Turkey, on a renewed push to join the EU, has adopted a long-awaited law to regulate migration and asylum in a move hailed Friday by the European bloc.

The country, which bridges Europe and Asia, is hosting up to 400,000 refugees escaping conflict in neighboring Syria and is under pressure to regulate their legal status at a time when it is bent on relaunching stalled EU entry talks.

The French foreign minister reassured Mali on Friday that France was not planning an "overnight" withdrawal of the troops it sent to liberate the west African nation from al-Qaida-linked rebels.

Laurent Fabius, in Bamako to discuss the pullout scheduled for the end of April, said France would provide a permanent "support force" of 1,000 French soldiers after elections that the deeply-divided country has promised for July.

The Pentagon warned Pyongyang on Friday that "further provocative action would be regrettable" after reports that North Korea had deployed two mid-range missiles near its eastern coast.

"Missile tests outside their international obligations would be a provocative act. They need to follow international norms and abide by their commitments," Pentagon spokesman George Little told reporters.

Pope Francis on Friday gave his first pronouncement on the Catholic Church's pervasive pedophile priest scandal, urging Vatican disciplinarians to act "with determination" against the scourge.

Meeting with Monsignor Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, the head of the Vatican department that disciplines predator priests, the pope asked him to "act with determination in cases of sexual abuse," the Vatican said in a statement.

Washington is breaking international law by holding detainees indefinitely at Guantanamo and must honor a pledge to shut the controversial jail, the U.N.'s human rights chief said Friday.

"I am deeply disappointed that the U.S. government has not been able to close Guantanamo Bay, despite repeatedly committing itself to do so," Navi Pillay said in a statement.

The U.N. rights body on Friday criticized Kuwait and several countries in Asia for resuming executions after halting the practice for several years.

"We are deeply concerned that a number of countries in the Middle East and Asia have recently started reapplying the death penalty after several years of moratorium," OHCHR spokesman Rupert Colville told reporters in Geneva.

Pakistan's top court will on Monday hear a petition asking for Pervez Musharraf to be put on trial for treason, the latest in a barrage of challenges to his bid for election, officials said.

Taufiq Asif, president of the Rawalpindi high court bar association, told Agence France Presse that he had asked the Supreme Court to try Musharraf for treason for imposing emergency rule in 2007, a move that ultimately paved the way for his downfall.

At least four Pakistani soldiers were killed on Friday during an operation against militants in the troubled tribal belt on the Afghan border, officials said.

The fighting took place in the Tirah valley of Khyber district, where the military has been bombarding Taliban and other militants who pose a fresh threat to the nearby northwestern city of Peshawar, a key battleground in upcoming elections.

North Korea has no choice but to "confront" the United States which is to blame for tensions in the Korean peninsula, a top Iranian commander said in remarks carried on Friday by Fars news agency.

"Tensions in the region are due to excessive demands by the United States... and its tightening of the noose on North Korea," said armed forces deputy chief Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri.

A powerful 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck early Saturday in eastern Russia near the border with China and North Korea, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The epicenter of the quake, which struck at 1300 GMT Friday, was southwest of Vladivostok, around nine kilometers (five miles) from the Russian border town of Zarubino, at a depth of 561 kilometers (350 miles), the USGS said.