Syrian Kurdish leaders called on civilians Tuesday to take up arms to defend the Afrin enclave against a Turkish assault now in its fourth day.

"We announce a general mobilisation and we invite all children of our people to defend Afrin," the Kurdish enclave's autonomous administration said in a statement.

Its spokesman Rezan Hedo told AFP: "It is an invitation for all Kurds in Syria to take up arms."

Egypt's military on Tuesday accused a former armed forces chief of staff who plans to stand in presidential elections in March of forgery and other crimes linked to his candidacy announcement.

The general command of the Egyptian armed forces made the accusations against General Sami Anan in a video posted on its official Facebook page.

Britain's competition regulator provisionally ruled Tuesday that a takeover of satellite TV giant Sky by Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox entertaintment group was "not in the public interest". 

The Competition and Markets Authority "has provisionally found that Fox taking full control of Sky is not in the public interest due to media plurality concerns", it said in a statement that also proposed possible remedies, after an in-depth probe.

South African jazz legend Hugh Masekela has died aged 78, his family announced on Tuesday, triggering an outpouring of tributes to his music, his long career and his anti-apartheid activism.

"After a protracted and courageous battle with prostate cancer, he passed peacefully in Johannesburg, South Africa," his family said in a statement.

The EU on Tuesday removed eight countries including Panama and South Korea from its new tax haven blacklist, a European source said, a move that has drawn criticism from activists.

The United Arab Emirates, Tunisia, Mongolia, Macau, Grenada and Barbados were also lifted, in a change of mind that comes just weeks after the bloc unveiled its original list of non-EU countries.

A powerful earthquake of magnitude 8.2 struck off the southern coast of Alaska early Tuesday, the USGS said.

Tsunami warnings were issued for Alaska and the west coast of Canada, the National Tsunami Warning Center said.

The quake struck at 0931 GMT in the Gulf of Alaska, 280 kilometers (175 miles) southeast of the town of Kodiak, the US Geological Survey said.

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Tuesday called for Turkey to show "restraint" in its offensive against a Kurdish militia in Syria.

"The violence in Afrin disrupts what was a relatively stable area in Syria and distracts from the international effort to defeat ISIS," Mattis said during a tour of Asia, referring to the militia's enclave in northern Syria.

"We urge Turkey to exercise restraint in the military action and the rhetoric."

A Turkish soldier was killed as the country pressed its offensive against Kurdish militia targets in northern Syria, the army said, confirming the operation's first Turkish fatality on its third day.

"One of our heroic soldiers was martyred during clashes" with Kurdish militants from the People's Protection Units (YPG) militia southeast of the Turkish border town of Gulbaba in Kilis, the Turkish military said in a statement.

US lawmakers broke their deadlock to end the three-day government shutdown and send Wall Street to fresh records on Monday as all three major stock indices reached new all-time highs.

The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.5 percent, to close the session at 26,209.21.

The broader S&P 500 jumped an even stronger 0.8 percent to land at 2,832.98, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq sailed nearly a full percentage point higher to settle at 7,408.03.

The US Senate overcame days of acrimonious feuding on Monday to pass a temporary spending bill aimed at ending a three-day government shutdown.

The measure funding federal operations until February 8 easily passed by a vote of 81 to 18, after Democrats won assurances from Republicans on addressing the fate of hundreds of thousands of young immigrants facing possible deportation from early March.

The spending measure now heads to the House of Representatives, where Republican leaders have said it has enough support to pass, before being sent to the White House for President Donald Trump's signature.

The House of Representatives followed the Senate Monday in approving a temporary funding bill that clears the way to ending a three-day government shutdown triggered by feuding over immigration policy.

The stopgap bill, which in addition to funding the government through February 8 also reauthorizes a popular children's health insurance program, now heads to the White House where President Donald Trump is expected to sign it into law.

The package cleared the House by a vote of 266 to 150, hours after Senate Democrats dropped their opposition to the plan after winning Republican assurances of a vote on immigration in the coming weeks.

A South Korean appeals court on Tuesday jailed former culture minister Cho Yoon-Sun for two years for her role in drawing up a blacklist of 10,000 artists seen as critical of ousted president Park Geun-Hye's government.

Cho had initially been acquitted in July and given only a suspended sentence on a minor related charge, prompting prosecutors to appeal. The higher court in Seoul also extended the prison term of Park's ex-chief of staff Kim Ki-choon from three years to four.

Former international football star George Weah was sworn in as Liberia’s new president on Monday, in the country’s first transition between democratically-elected leaders since 1944.

Weah, 51, took over from Nobel laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who spent 12 years at the helm, steering the West African nation away from the trauma of a civil war.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday vowed that Turkey would not take any step back in its operation against Kurdish militia in Syria's Afrin region, saying the campaign had the backing of Moscow.

"We are determined. Afrin will be sorted out. We will take no step back. We spoke about this with our Russian friends. We have an agreement," Erdogan told a televised meeting in Ankara.

The speaker of the Catalan parliament on Monday proposed the region's ousted leader Carles Puigdemont as president of Catalonia following an election in December in which separatist parties once again won an absolute majority.

Roger Torrent said Puigdemont's candidacy to once again head Catalonia's regional government is "absolutely legitimate", even though the secessionist leader faces criminal proceedings over his role in Catalonia's independence drive.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday accused Washington of stoking separatist sentiment among Syria's Kurds, as Turkey pressed an offensive against US-backed Kurdish militia in northern Syria.

"Washington has actively encouraged and continues to encourage separatist sentiments among Kurds," Lavrov told reporters. "This is either a lack of understanding of the situation or an absolutely conscious provocation."

Russia said Monday it had invited Kurds to take part in an upcoming Syrian peace congress in Sochi despite a Turkish offensive against Kurdish militia in northern Syria.

"Kurdish representatives have been included on the list of Syrians invited to participate in the Syrian National Dialogue Congress which will take place in Sochi next week," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. 

Spanish public prosecutors on Monday asked a judge investigating Catalonia's former president Carles Puigdemont to re-issue a European arrest warrant for him, a judicial source said.

The judge is not obliged to grant the request which comes as Puigdemont, who fled to Belgium to avoid prosecution over his role in Catalonia's independence drive, arrived in Copenhagen. 

Puigdemont and the rest of his ousted government have been charged with rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds.

A Vietnamese former state oil executive who was allegedly kidnapped from Germany was sentenced to life in prison for embezzlement Monday, in the highest-profile corruption trial to target the Communist country's business and political elite.

Trinh Xuan Thanh, the ex-head of state-run PetroVietnam Construction, was sentenced to "14 years in prison for mismanagement and life in prison for embezzlement", according to state-run VNExpress news site. 

The spill from a sunken Iranian tanker off China's east coast has more than trebled in size, just over a week after the ship sank in a ball of flames. 

Authorities spotted three oil slicks with a total surface area of 332 square kilometres (128 square miles), compared to 101 square kilometers reported on Wednesday, the State Oceanic Administration said in a statement late Sunday.

Bangladesh said Monday the official repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar will not begin on January 23 as planned.

"We have not made the preparations required to send back people from tomorrow (Tuesday). A lot of preparation is still needed," Bangladesh's Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Abul Kalam Azad told AFP.

Former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont arrived in Copenhagen on Monday, defying a threat by Madrid to issue a warrant for his arrest if he leaves Belgium, where he has been in exile since a failed independence bid.

Danish broadcaster TV2 released an image on its website of Puigdemont being surrounded by reporters after his plane landed in Copenhagen Airport. Puigdemont is to take part in a debate on Catalonia at the University of Copenhagen later Monday. 

The president of Ecuador Lenin Moreno on Sunday described WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as an "inherited problem" that has created "more than a nuisance" for his government.

"We hope to have a positive result in the short term," Moreno said in an interview with television networks.

Ecuador granted citizenship to Assange earlier this month in an unsuccessful attempt to provide him with diplomatic immunity and usher him out of its London embassy without the threat of arrest by Britain.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Sunday said the West's "unprecedented Russiaphobia" was worse than at the height of the Cold War.

"This Russiaphobia is unprecedented. We never saw this during the Cold War," Lavrov, fresh from a visit to New York on Thursday and Friday, said in an interview with the Russian daily Kommersant.

Turkey gave Washington advance warning before launching an operation against US-allied Syrian Kurdish forces, and Ankara has "legitimate" security concerns, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Sunday.

"Turkey was candid. They warned us before they launched the aircraft they were going to do it in consultation with us, and we are working now on the way ahead through the ministry of foreign affairs," Mattis told reporters aboard his aircraft at the start of a trip to Asia.

Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas will ask the EU to officially recognise the state of Palestine when he meets foreign ministers from the bloc on Monday, a senior official told AFP Sunday.

Palestinian foreign minister Riad al-Malki said Abbas will tell the EU it should take the step "as a way to respond" to US President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.

Abbas will also "reiterate his commitment to the peace process" in the Middle East, Malki said in an interview with AFP in Brussels.

The US Senate adjourned late Sunday without reaching a deal on re-opening government, as the Republican leadership postponed a vote on ending the shutdown until noon on Monday.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had sought to move up a 1:00 am (0600 GMT) Monday vote to 10:00 pm Sunday night, but top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer objected. He said that despite continuing negotiations, "we have yet to reach agreement on a path forward that will be acceptable for both sides."

The postponement to mid-day Monday means the United States will begin its upcoming work week with much of the federal government shuttered.

A motorcycle bomb killed three civilians and wounded 19 others on Monday morning at a market in Yala town in Thailand's insurgency-hit south, a policeman said, the first such attack in the Muslim-majority region for months.

"Suspects parked the motorcycle in front of a stall selling pork in downtown Yala... it detonated killing three civilians and wounding 19 others," the policeman said, requesting anonymity.

President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday condemned Turkey's offensive against Kurdish militia in the northern Syrian region of Afrin, saying it was part of Ankara's support for extremist groups.

"The brutal Turkish aggression on the Syrian town of Afrin cannot be separated from the Turkish regime's policy from the first day of Syria's crisis, which was essentially built on supporting terrorism and terrorist organisations, whatever their names," Assad said in statements carried by state news agency SANA.

French Defence Minister Florence Parly on Sunday pressed Turkey to stop its offensive against Kurdish militia fighting in Syria, saying the militants were a key ally against terrorism in the war-torn country.

"This fighting... must stop," Parly told France 3 television, adding that the Turkish offensive could "deter Kurdish forces who are at the side" of the international coalition battling jihadists in Syria.