An American evangelical pastor whose church's burning of a Quran sparked deadly violence in Afghanistan announced on Thursday that he plans to run for president in 2012.

In a campaign manifesto titled "Stand Up America!," Terry Jones pledged that on entering the White House he would immediately stop government overspending, bring all foreign-based troops home, and deport all illegal immigrants.

Pakistan on Friday rejected U.S. accusations that Pakistani armed forces allow insurgents to fire on American troops across the border in Afghanistan.

"I completely reject this, this is wrong and baseless," military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told Agence France Presse.

The U.S. and South Korean defense chiefs vowed Friday to raise combat-readiness against North Korean attacks following two deadly incidents last year, saying aggression "is not to be tolerated".

Leon Panetta and his counterpart Kim Kwan-Jin also described the North's uranium enrichment program revealed last November as a "grave threat" that gave it a second path to develop atomic weapons.

The United States on Thursday issued a warning to its nationals to avoid all but essential travel to parts of Thailand hit by floods, but pointed out that many tourist hotspots were unaffected.

Thousands of Bangkok residents fled the capital on Thursday ahead of a mass of approaching floodwater. The city's metropolitan area and 20 provinces are affected by the extensive flooding, the State Department said.

Pakistani forces are allowing insurgents to launch rocket and mortar attacks on U.S. troops across the border in Afghanistan and may be collaborating with the militants, a U.S. general said Thursday.

The rocket fire targeting American forces often originates within sight of border posts manned by Pakistan's Frontier Corps, said Lieutenant General Curtis Scaparrotti, deputy commander of the NATO-led force in Afghanistan.

Thousands of Bangkok residents flocked to bus, rail and air terminals Thursday while heavy traffic snaked out of the sprawling Thai capital in an exodus from a mass of approaching floodwater.

Water was seeping into central areas of the city of 12 million people, entering the grounds of the Grand Palace after the main Chao Phraya river overflowed at high tide, but most of downtown Bangkok was still dry.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta expressed skepticism Thursday about the outcome of his country's talks with North Korea, days after a second round of discussions was held in Geneva.

The talks on Monday and Tuesday, following up a meeting in New York in July, were intended to pave the way for the resumption of six-nation negotiations on the North's nuclear disarmament.

Thousands of people have clashed with police and smashed cars in eastern China after protests over taxes turned violent, a rights group said Thursday, while authorities put the number in the hundreds.

Several police were hurt in the riots, which began as a protest by business owners over taxes in the eastern Chinese city of Huzhou in Zhejiang province, according to an official statement posted on a local government website.

Pope Benedict XVI denounced religiously-motivated terrorism at a meeting with 300 leaders of world religions in Assisi Friday aimed at repudiating violence in the name of God.

"We know that terrorism is often religiously motivated and that the specifically religious character of the attacks is proposed as a justification for the reckless cruelty that considers itself entitled to discard the rules of morality for the sake of the intended 'good'," he said.

Attackers fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a vehicle and killed four people in northern Kenya Thursday, police said.

"The vehicle was carrying eight people but four of them have died," a police officer in the region said on condition of anonymity.