Russian firefighters on Friday battled a blaze raging through an arms depot where tones of artillery shells and rockets were stored, as some 28,000 people living nearby were evacuated from their homes.

As a result of the night-time blaze at the arms depot near the city of Izhevsk in the Volga region of Udmurtia, 30 people were injured and nine hospitalized including a child, an emergency ministry spokesman told Agence France Presse.

Leading Republican contender Mitt Romney leapt into the 2012 White House race Thursday, delivering a damning critique of President Barack Obama's stewardship of the faltering U.S. economy.

The 64-year-old former Massachusetts governor, who lost out to Senator John McCain for the Republican nomination in 2008, declared his candidacy in New Hampshire, a state that will be key to his electoral chances.

Clashes pitting Somali government forces and their African Union allies against Islamist rebels for control of Mogadishu's main market left at least 17 civilians dead on Thursday, officials said.

Many of the victims died when stray artillery fire hit a bus station where people were waiting.

A policeman and two security guards were killed Thursday in an attack on checkpoints set up to protect a road construction site in southern Afghanistan, an official said.

A group of armed militants stormed three checkpoints early Thursday on a road project linking the volatile Chora district to Trinkot, the capital of Uruzgan province.

The United States is not looking to "hold China down" but is worried about its new weaponry and wants a stronger dialogue with its expanding military, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday.

Gates, speaking to reporters on his plane en route to a security forum in Singapore, said he was encouraged by recent signs of progress in security ties with China even amid the rapid military buildup.

Security forces locked down central Rome on Thursday as world leaders including the Israeli and Palestinian presidents gathered for celebrations to mark the founding of the Italian republic in 1946.

The Afghan, Argentinian and Russian presidents were also among the more than 80 international delegations taking part, along with U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden, Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.

Hundreds of heavily armed Taliban besieged a Pakistani checkpost on the Afghan border for a second day Thursday, killing 23 police and five civilians in the deadliest fighting for months.

A senior police official told Agence France Presse that 500 militants, including Afghan Taliban from across the border and Pakistani Taliban, took part in the attack which began before dawn on Wednesday and continued more than 24 hours later.

The United States called Wednesday on Sudan's northern and southern leaders to meet immediately to defuse a crisis over the disputed Abyei border region and help save a 2005 peace agreement.

Johnnie Carson, the top U.S. diplomat for Africa, renewed U.S. condemnation of the May 21 seizure of Abyei by troops serving the northern-based government of President Omar al-Bashir and repeated American calls for them to withdraw.

Ivory Coast announced a new government Wednesday in another step towards re-establishing itself after a five-month dispute over presidential elections that descended into deadly violence.

The line-up of 36 ministers does not feature the party of Laurent Gbagbo, the former president who refused to step down after November elections, leading to the violence.

A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the southcentral coast of Chile on Wednesday in an area hit by a major temblor last year, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The tremor caused panic in some communities but there were no immediate reports of deaths or major damage, and there were no tsunami warnings from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii.