About 300 African migrants stormed a border fence separating Morocco from the Spanish territory of Melilla on Wednesday, leaving at least 10 people injured, officials said.

It was the latest in a series of attempts by desperate migrants trying to reach European soil via the territory on Morocco's northern shore.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy hailed Wednesday the watering-down of Catalan leaders' plans for a vote on independence for their region, despite their vow to push on with a symbolic ballot.

Rajoy's conservative government launched a legal challenge that led to the Constitutional Court suspending legislation aimed at organizing a vote on whether the rich northeastern region should break away from Spain.

Catalonia's president Artur Mas said Tuesday a snap election could be held to let the region vote on independence, watering down plans for a referendum under pressure from Spanish authorities.

His change of tack fueled divisions in the pro-independence camp, raising the Spanish government's hopes of winning the standoff with the wealthy northeastern region -- but analysts warned the battle was far from over.

A top member of the Catalan government on Monday opened the door to a possible delay in a contested referendum, set for November 9, on separation from the rest of Spain.

Leaders of the rich northeastern region are locked in a tense standoff with Spain's central government over the vote.

A top U.S. health official urged swift action Thursday to prevent the deadly Ebola virus from becoming the next AIDS epidemic, while a Spanish nurse was at "serious risk" of dying.

Teresa Romero, 44, is "very ill and her life is at serious risk as a consequence of the virus," Madrid's regional president Ignacio Gonzalez told parliament.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Saturday called for calm and dialogue as Catalonia leaders pressed ahead with a vote on independence in defiance of Madrid.

"The law and dialogue, these are the ways out of the situation in Catalonia... no one is above the law," Rajoy said, adding: "I want us to stay together."

Catalan leaders forged ahead on Friday for a vote on independence, defying a court challenge by the national government in their bid to redraw the map of Spain.

Under pressure to strike a common front after Spain's Constitutional Court provisionally blocked their plan for the vote, parties in the northeastern region opted for a legal gamble.

Sudanese authorities have arrested a man on suspicion of murdering a Spaniard working at his country's embassy in Khartoum, who was found stabbed to death in his home, the police said Friday.

The victim was head of the embassy's visa section and had been living in the city for three years, police said.

Spain's jobless queue rose slightly in September for the second month running as a hiring boom for the summer tourist season trailed off, official data showed Thursday against a background of chronically high unemployment.

The number of people in Spain registered as unemployed crept up by 19,720 in September from the August level to 4,447,650 in September, the figures from the employment ministry showed.

Spanish coastguards on Wednesday pulled the bodies of two African migrants from the sea off Morocco and six others were missing after a dinghy carrying them sank, rescuers said.

They were the latest of hundreds of migrants to die trying to reach Europe from African shores over recent years.