High-level peace talks between India and Pakistan will resume, announced India's foreign minister Sushma Swaraj, after meeting her Pakistani counterpart Sartaj Aziz.

"The foreign secretaries of both countries will meet and chart out the agenda for the meetings," Ms Swaraj told reporters.

The talks stalled in 2012, after tensions escalated over attacks in India, which Delhi blamed on Pakistani infiltrators.

Russia and China are expected to block any punitive measures proposed at the UN Security Council, after the US set a special meeting on for Thursday to discuss the country.

China has reportedly objected to the meeting organised by the US, which holds the presidency this month, arguing that it is beyond the scope of the peace and security mandate of the council.

Russia voiced a procedural complaint, saying the matter should have been raised at a prior session earlier this month, but eight other council members supported the US.

Four French soldiers were questioned on Tuesday over allegations of child rape in the Central African Republic, AFP reports.

The investigation in Paris is looking at 14 soldiers involvement in the allegations of sexual abuse of a group of children in CAR's capital Bangui between December 2013 and June 2014. The children, some as young as nine, said the soldiers abused them in exchange for food.

The allegations first surfaced after a UN report leaked, sparking accusations of a cover-up.

This is not the first time that allegations of sexual abuse have been made against UN peacekeeping soldiers.

Sri Lankan troops were expelled from Haiti for sexually abusing children in 2007, with 111 soldiers and 3 officers were repatriated back to Sri Lanka after being part of UN mission in Haiti and were accused of a string of sexual assaults, including rape of children as young as 7 years old. No prosecutions or punishments have taken place.

French human rights organisations have called for the prosecution of French troops for complicity in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, over reports that they abandoned hundreds of Tutsis who were subsequently slaughtered by Hutu militias.

The International Federation of Human Rights and other organisations state that a fax from June 27-30 1994 which was recently declassified, proved that French troops knew of a group of Tutsis sheltering in a nearby wooden area in Rwanda's Bisesero hills , requesting French protection.

"Certain elements of the French special forces with a clear mandate to halt the massacres were stationed about 5 km as the crow flies from the crime scene with all the information, communications and equipment needed to mount a life-saving operation instantly," said the group. "That did not happen".

The constitutional court in Spain on Wednesday rejected a resolution passed by the Catalan assembly paving the way to establishing an independence republic in 18 months.

The resolution which was passed last month, declared Catalan as "sovereign" and called for the drafting of laws within 30 days in order to create an independent system of maining security, as well as a separate treasury.

The court, which was presenting a ruling on an appeal made by the Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy, stated the Catalan assembly "cannot set itself up as a source of legal and political legitimacy to the point of assuming the authority to violate the constitutional order."