A 5.3-magnitude quake rattled the Dominican Republic early Thursday, according to the US Geological Survey, but there were no immediate reports of damage in the Caribbean nation.

The epicenter of the medium-sized earthquake was 55 kilometers west of the capital Santo Domingo, at a depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles), the USGS said.

A total 103 journalists were killed in 2011, with Mexico the most dangerous place to work for the media, Vienna-based press watchdog IPI said Thursday.

This was the second highest toll on record after 2009, when 110 journalists were killed while covering a story.

Fistfights erupted in Somalia's parliament late Wednesday as lawmakers elected a new speaker in a move condemned by the troubled nation's president as "null and void".

Several supporters of Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan -- sacked as speaker in a controversial move last month by 280 MPS -- were injured in the latest of several parliamentary brawls.

The bodies of 16 members of Pakistan's paramilitary Frontier Constabulary (FC) were found Thursday, almost two weeks after they were kidnapped from a northwestern town, officials said.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for the killings.

Police fired tear gas and beat protesters Thursday to force them out of a square they had occupied in Nigeria's main northern city as part of demonstrations over soaring fuel prices, an organizer said.

"Around 1:15 this morning, the policemen assisted by local vigilantes fired tear gas on us, and when we refused to budge they used gun butts and cudgels to beat us while police vans ran into the crowd," Audu Bulama, one of the protest organizers, told Agence France Presse.

At least 25 people were killed in the southern Philippines on Thursday when a landslide buried gold prospectors who had refused to leave an area declared too dangerous for habitation.

Officials said up to 150 people were missing on Mindanao Island after the collapse of a rain-soaked hillside that had been settled by thousands of migrants in search of instant riches.

Fighting between inmates left at least 31 dead and 13 wounded Wednesday in a jail holding alleged drug gang members in northeast Mexico, authorities said.

Police and soldiers surrounded the Santa Amalia jail, in Altamira on the Gulf of Mexico, and eventually regained control, a federal police spokesman said.

The United States said Wednesday it has taken no decision to release prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay in order to boost negotiations aimed at ending the 10-year war with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

But State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Washington is "prepared to support" a proposed overseas Taliban office that backs an Afghan-led reconciliation process provided it meets U.S. and Afghan standards.

European Union governments have reached a preliminary agreement on an oil embargo against Iran but are debating when the measure should come into force, EU diplomats said Wednesday, as French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said the decision could be taken at an EU foreign ministers' meeting on January 30 in Lisbon.

"There is an agreement in principle to forge ahead" with an oil embargo, a diplomat told Agence France Presse, but added that "there is still a lot of work" to do on its implementation ahead of the January 30 meeting.

The government of Afghanistan on Wednesday gave its blessing to talks between Taliban insurgents and the United States and to the opening of an office for the Islamists in Qatar.

The hardline Taliban announced on Tuesday that they had come to an "initial agreement with relevant sides including Qatar" to set up their first representative office outside Afghanistan.