Two senior officials at Iran's Press TV whom the EU has slapped with sanctions have criticized the bloc over the move, in comments published on the English-language channel's website on Thursday.

The European Union on Tuesday added Press TV's chief Mohammad Sarafraz and newsroom director Hamid Reza Emadi to its blacklist against Tehran for grave human rights violations, subjecting them to an EU travel ban and asset freeze.

Indian officials have freed 51 children kept in "pathetic conditions" in the city of Jaipur amid suspicions they were held as part of a human trafficking racket, officials said Thursday.

The state-funded Rajasthan Commission for Protection of Child Rights said 27 girls aged between seven and 17 years were among the children found on Tuesday in two homes.

China, which has long had strained ties with the Vatican in a dispute about authority over Catholics in the country, said Thursday it hoped newly elected Pope Francis would take a "practical and flexible" attitude.

"We hope that under the leadership of the new pope the Vatican will adopt a practical and flexible attitude and create conditions for the improvement of China-Vatican relations," said foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying.

The U.S. commander in Afghanistan has warned troops that they face an increased threat of attack after a series of inflammatory anti-U.S. comments by President Hamid Karzai.

NATO's International Assistance Security Force (ISAF) on Thursday confirmed the contents of a strongly-worded advisory sent by U.S. General Joseph Dunford to his senior commanders on Wednesday.

Pope Francis, Latin American's first pontiff, visited a Rome basilica on Thursday at the start of a papacy looking to bring the Catholic Church closer to ordinary people.

The 76-year-old former archbishop of Buenos Aires and railway man's son, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, prayed at Rome's Santa Maria Maggiore basilica to kick off his first full day as the head of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics.

Thailand and one of several rebel groups in the country's Muslim south will open peace negotiations in Malaysia on March 28 to try to end a bloody insurgency, a Thai official said Thursday.

Thailand and the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) rebel group signed an agreement in Kuala Lumpur two weeks ago, pledging to open talks on ending a nine-year revolt by a number of shadowy insurgent groups that has claimed more than 5,500 lives.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has overseen a live-fire artillery drill near the disputed sea border with South Korea, state media said Thursday as the South's prime minister visited the flashpoint area.

The Yellow Sea border has witnessed bloody North-South clashes in the past and, with military tensions at their highest level for years, is seen as the prime location for another confrontation.

China's parliament named Xi Jinping as president Thursday, four months after he took charge of the Communist Party with pledges of reform that have raised hopes but so far yielded little change.

Top officials of the world's most populous nation, including Xi himself, took part in a leadership vote at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, taking turns to place red papers into ballot boxes, but the outcome was never in doubt.

U.S. President Barack Obama offered "warm wishes" on behalf of the American people to newly elected Pope Francis I on Wednesday, hailing the Argentine as "the first pope from the Americas."

"As a champion of the poor and the most vulnerable among us, he carries forth the message of love and compassion that has inspired the world for more than two thousand years, that in each other we see the face of God," he said.

The European Union offered its "sincere congratulations" Wednesday to the newly-elected Pope Francis I of Argentina, urging him to promote peace, solidarity and human dignity in a rapidly changing world.

"On behalf of the European Union, we convey our sincere congratulations on your election," EU President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso said in a joint statement after Jorge Mario Bergoglio was named as the church's first Latin American pontiff.