Protesters blocked several main roads across Lebanon on Friday as unprecedented demonstrations against a political elite accused of corruption and incompetence entered their fourth month. 

The protest movement rocking Lebanon since October 17 has resurged this week, over delays in forming a new cabinet to address the country's growing economic crisis.

World powers held a high stakes summit in Berlin on Sunday to discuss the way forward to end the conflict in Libya.

Leaders and officials from Turkey, Russia, Egypt, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States attended the gathering in the German capital, while representatives from the UAE, Algeria, China, the Republic of the Congo, the United Nations, European Union, and African Union were also present.

Sri Lanka's president has acknowledged for the first time that more than 20,000 people who disappeared during the country's civil war are dead.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa made the remark in a meeting with a UN envoy in the capital, Colombo.

Steps would be taken to issue death certificates for those missing, a statement from his office said.

Colombian police say they have foiled an attempt to assassinate the former head of the now demobilised Farc rebels, Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri, better known as Timochenko.

Police said two would-be assassins were intercepted on a road in the west of Colombia on Saturday and killed. Dissident rebels had ordered Timochenko killed, police said. 

In a keynote address during the subregional launch of the United Nations Study on Children Deprived of Liberty, held at the University of Pretoria on December 9, former South African Constitutional Court Justice Albie Sachs made a compelling case for the African conception of restorative justice as an important contribution that we, as Africans, can make to the world. 

Meetings attended by warring factions after truce came into force raised hopes for revival of the political process. Talks in Russia aimed at agreeing on an unconditional and open-ended ceasefire in Libya failed to achieve a breakthrough on Monday and have been adjourned for the night.

The head of the UN-supported Government of National Accord (GNA), Fayez al-Sarraj, signed a draft ceasefire agreement, while Khalifa Haftar - commander of the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) - requested more time to consider it.

Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in the Basque Country to demand prisoners linked to the former armed separatist group ETA be transferred to jails closer to the northern Spanish region.

Some 65,000 people marched through the streets of Bilbao, the region's most populous city, calling for prisoners dispersed in jails across Spain to be moved nearer to home and for an amnesty, according to municipal police.

Hours after lawyer Jude Sabio announced he was withdrawing the communication against the Philippine drug war that he filed with the International Criminal Court (ICC), the ICC Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) said late Tuesday any communication filed with their office “cannot be withdrawn.”

Responding to an email inquiry, the ICC Prosecutor News Desk explained it was not possible to withdraw any communication filed with them because they have an obligation to register whatever they receive, under their own rules.

Women are using their noses and other simple tools to find missing loved ones, discouraged by what they say is official indifference.

Mexico says more than 61,000 people have gone missing as rising violence grips the country, a figure 50 percent higher than the government's previous estimate.

Faced with what they say is official indifference, a group of women has banded together to use every rudimentary tool at their disposal to find the bodies of their missing loved ones.

Al Jazeera's John Holman spent a day with the Warrior Hounds in Sinaloa, northern Mexico.

The Prime Minister, Dr. Abdalla Hamdouk, stressed that realization of peace is the top priority of his government in the transitional period, affirming that the December Revolution had erupted to put an end to the people's suffering.

Addressing a mass rally in Kauda, South Kordofan State, Dr. Hamdok said that the main pillars of peace depend on addressing the root causes of the crisis, which is based on citizenship, multi cultures, respect for the other and broad participation in the peace-making, especially among women and youth.