A plainclothes police officer was seriously wounded by a gunshot to the head in New York, police said Saturday.

The 25-year-old police officer Brian Moore was shot in the head while inside his car in the city, police commissioner Bill Bratton said during a press conference, describing it as a serious injury.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un vowed to launch more "satellites" in order to become a space power, state media said Sunday, despite global condemnation on past launches, dubbed disguised ballistic missile tests.

Kim, during a visit to the North's newly-built satellite command centre, urged scientists to work harder to "further glorify the (North) as a space power," state-run KCNA said. 

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter on Saturday urged Palestinians to hold elections to end the de facto division of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the Islamist-run Gaza Strip.

He was speaking at a joint news conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the Palestinian political capital Ramallah in the West Bank.

Recent satellite images suggest the nuclear reactor seen as North Korea's main source of weapons-grade plutonium may have resumed low-power or intermittent operations, a U.S. think-tank said Thursday.

Last year, the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) said the five-megawatt reactor at the North's main Yongbyon nuclear complex appeared to have been shut down -- possibly for renovations.

The leader of an exiled Iranian opposition group addressed U.S. lawmakers for the first time Wednesday and warned of the links between Shiite Iran and the Sunni Muslim Islamic State (IS) militants.

"It was the mullahs' regime who helped the creation of ISIS... and the killing of Sunnis in Iraq helped the emergence of ISIS," Maryam Rajavi told House lawmakers, using another acronym for the IS jihadist group that has captured a swathe of territory in Iraq and Syria.

The mini-helicopter that flew into the U.S. capital this month has exposed a security problem as military radar are not designed to distinguish slow-moving, small craft from flocks of birds, officials said Wednesday.

The gyrocopter that violated Washington's no-fly zone and landed on the U.S. Capitol lawn on April 15 was not picked up by radar because the systems are set up to ignore slow, small and low-flying objects that can include kites, birds or balloons, officials said.

The United States, where the death penalty is still carried out, on Wednesday steered clear of a storm of global protest triggered by Indonesia's execution of seven foreign drug traffickers.

The seven -- two from Australia, one from Brazil and four from Africa -- were shot along with one Indonesian, despite strident foreign appeals and pleas from family members.

The United States condemned Tuesday a brutal attack during which Boko Haram gunmen killed dozens of soldiers and massacred civilians on a Lake Chad island.

Washington regularly condemns Boko Haram offensives, has repeatedly warned it would increase its support to the Nigerian army and urges countries in the region to fight against the radical group.

Iran can play a major role in persuading Syrian President Bashar Assad to cooperate in peace talks, EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini said Tuesday.

Mogherini spoke to reporters ahead of a meeting in New York with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif focused on finalizing the nuclear deal reached this month and regional crises.

Riot police in the U.S. city of Baltimore enforced a curfew into the early hours of Wednesday and called it a success, emptying streets scarred by a spasm of rioting and looting.

The officers were joined by National Guards as they manned security lines with armored vehicles on streets that saw widespread violence Monday and gave a new focus to a national debate over how American police treat young black men.