A strengthening Tropical Storm Lee lurched toward the U.S. Gulf Coast on Saturday, dumping heavy rain on Louisiana and threatening extensive flooding that will put the New Orleans levee system to the test.

Oil companies evacuated workers from offshore rigs ahead of the arrival of Lee, a disorganized but major rainmaker, while Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency.

Former French president Jacques Chirac will not attend his corruption trial opening in Paris on Monday on medical grounds, his lawyers said Saturday.

At Chirac's request, the lawyers said, they submitted a letter from their client to the presiding judge on Friday, together with a copy of his medical file.

Rebels fighting Sudanese troops in the ethnically divided border state of South Kordofan killed 17 civilians, some of them children, state media reported.

"Seventeen civilians were killed on Thursday, including children, and 14 wounded, including a number of women, in attacks by the SPLA in the areas of Um Dahilib and Murung, in the Kalugi region of South Kordofan state," the official SUNA news agency reported late on Friday.

Russia on Saturday successfully tested its Topol strategic missile with a new warhead designed to breach missile shields, Russian news agencies reported, citing the defense ministry.

"The experimental warhead of the missile hit the designated target with high precision at the testing site on Kamchatka peninsula," a spokesman for the strategic rocket forces told the Interfax news agency.

The United States sent a plane loaded with a small but symbolic shipment of emergency aid that was due to arrive in flood-stricken North Korea on Saturday, in the latest sign of a thaw in relations between the countries.

A cargo plane departed Friday from the U.S. packed with $900,000 worth of food, medical aid, soap, blankets and cooking kits, according to the North Carolina-based aid group Samaritan's Purse.

Four bodies have so far been found in the Pacific Ocean from a Chilean air force plane carrying 21 people that disappeared on its way to a remote archipelago, the military said Saturday.

"So far we have found two female bodies and two male bodies; in none of the cases have they been identified," said Air Force chief Maximiliano Larraechea.

The U.S. State Department on Friday issued a worldwide travel alert ahead of the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, calling on Americans living and traveling abroad to remain vigilant.

The department said it had not identified any "specific threats" about possible attacks but that al-Qaida and its affiliates had "demonstrated the intent and capability to carry out attacks" against the U.S. and U.S. interests.

At least 21 people have been killed and 31 others wounded in two days of heavy fighting on the border of Somalia proper and the breakaway state of Puntland, officials and witnesses said Friday.

Clashes broke out Thursday in the northern part of Galkayo town after Puntland soldiers raided neighborhoods searching for gunmen linked to Al Qaeda-inspired Shebab militants.

A 6.4 magnitude earthquake rocked northern Argentina Friday, but the epicenter was almost 600 kilometers (370 miles) underground and there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

Experts from the U.S. Geological Survey said the quake struck at 10:47 am local time (1347 GMT) about 30 kilometers (20 miles) west of Anatuya, a small town in the northern Argentine province of Santiago del Estero.

A strong 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck Alaska's Aleutian Islands early Friday, triggering a tsunami warning for the remote region that was later lifted, the US Geological Survey reported.

The underwater quake occurred at 1:55 am (1055 GMT) some 80 miles (130 kilometers) from the town of Dutch Harbor, one of several spots in the Pacific island chain that host commercial fishing operations.