A U.S. drone strike killed four militants in northwestern Pakistan on Friday, the third such attack in 48 hours against Taliban hotbeds in Waziristan near the Afghan border, officials said.

The drone fired two missiles into a vehicle as it drove through Darpa Khel village about four kilometers (two miles) west of Miranshah, the main town in the district of North Waziristan, the Pakistani security officials told AFP.

European Union foreign policy Chief Catherine Ashton urged Malawi on Friday to arrest visiting Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted for war crimes.

Ashton "is concerned by the announced visit of President of Sudan Omar al-Bashir to Malawi," her press office said, noting that Malawi is a state party to the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court.

A British minister was left red-faced Friday after he was snapped disposing of official documents in a central London park bin.

Oliver Letwin, the Minister for Government Policy, dumped ripped up papers relating to Britain's controversial methods of interrogating terror suspects in St James Park, a short distance from Prime Minister David Cameron's Downing Street base, the Daily Mirror reported.

Papua New Guinean officials were Friday trying to piece together how a passenger plane crashed in dense forest, killing 28 people -- but leaving four survivors -- in the nation's worst air disaster.

The survivors were the Australian and New Zealand pilots, a flight attendant, and a passenger believed to be a Chinese national, who reportedly escaped the fiery wreckage through a crack in the fuselage.

A fighter jet plunged to the ground and exploded as it took part in an air display at a show in northern China Friday, organizers and state media said.

China's state-run television CCTV showed images of the Chinese-made plane falling from the sky and bursting into flames when it hit the ground at the show in Shaanxi province.

The United States said Thursday the most senior leader of the extremist Haqqani group yet "taken off the battlefield" had been killed in a lawless tribal area of Pakistan.

"It's been confirmed that Janbaz Zadran, aka Jamil, was killed earlier today in North Waziristan, Pakistan," said a senior US official, revealing the death of the latest target of the secret U.S. anti-terror war.

Norwegian extremist Anders Behring Breivik, who has confessed to twin attacks in July that killed 77 people, will be allowed out of solitary confinement but will still be subjected to heavy restrictions, police said Thursday.

"We will not extend the solitary confinement beyond October 17," police prosecutor Christian Hatlo told reporters.

Judges trying ex-Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic turned down Thursday a prosecution bid to hold two separate trials, the first focusing on the Srebrenica massacre.

"The Trial Chamber today denied the Prosecution's request to sever the indictment against Ratko Mladic," a statement said, upholding a challenge filed by Mladic's lawyer Branko Lukic against the prosecution bid.

A powerful explosion likely triggered by a gas leak ripped through a restaurant in downtown Rio de Janeiro early Thursday, leaving three people dead and 17 injured, the Brazilian city's mayor said.

Three of those hurt were in serious condition, Mayor Eduardo Paes told reporters at the scene of the explosion, which occurred around 7:30 am (1030 GMT).

Two suspicious packages delivered to Swedish government buildings triggered bomb scares Thursday, police said, amid reports one may have been a gift from Uruguay's visiting president.

Police were alerted to a suspicious letter or package at the Rosenbad building, which houses Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt's offices, late Thursday morning and decided to evacuate parts of the building and cordon off the surrounding block, Stockholm police spokesman Ulf Lindgren told AFP.