Pope Francis lamented centuries of hostility and prejudice that have divided Catholics and Orthodox as he met Friday with the leader of Cyprus' Greek Orthodox Church and pointed to works of charity as a means to help heal the rift between Catholic West and Orthodox East.

Archbishop Chrysostomos II hosted Francis for private talks at his residence and then invited the pope to the brand new Orthodox Cathedral of St. Barnabas for an encounter with the Holy Synod, the highest decision-making body of the Greek Orthodox Church.

Pope Francis arrived on the divided island of Cyprus Thursday as part of a landmark trip to push two of his priorities: the plight of migrants and inter-confessional dialogue.

The pontiff, 84, landed at Larnaca airport on the Mediterranean island where he will stay until early Saturday before travelling to Greece, another front in Europe's migrant and refugee crisis.

Iran's top diplomat said Thursday that an agreement to revive his country's nuclear deal with world powers was "within reach" but that this depended on the goodwill of the West.

A World War II bomb exploded at a construction site next to a busy railway line in Munich on Wednesday, injuring four people, one of them seriously, German authorities said.

A column of smoke was seen rising from the site near the Donnersbergerbruecke station. The construction site for a new commuter train line is located on the approach to Munich's central station, which is a bit over a kilometer (about a half-mile) to the east.

The EU appealed to Arab states Wednesday for closer cooperation against traffickers exploiting migrants trying to reach its shores, warning that the same networks were peddling arms and narcotics.

EU Neighborhood and Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi warned of a "growing risk of large population movements across the Arab world" resulting from conflict, climate change or sheer proximity to Europe. 

The European Commission proposed on Wednesday that EU member states bordering Belarus be allowed to suspend some rules applied to asylum seekers for six months.

President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Moscow would seek Western guarantees that would preclude any further NATO expansion and deployment of its weapons near Russia's borders.

Putin's statement came amid Ukrainian and Western worries about an alleged plan by Moscow to invade Ukraine. Russian diplomats countered them Wednesday by expressing concern about Ukraine's military buildup near the area of the separatist conflict in the country's east.

Barbados stopped pledging allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II on Tuesday as it shed another vestige of its colonial past and became a republic for the first time in history.

Several leaders, dignitaries and artists, including Prince Charles and Rihanna, attended the ceremony that began late Monday in a popular square where the statue of a well-known British lord was removed last year amid a worldwide push to erase symbols of oppression.

China, which is increasingly flexing its muscles around the world, is one of the biggest threats to Britain and its allies, and a "miscalculation" by Beijing could lead to war, the head of the U.K.'s foreign intelligence agency said Tuesday.

MI6 chief Richard Moore said that China, Russia, Iran and international terrorism make up the "big four" security issues facing Britain's spies in an unstable world where both countries and illicit organizations are racing to exploit fast-changing information technology.

Iran's president has assured his French counterpart that his government is serious about resumed talks on reviving a 2015 nuclear deal but stressed that lifting U.S. sanctions is the absolute priority.