U.S. politician Bill Richardson, who returned Thursday from a controversial visit to North Korea, said he did not meet a detained American whose case he had cited as part of the reason for the trip.

But Richardson said he was given assurances about the good health of Kenneth Bae, 44, who was arrested last November and was said by official media to have admitted an unspecified crime against the state.

U.S. drones fired missiles into a compound and a motorbike in Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt, killing at least six militants on Thursday, local security officials said.

It was the fifth American drone strike reported in Pakistan in a week, the heaviest concentration since last August, according to an AFP tally.

A British businessman was sentenced to 33 months in a U.S. prison Wednesday for trying to smuggle a key missile component to Iran, officials said.

Christopher Tappin, 66, pleaded guilty in November to attempting to ship specialized batteries used for the Hawk air defense missile to Iran using false export papers.

More than 50 people were injured, two of them critically, when a rush-hour ferry packed with commuters smashed into a pier in New York City on Wednesday, a coast guard spokesman said.

The accident took place shortly before 9:00 am (1400 GMT) on Pier 11 in the East River in lower Manhattan, not far from Wall Street, the New York Fire Department said. The ferry was arriving from New Jersey.

The top Russian and U.S. negotiators on Syria will meet chief international mediator Lakhdar Brahimi in Geneva on Friday for fresh talks, Moscow's pointman on the crisis said on Wednesday.

"The trilateral meeting between (Russian Deputy Foreign Minister) Mikhail Bogdanov, (U.S. Undersecretary of State) William Burns, and (U.N.-Arab League envoy) Lakhdar Brahimi has been planned for January 11 in Geneva," Bogdanov told Interfax.

A Vietnamese court on Wednesday jailed 13 activists linked to a banned US-based opposition group for plotting to overthrow the communist state, a lawyer said, in the latest crackdown on dissent.

The accused -- including Catholics, bloggers and students -- were handed sentences ranging from three to 13 years, defense lawyer Ha Huy Son told Agence France Presse.

Chuck Hagel, the nominee for the next U.S. defense secretary, will seek to rein in Israel over any attempt to carry out a unilateral strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, Israeli observers believe.

Hagel's nomination by U.S. President Barack Obama must still be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, but the prospect of the former senator assuming the top Pentagon post has already stirred concern in Israel.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will appear before U.S. lawmakers on January 22 to be quizzed about a damning inquiry into a deadly militant attack on a U.S. mission in Libya, a senator said Tuesday.

Clinton had initially been due to testify to U.S. lawmakers in late December after the scathing probe blamed "grossly inadequate" security at the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, eastern Libya, for failing to protect staff there.

The United States Tuesday wished Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez a speedy recovery as he battles cancer in a hospital in Cuba, just two days before he is due to be sworn in for a new term.

"Obviously we are, as we would be for anybody suffering what he is suffering, concerned for his health, and wishing a speedy recovery," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

The United States on Tuesday offered $10 million for the capture of two fugitive gunmen convicted of the 2008 killings of a U.S. diplomat and his driver in Sudan.

American John Granville, who was working for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and his driver, Abdelrahman Abbas Rahama, a USAID employee, died in a hail of bullets on New Year's Day in 2008 in Khartoum.