Brazil's two largest cities, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, have revoked price hikes on public transportation. The decisions meet an important demand of protesters, who are staging the largest demonstrations in 20 years.

Sao Paulo state Governor Geraldo Alckmin said on Wednesday that he hoped the move to rescind the price hikes would create "the tranquility needed to debate issues calmly."

Brazil has been gripped by protests since last week, when people took to the streets of Sao Paulo to oppose an increase in fares for the bus and metro. Social media helped turn the protests into a nationwide movement, with more than 200,000 demonstrators turning out across Brazil on Monday.

Rescuers in India's Himalayan state of Uttarakhand say they have located 4,000 people trapped by landslides, but eight villages are feared washed away by unusually heavy monsoon flooding. More than 100 people have died.

The government of India's alpine state of Uttrakhand said on Thursday that troops and medics were still trying to reach eight villages thought washed away by floodwaters in recent days.

State spokesman Amit Chandola put the official death toll at 105 but also said authorities had been unable to reach eight villages.

German Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere is in northern Afghanistan. The visit follows another security handover milestone, and gets de Maiziere out of a hostile domestic battle of his own.

Thomas de Maiziere landed in Mazar-i-Sharif on Thursday, two days after Afghan troops took formal control of the last 95 Afghan districts that had been controlled by troops of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). It's de Maiziere's 12th trip to the country in almost 28 months as defense minister; he most recently visited in tandem with Chancellor Angela Merkel in May.

Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah has submitted his resignation, his office has confirmed. This came just two weeks after the highly respected academic had taken office.

The prime minister's office said on Thursday Hamdallah had stepped down because of a "conflict over authority." It was not immediately clear whether President Mahmoud Abbas would accept his resignation.

Hamdallah took over for Salam Fayyad, a US-educated economist, who resigned on April 13.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has acknowledged that it uses drones to conduct surveillance in the United States. Several federal law enforcement agencies have begun expanding their drone capabilities.

FBI Director Robert Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that the bureau had begun deploying drones over US skies, following in the footsteps of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF)

Voters in Kuwait are set to go to the polls to elect a new parliament. This is just the latest development in a row over changes to the country's election rules that were implemented last year.

Kuwait's cabinet approved a decree on Thursday confirming that a snap election would be held next month.

"At an extraordinary meeting held today, the cabinet approved a draft decree inviting voters to elect members of the National Assembly on July 25," the country's state minister for cabinet affairs, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah al-Sabah, told the official KUNA news agency.

About a quarter of Lebanon's residents are Syrian refugees. The struggle for work and living space is starting to fuel tensions between the locals and those seeking refuge from their war-torn country.

Rana Haidar is on her way to work. The 25-year-old Palestinian from Syria has two jobs. In the mornings she works at a social club in Beirut's Sabra neighborhood, which also cares for Syrian children. In the afternoon she toils away at a social center in the neighboring Shatila district.

A UN human rights body has condemned Israel's treatment of Palestinian children. A new report has accused Israeli forces of torturing Palestinian children and using them as human shields.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child expressed in its report Thursday its "deepest concern about the reported practice of torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian children arrested, prosecuted and detained by the military and the police."

Palestinian children are routinely arrested, hands tied painfully and blindfolded during nighttime sweeps by Israeli soldiers, the report said. Authorities also often transfer the youngsters to detention centers without informing their parents.

The US has welcomed Qatar's decision to remove a controversial nameplate from the Taliban's new office. The diplomatic spat had threatened to derail peace efforts after the Afghan president pulled out of negotiations.

The US deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Rosemary DiCarlo told the Security Council on Thursday that her country was "pleased" at Qatar's decision to remove the controversial nameplate from the Taliban's office in the country and revert to calling the building the "Political Office of the Afghan Taliban."

As an emerging superpower, China is undergoing major changes. Still, its new leader seems to be drawing inspiration from the past to deal with one of the country's most pressing issues: corruption among party officials.

President Xi Jinping is harking back to the legacy of late Chairman Mao Zedong in an attempt to "clean up" the ranks of the 80-million-member Communist Party of China (CPC) amid public growing consternation over inequality and corruption.