The U.S.-led NATO force in Afghanistan pledged Saturday to continue efforts to locate and return an American army sergeant who was kidnapped by the Taliban three years ago.

Bowe Bergdahl, now believed to be 26, was taken prisoner by the Taliban in the southeastern province of Paktika on June 30 2009, and was subsequently officially declared as "Missing-Captured" by the United States.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday that Germany and the United States would benefit from having a closer relationship -- if they can first manage to overcome their differences.

"We could better develop our economies, stimulate growth, more jobs, if we didn't have so many obstacles in our talks," Merkel said in her weekly video podcast.

Pakistan's new prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf defended Saturday President Asif Ali Zaradri's immunity, saying it would end the day after he leaves office.

His comments come after Pakistan's Supreme Court on Wednesday gave the new prime minister two weeks to indicate whether he would ask Swiss authorities to reopen corruption cases against the president.

U.S. President Barack Obama urged Americans Saturday to support firefighters battling blazes in the Rocky Mountain state of Colorado that have killed at least two people and left hundreds homeless.

"It's important that we remember what they do each and every single day, and that we continue to provide support to our first responders, our emergency management folks, our firefighters, our military -- everybody who helps secure our liberty and our security each and every day," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.

About 1,000 people were detained and hundreds injured -- many by tear gas -- during anti-regime protests on Friday in Sudan, an activist group said on Saturday's anniversary of President Omar al-Bashir's coup.

The information minister called the protesters "rioters" who threaten the country's stability.

Nigeria's military on Saturday said it had arrested the leader of a gang responsible for a series of attacks on oil installations in the Niger Delta region.

Seifa Gbereke, known locally as "General Cairo," is also suspected of stealing crude from pipelines, a widening practice that costs Africa's largest producer roughly $5 billion a year, according to some estimates.

The U.N. cultural body UNESCO watched in horror on Saturday as Mali fundamentalists ravaged fabled Timbuktu shrines it had listed as endangered sites just days before.

The world's main watchdog for protecting some of history's greatest treasures and monuments interrupted its annual meeting being held in Saint Petersburg to try to draw global attention to news filtering in from the ancient African caravan town.

A man suspected of association with al-Qaida has been arrested in New York and charged with providing material support to the terror network and possessing and using firearms to promote violence.

The indictment of Minh Quang Pham was announced by Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and other security officials.

The U.S. Senate on Friday confirmed President Barack Obama's nominee to be the first U.S. ambassador to Myanmar in more than two decades, the latest step in greater engagement with a nation undergoing dramatic reforms.

Derek Mitchell, a veteran U.S. policymaker on Asia, was confirmed by unanimous consent, capping a startling series of developments in recent months which saw the two nations normalize diplomatic relations following democratic reforms in the reclusive Southeast Asian nation.

A shocked U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday toured "heartbroken" Colorado neighborhoods torched by rampaging wildfires that have destroyed hundreds of homes and left two dead.

Crews are still searching for human remains in the ashes of homes destroyed by the Waldo Canyon Fire, which blazed into the outskirts of the state's second largest city Colorado Springs earlier this week.