 1938, the same right was not given to people in Greenland, now an autonomous territory, until 1963 -- and in some parts of the world's largest island not until 1974.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has expressed Iran's "discontent" to his U.S .counterpart over the expansion of a blacklist of Iranian firms following a landmark nuclear accord, media reported Monday.

Iran has accused Washington of going against the spirit of the deal reached in November by adding a dozen overseas companies and individuals to its blacklist for evading sanctions imposed on Tehran over its controversial nuclear program.

Attacks by Islamist group Boko Haram in Nigeria's restive northeast have killed more than 1,200 people since May, when a state of emergency was declared in the region, the United Nations said Monday.

Nigeria placed the states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe under emergency rule on May 14, following waves of deadly violence by the Islamist rebels.

A bomb scare on Monday forced Harvard University to evacuate four buildings, call in police and cancel final exams underway at the elite U.S. university in the northeastern town of Cambridge.

An alert on its website announced the evacuations at the Science Center, the Thayer dormitory, the Sever classroom and lecture hall and the Emerson building, home to the philosophy department.

Prime Minister David Cameron paid a pre-Christmas visit to British troops in Afghanistan on Monday and reiterated that no British forces will be in a combat role there by the end of 2014.

Cameron spent the unannounced visit at Camp Bastion in southern Afghanistan, accompanied by former England and Liverpool footballer Michael Owen, his Downing Street office said.

The EU said Monday it was ready to suspend some sanctions against Iran as soon as experts check that Tehran is implementing the terms of an historic deal on its nuclear program.

European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels said the 28-nation bloc backed the Joint Plan of Action reached on November 24 in Geneva as "a long-awaited signal of the commitment of all sides to build trust and reduce tensions" over Iran's nuclear activities.

France voiced concern on Monday over the firing of three ministers in the Central African Republic's transitional government, saying the move risks causing more instability in the strife-torn country.

President Francois Hollande meanwhile said France's decision to deploy 1,600 troops in its chaotic former colony was aimed at stopping "crimes against humanity".