Spain's royal palace said it was "surprised" by a judge's decision to name King Juan Carlos' daughter Princess Cristina as a suspect in a corruption case Wednesday, a move which dealt a huge blow to the prestige of the monarchy.

While the royal place has the "maximum respect" for the decision, it "wants to express its surprise for the change in position" by the investigating judge who in March 2012 declined to name the princess as a suspect in the case, a spokesman for the royal palace told Agence France Presse.

North Korea's threats and recent actions represent a "real and clear danger" to the United States as well as its allies South Korea and Japan, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Wednesday.

"They have nuclear capacity now, they have missile delivery capacity now," Hagel said after giving a major strategy speech at the National Defense University, calling Pyongyang's "bellicose dangerous rhetoric" problematic.

A Taliban office in Doha could "facilitate" talks with the militants, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in an interview with Qatar-based al-Jazeera television broadcast on Wednesday.

Karzai, who held talks Sunday with the emir of Qatar to discuss opening a Taliban office in the Gulf state, said he was keen on working with the Taliban to help bring about peace in Afghanistan before NATO ends combat operations there next year.

At least 25 people died in flooding in the Argentine city of La Plata as torrential rains fell, the regional governor said Wednesday.

The deaths raised to 33 the number of people killed this week following record heavy rain in Argentina.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said Wednesday she was cautiously optimistic over the outcome of talks this week between Iran and world powers on Tehran's nuclear drive.

Officials from the so-called P5+1 grouping meet negotiators from Iran in Kazakhstan on Friday, hoping for a response to a revised offer that would ease some sanctions in return for concessions over its uranium enrichment activities.

Uganda has suspended its hunt for Lord's Resistance Army chief Joseph Kony in Central African Republic after Seleka rebels took control of the country, an army spokesman said Wednesday.

"We have temporarily suspended operations against the LRA until further notice," army spokesman Felix Kulayigye said.

A Turkish ship sank off Oman on Wednesday a day after an engine room fire and the evacuation of its 21-strong crew, Oman's transport ministry said.

The sultanate's official ONA news agency cited a ministry statement as saying that the Atlantik Confidence, flying the Liberian flag, sank at midday 144 nautical miles southeast of the island of Masirah, off the country's east coast.

Pope Francis on Wednesday underlined the role played by women in the Roman Catholic Church, saying they had been more willing to believe in Jesus Christ's resurrection than his own disciples.

"Women play a primary, fundamental role in the Bible," the pope told thousands of pilgrims at an audience in St Peter's Square, basing himself on a Biblical passage when a group of women noticed Christ's tomb was empty.

Taliban militants stormed an Afghan court on Wednesday, killing at least 44 people in a bid to free insurgents standing trial, officials said, in the deadliest attack for more than a year.

It was not immediately clear whether the accused men had escaped the court complex in the western town of Farah, although a hospital doctor said one prisoner was among those being treated for injuries.

Ukraine's high court on Wednesday rejected an appeal by former interior minister Yuriy Lutsenko, a close ally of jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, against his four-year jail term for abuse of office and embezzlement.

The High Specialized Court of Ukraine confirmed the sentence, meaning that Lutsenko, who has complained of health problems, will stay in prison until the end of December 2014, an Agence France Presse correspondent reported.