U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will meet their Russian counterparts Sergei Lavrov and Sergei Shoigu on Friday in Washington, a U.S. defense official said.

The so-called "2+2" meeting, to be held at the State Department, comes at a time of tensions between Washington and Russia over Moscow's decision to grant asylum to U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden.

The European Commission said Tuesday it would send a team of monitors to the Spain-Gibraltar border as perennial frontier spats resurfaced.

Commission spokesman Frederic Vincent said the EU "has informed the Spanish authorities of our intention to send Commission experts to the border."

A bomb alert that forced the evacuation of a US consulate in Italy on Tuesday has been lifted, reports said, amid fears of an imminent al-Qaida attack.

The alert was raised after a suspicious package was found at the consulate in the Italian business hub of Milan, but no explosives were found, according to leading daily Corriere della Sera.

Russia on Tuesday backed the new Iranian president's call for fresh negotiations without delay on Tehran's nuclear program, while criticizing calls by U.S. lawmakers for harsher sanctions against Iran.

Iranian President Hasan Rowhani said Tuesday at his first news conference since assuming office that Iran was ready for "serious" talks on its nuclear program "without wasting time."

Burundi's veteran rebel leader Agathon Rwasa resurfaced Tuesday after three years in the bush, but police stopped him from addressing a crowd of supporters who came to welcome him.

"Three years ago, in the wake of the dispute over the elections, I had to leave those close to me in order to save my skin," Rwasa told reporters at a villa in the capital Bujumbura.

Uganda on Tuesday passed a controversial bill to limit public demonstrations, criticized by rights groups as a "devastating blow" to free speech and political debate.

The Public Management Order bill places tough restrictions on public meetings, including granting police the power to block a gathering of as few as three people to debate politics.

President Hasan Rowhani said Tuesday that Iran was ready for "serious" talks on its nuclear program without delay and that U.S. calls for tougher sanctions showed a lack of understanding.

Addressing his first news conference since taking office on Saturday, Rowhani said that he would not surrender Iran's rights but that he wanted to allay Western concerns.

Colombian police said Tuesday they intercepted a vehicle loaded with explosives in Bogota, foiling an attack by FARC guerrillas.

Two men accused of belonging to a FARC cell were arrested Monday night as they drove through the city with 25 kilograms of an explosive mixture of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, police said.

A senior Zimbabwean election official said Tuesday he has resigned, just days after a colleague quit over the conduct of the vote that extended President Robert Mugabe's 33-year rule.

"Yes, I have resigned (from the Zimbabwe Election Commission)," law professor Geoff Feltoe told Agence France Presse.

EU foreign affairs head Catherine Ashton, who leads talks with Tehran on its disputed nuclear program, on Tuesday called on Iran's new president to agree a fresh round of negotiations as soon as possible.

Ashton in a letter offered her congratulations on President Hasan Rowhani's inauguration and said he had won "a strong mandate to engage in dialogue and cooperation with the international community to seek a swift resolution to its serious concerns about Iran's nuclear activities.