Two U.S. hikers jailed for spying and illegal entry left Tehran for the Gulf sultanate of Oman on Wednesday on their way home to the United States after Iran released them on bail, months after handing them hefty jail terms, the official IRNA news agency reported.

"Moments ago they left Iran via Mehrabad airport and it seems that the two American nationals have left for Oman and from there to America," the report said.

Gunmen shot and killed a Somali lawmaker in the northern breakaway state of Puntland, where fighting between political and clan groups is on the rise recently, officials said Wednesday.

Security officials in Galkayo said Abdurahman Ahmed Haji was shot late Tuesday by men with handguns in front of the gate of his house.

The bodies of at least 35 members of "a criminal organization" have been found in two trucks in Veracruz, eastern Mexico, justice officials said, adding that most of the dead were convicts.

Veracruz state prosecutor Reynaldo Escobar told a news conference the cadavers were located Tuesday inside trucks at an underpass and that those so far identified had criminal records for murder, kidnapping and drug-peddling.

The chief nuclear envoys for North and South Korea met in Beijing to try to revive international nuclear disarmament talks on Wednesday, with little hope of any early breakthroughs.

The one-day meeting at a private members' club in the center of the Chinese capital is the second round of talks between the South's Wi Sung-Lac and his North Korean counterpart Ri Yong-Ho in two months.

Texas Governor Rick Perry slammed President Barack Obama's "appeasement" of Palestinians as dangerous and naive on Tuesday, in his first major foreign policy address since emerging as the top Republican White House hopeful.

Seizing on the diplomatic conflagration over U.N. recognition of Palestinian statehood, Perry blasted Obama for not being strong enough in his support of Israel and allowing the Palestinian bid to proceed.

The Sudanese army has attacked a heavily armed convoy of Darfur rebels near the war-torn region's border with Libya, killing one and seizing a truck load of weapons, the army spokesman said on Tuesday.

"Yesterday (Monday), when the Sudanese armed forces tried to close the border, where Sudan, Libya and Chad meet, clashes erupted with a small group from the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM)," Sawarmi Khaled Saad told Agence France Presse.

The Paris prosecutor on Tuesday asked for French former president Jacques Chirac and nine other accused to be acquitted in a graft trial relating to his time as Paris mayor.

"I seek acquittal for all the accused on all charges," prosecutor Michel Maes told the court.

A Taliban suicide bomber with explosives hidden in his turban Tuesday assassinated Afghanistan's former president Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was leading efforts to talk peace with insurgents.

The attacker had been invited into Rabbani's Kabul home with an accomplice because they were thought to be emissaries bringing "special messages" from the Taliban.

Two U.S. hikers convicted of spying in Iran are still in a prison in Tehran as a judge who is to authorize their release has yet to return from leave, their lawyer said on Tuesday.

"I went to the court today and they told me that the... judge is not here. I waited a while and after some time I left. They told me that they will call me" when the judge returns, the lawyer, Masoud Shafii, told Agence France Presse.

A powerful bomb rocked the center of Turkish capital Ankara on Tuesday, killing three people and injuring at least 15, the interior minister said, as immediate suspicion fell on Kurdish separatists.

"Three citizens were killed and 15 were injured, five of whom are in critical condition," Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin told Turkish television.