U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will visit nine countries in Europe and the Middle East starting Sunday as he undertakes his first foreign trip as top diplomat, the State Department said Tuesday.

Kerry will visit Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar through March 6, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.

A tribal clash has claimed many casualties near the tense undemarcated border between Sudan and South Sudan, a source familiar with the incident said on Tuesday.

The violence occurred between nomadic Arab Misseriya cattle herders and members of the South Sudanese-based Nuer tribe west of the disputed Abyei region, said the source, an Abyei resident.

The United States is likely to play a more active military role in Mali, where French-led forces are battling Islamist rebels, after the country holds elections, the chair of a key Senate sub-committee said Monday.

Washington has been providing intelligence, transport and mid-air refuelling to France, which launched its intervention last month, but cannot work directly with the Malian army until a democratically elected government replaces current leaders who came to power after a coup, said Christopher Coons, chair of the Senate foreign relations committee's Africa sub-committee.

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will hold talks with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington on February 22, with North Korea high on the agenda, the top government spokesman said Friday.

Abe will leave Tokyo next Thursday on a four-day U.S. visit, accompanied by Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, who is planning to meet new U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news briefing.

A photo of Gazans taking two children and their father killed in an Israeli air strike for burial has won the 2013 World Press Photo award for Swedish photographer Paul Hansen, judges said Friday.

The staff shooter for the Dagens Nyheter daily took the image of the funeral procession carrying carrying two-year-old Suhaib Hijazi and her three-year-old brother Muhammad down an alley in Gaza City on November 20, 2012.

The United States has designated an alleged senior North African al-Qaida leader a "terrorist" as part of Washington's support of French-led troops who wrested northern Mali back from Muslim extremists.

The U.S. Treasury on Thursday targeted Yahya Abu Hammam, an alleged senior leader in al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) with an executive order used to designate "terrorists and their supporters."

More than 100,000 troops and civilians staged a mass rally in Pyongyang to celebrate North Korea's nuclear test and praise the "matchless" bravery of leader Kim Jong-Un, state media said Friday.

The rally in the capital's sprawling Kim Il-Sung square on Thursday was attended by top party and military officials, as well as police workers and students, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

The United States and the United Nations called Thursday for free elections in the Maldives, after the Indian Ocean archipelago's former leader took refuge in the Indian embassy.

"We urge all sides to remain calm, reject the use of violence and avoid rhetoric that could increase tensions," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement.

The United States believes there may be a way to rekindle stalemated Middle East peace talks, but wants to hear ideas first from regional leaders, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday.

"I believe that there are possibilities," Kerry said after talks with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, adding he was an optimist at heart.

The U.S. government has not denied health insurance to the Navy SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden despite a magazine article that implied otherwise, officials said Wednesday.

In a lengthy profile this week in Esquire magazine, the commando -- whose identity was kept secret -- is portrayed as a neglected hero who must buy private health insurance and struggle to earn income after retiring from a 16-year career in uniform.