The secret conclave to elect a new pope once Pope Benedict XVI has resigned could be held earlier than originally planned to allow the future pontiff to prepare for Easter, sources said Friday.

Benedict steps down on February 28 and the vote for the top job may begin on March 10, sources told Rome-based religious news agency I.Media.

Four former Bosnian Serb policemen were sentenced Friday to from 15 to 22 years in prison for their involvement in the execution of at least 150 Muslim and Croat civilians during the 1992-1995 war.

"Zoran Babic, Milorad Skrbic, Dusan Jankovic and Zeljko Stojnic participated in a joint criminal enterprise... and were found guilty of having committed crimes against humanity," judge Mirko Bozovic said.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was seen bed-ridden but smiling in photos released Friday that gave a jittery nation a first glimpse of him since his fourth round of cancer surgery in December.

The pictures show Chavez lying on his back in bed in a Havana hospital, with his two eldest daughters at his side and holding Thursday's edition of the official Cuban communist party newspaper Granma.

The European Union plans a gamut of 'tough' sanctions against North Korea, ranging from financial measures to travel bans and asset freezes against individuals, EU diplomats said Friday.

"There will be wide sanctions", announced at talks between the bloc's 27 foreign ministers Monday, said an EU diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity.

The United States on Friday warned of a dangerous increase in tensions on the undemarcated border between Sudan and South Sudan after reports of clashes between the two sides.

Washington is "deeply concerned" by the reported incidents in disputed border areas between South Sudan's Upper Nile state and Sudan's Blue Nile, the U.S. embassy in Khartoum said.

The U.N. food agency said Friday it aims to provide half a million Malians with emergency food aid this year, especially in the restive north, as a survey showed that nearly all those who have fled the area hope to return home soon.

The U.N. World Food Program aims "to reach around 564,000 people in Mali, (including) more than 400,000 crisis-affected people in the north in Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal in need of assistance," spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs told reporters in Geneva.

The European Union on Friday announced fresh aid worth 20 million euros to help restore law and order in Mali as well as the return of basic state services such as education after months of trouble.

The aid comes on top of a quarter-billion-euro EU package to also be released as authorities move to restore democracy in the beleaguered west African nation.

The chief minister of Pakistan's restive northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province survived a suicide bombing assassination bid on Friday.

Ameer Haider Khan Hoti was traveling to a political rally when the attacker threw a grenade at his car before blowing himself up, Zaka Ullah, a senior local official, told Agence France Presse, but no-one was hurt.

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will hold talks with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington on February 22, with North Korea high on the agenda, the top government spokesman said Friday.

Abe will leave Tokyo next Thursday on a four-day U.S. visit, accompanied by Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, who is planning to meet new U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news briefing.

The United States has designated an alleged senior North African al-Qaida leader a "terrorist" as part of Washington's support of French-led troops who wrested northern Mali back from Muslim extremists.

The U.S. Treasury on Thursday targeted Yahya Abu Hammam, an alleged senior leader in al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) with an executive order used to designate "terrorists and their supporters."