The African Union's peace and security body met Tuesday to discuss ongoing political crises in Mali and Guinea-Bissau and the escalating conflict between Sudan and South Sudan, urging immediate end to the conflicts.

"It is important... to find fast, equitable, just and durable solutions to the conflict in Guinea-Bissau and in Mali," AU security commissioner Ramtane Lamamra said at the meeting's opening.

Ukraine's jailed opposition leader and former premier Yulia Tymoshenko has been on a hunger strike since Friday to protest her treatment by prison wardens and doctors, her lawyer said.

"Yulia Tymoshenko has declared a hunger strike," Interfax quoted Serhiy Vlasenko as saying outside her prison in the eastern city of Kharkiv where Tymoshenko has been jailed since last year on abuse of office charges.

Apparently new long-range ballistic missiles displayed at a North Korean military parade this month were mock-ups, according to two German experts who termed the exercise "a nice dog and pony show".

One of the missiles on show in Kim Il-Sung Square on April 15 -- transported on a launcher of apparent Chinese design -- seemed to be a new addition to the nuclear-armed country's long-range arsenal, according to analysts at the time.

Three Kurdish rebels were killed and one Turkish soldier was injured Tuesday in clashes in Turkey's southeast, local security sources said.

The clashes between members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and Turkish soldiers took place in the Genc district of Bingol province, the sources said.

South Sudan's President Salva Kiir said Tuesday Khartoum had "declared war" on his country, as violence between the world's newest nation and Sudan intensified.

Kiir's comment -- in a meeting with his Chinese counterpart -- came after Sudanese warplanes bombed South Sudan's oil-rich border regions overnight, as violence persisted despite international calls for restraint.

British police on Tuesday arrested five men on suspicion of terror offences in the town of Luton, northwest of London, in pre-planned raids.

The men, aged 35, 30, 24, 23 and 21, were arrested "on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism", Scotland Yard police headquarters said.

Iran on Tuesday warned that new U.S. sanctions targeting its access to surveillance technology were "negative" and could adversely affect its crucial talks next month with world powers over Tehran's nuclear program.

"We consider any kind of sanction as negative and a wrong step," foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said in his weekly briefing.

Pakistan's Supreme Court will announce its verdict in a contempt of court case against Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Thursday, his lawyer said on Tuesday.

Gilani was charged with contempt by the country's highest court in February for refusing to write to the Swiss authorities to ask them to re-open corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari.

Thousands of Armenians staged a procession to a hilltop memorial above the capital on Tuesday to mark the 97th anniversary of the genocide of their kin by Ottoman Turks during World War I.

From early morning, crowds of people joined the annual procession, carrying candles and flowers to lay at the eternal flame at the center of the monument commemorating the mass killings.

Sudan, which has rejected a return to the negotiating table, accused South Sudan of undermining its stability by backing rebels inside its territory despite international appeals for it to stop.

The "South Sudan government did not respond to the repeated calls of the international community and continued its hostile activities to undermine the stability and security of Sudan," said the foreign ministry.