At least 27 people were killed Wednesday when a plane crashed shortly after taking off from South Sudan's capital Juba, an AFP reporter said.

Police were pulling the bodies of men, women and children out of the wreckage of the Russian-built Antonov An-12 cargo plane, which smashed into a farming community on an island on the White Nile river, according to the reporter, who counted at least 27 dead.

Migrants have made some 800,000 "illegal entries" to the European Union so far this year, the head of the bloc's border agency Frontex said in an interview with German newspaper Bild published Wednesday.

Warning that the influx of migrants has probably not yet "reached its peak", Fabrice Leggeri called for European states to detain unsuccessful asylum seekers so they can be "rapidly" sent back to their countries of origin.

French anti-tank missiles, Swedish jets and American assault rifles -- Western governments have criticized Thailand's junta for toppling democracy but at a Bangkok arms fair it was business as usual.

The kingdom's well-oiled military has been handsomely rewarded in the last decade during which it has twice seized power, ousting elected governments in 2006 and 2014 coups.

South Sudan's army and rebel forces have agreed to deploy joint military units in the capital, a key stage of a peace deal aimed to end nearly two years of war.

Both sides have repeatedly traded blame for breaking an August 26 peace deal, the eighth such agreement.

A powerful 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck eastern Indonesia on Wednesday, U.S. seismologists said, with some reports of minor property damage but no casualties recorded so far.

The quake struck at a depth of 14km kilometers (8.5 miles) under the Alor Sea at about 10:44 (0345 GMT), roughly 77km from the East Timorese capital of Dili, the US Geological Survey said.

The alleged ringleaders of Italy's newest mafia go on trial Thursday in a landmark case set to highlight systemic corruption in Rome and serve as a litmus test of the country's battle against organized crime.

Massimo Carminati, a one-eyed gangster with a history of far-right links, stands accused with more than 40 alleged accomplices of operating a network that stole millions of euros from the city of Rome.

U.S.-Chinese tensions over the South China Sea have forced a meeting of Asia-Pacific defense ministers to scrap plans for a joint statement after Beijing opposed mention of the hot-button issue, diplomats said Wednesday.

The impasse at the Kuala Lumpur defense dialogue marks the latest fallout from a confrontation between Washington and Beijing over China's expansive claims to the strategic South China Sea and its construction of artificial islets to back them up.

Wrapped around Florent Groberg's right wrist is a scratched, black metal band he hardly ever takes off.

The soldier's bracelet is engraved with a date in 2012, along with the names and ranks of three comrades who were killed in a suicide blast in Afghanistan.

Jules Mismac, a Haitian living in the neighboring Dominican Republic, was arrested under a tough new immigration policy, then left at the border to start life over from scratch.

Awaiting him was a country he does not know, with virtually nothing to his name: the clothes on his back and a Bible in his hand. He was arrested in the street while speaking with a preacher.

Australia said Wednesday it was striving to shut down money flows to terrorist groups after its anti-money laundering agency tracked Aus$53 million (US$38 million) in suspect transactions in a year.

Government body AUSTRAC said that between July 2014 and June 2015, it monitored more than 100 people "of interest" and investigated 536 suspicious transactions valued at Aus$53 million, most of which were associated with militant groups in Iraq and Syria.