Rival Greek- and Turkish- Cypriot leaders made "encouraging progress" in two days of talks on reuniting the divided Mediterranean island, U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday.

The U.N. secretary general brought together Demetris Christofias, head of the internationally recognized Greek-Cypriot government, and Turkish-Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu, for two days of talks at a retreat in the New York suburbs on Sunday and Monday.

Two vehicles carrying explosives detonated in southwest China on Tuesday, killing four people, injuring dozens of others and causing several nearby buildings to collapse, local authorities said.

The explosion took place around midday (04:00 GMT) at an auto repair workshop on a highway in Fuquan city in Guizhou province, a government spokesman and statement said.

Russia could take steps of "a technically military nature" if its objections to NATO's planned missile defense system are not heeded, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a Serbian daily Tuesday.

"If our partners in the future continue to ignore out position we should protect our interests by other means... Concrete measures might be needed... a response of a technically military nature," Lavrov told Belgrade's Vecernje Novosti in an interview published Tuesday.

Nepal police arrested more than 50 Tibetan exiles Tuesday as they demonstrated in support of monks from their homeland who have set themselves on fire in protest against Chinese rule, campaigners said.

Nine Buddhist monks and a nun have self-immolated since March in southwest China's Sichuan province, home to a large ethnic Tibetan population.

The ringleader of a rogue U.S. army unit accused of killing Afghan civilians for sport treated the locals like "savages," a court martial heard Monday.

The so-called "kill team" led by Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs was "out of control," prosecutors added as grisly photos of soldiers posing with a corpse were shown in court.

Hundreds of SPLM-North rebels were killed in clashes with the Sudanese army in South Kordofan on Monday, said a local governor in Sudan's only oil producing state where the army is battling insurgents.

"Several hundred members of the movement were killed this day in an assault on the city of Teludi that was repelled by the armed forces," governor Ahmed Haroun said of South Kordofan, the scene of frequent clashes.

The world welcomed its symbolic seven billionth baby Monday amid a stark warning from U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon of the need to tackle inequality on a planet where almost a billion people go hungry.

"Our world is one of terrible contradictions," Ban told a press conference to mark the U.N. declaration that the world population has reached seven billion.

A Kenyan air raid at the weekend that struck a camp hosting thousands of displaced Somalis has killed five people, after two victims succumbed to their injuries, an aid official said Monday.

A bomb on Sunday hit the camp, in the southern town of Jilib, where some 9,000 internally displaced children have sought refuge.

The United States is trying to secure the help of Pakistani intelligence service to organize reconciliation talks in Afghanistan aimed at ending the war there, The New York Times reported Monday.

The newspaper said overtures are taking place just a month after President Barack Obama's administration accused Pakistan’s spy agency of secretly supporting the Haqqani terrorist network, which has mounted attacks on Americans.

A provincial cabinet minister from Pakistan's main ruling party escaped unhurt Monday when Taliban militants opened fire on his vehicle in the country's troubled northwest, officials said.

Amjad Khan Afridi, minister for housing and physical planning in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, was travelling in his bullet-proof car when militants hiding in the Bilitang area of Kohat district opened fire, police said.