A senior U.S. official has warned North Korea's upcoming rocket launch would be aimed south for the first time and impact in an area "roughly between Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines".

Kurt Campbell, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, delivered the message in person to Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr, the Sydney Morning Herald reported Saturday.

Tension with Iran and "uncertainty" in the region is adding a $20 or $30 premium to oil prices, pushing up gas prices for vehicle owners in the United States, President Barack Obama said.

"The key thing that is driving higher gas prices is actually the world's oil markets and uncertainty about what's going on in Iran and the Middle East, and that's adding a $20 or $30 premium to oil prices," Obama said in an interview with the American Automobile Association (AAA) published Friday.

U.S. President Barack Obama, in a holiday message Tuesday to the Iranian people, said that the two nations despite their tensions share a "common humanity," as he pressed for greater freedom for those living in Iran.

"There is no reason for the United States and Iran to be divided from one another," Obama said in a statement to Iranians on Nowruz, the Persian New Year, adding that "the Iranian people are denied the basic freedom to access the information that they want."

Thousands of grieving Coptic Christians packed St Mark's Cathedral in Cairo on Sunday to bid farewell to Pope Shenuda III, his body on a wooden throne, as the church considered a new head of the anxious community.

Shenuda died on Saturday aged 88 after a long illness, setting in motion the process to elect a new patriarch for the Middle East's largest Christian community.

Thousands of protesters gathered outside the White House Saturday to demand that the United States "stop the massacre in Syria," where an estimated 8,000 people have been killed in a regime crackdown.

Wearing T-shirts declaring "I have a dream of a free Syria" and "No longer afraid," the demonstrators -- who numbered 4,000, according to organizers -- were marking the first anniversary of a bloody revolt against President Bashar Assad's regime.

A U.S. soldier who allegedly shot and killed 16 civilians in Afghanistan was held at a U.S. military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Saturday as new details emerged about the veteran's past.

The soldier, identified Friday as U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, had served three combat tours in Iraq, and was on his first deployment to Afghanistan.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, throwing punches as a warrior for the middle class, plunged into the 2012 election race Thursday, hailing President Barack Obama as a man with "steel in his spine."

With Republicans still haggling over their candidate for November's vote, Biden launched a new phase of the Democrats' campaign for Obama, with a fiery speech in the swing state of Ohio, which often decides U.S. elections.

President Barack Obama Wednesday hailed the "indispensable" U.S. alliance with Britain, welcoming Prime Minister David Cameron for White House talks on Iran and Afghanistan.

As pink cherry blossoms framed an unseasonably warm March day in Washington, Obama and his wife Michelle welcomed Cameron and his wife Samantha with a pounding 19-gun salute, military brass bands and full ceremonial honors.

U.S. President Barack Obama Tuesday sought to calm outrage over a shooting massacre by a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan, saying he took the tragedy as seriously as if Americans had been slaughtered.

Obama promised that the culprit who killed 16 civilians, mostly women and children in a methodical house-to-house killing spree, would face the "full force" of U.S. law -- wherever the investigation led.

The U.S. soldier suspected of killing 16 Afghan civilians in a shooting rampage could face the death penalty if convicted, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Monday.

The Pentagon chief told reporters aboard his plane en route to Kyrgyzstan that the suspect in the Afghan shooting spree would be brought to justice under the U.S. military legal code, which allows for the death penalty in some cases.