North Korea confirmed Monday that the powerful uncle of the nation's young leader Kim Jong-Un has been purged, accusing him of building a rival power base and being a corrupt, drug-using womanizer.

Jang Song-Thaek, once seen as his nephew's mentor and the power behind the throne, has been stripped of all his posts for committing criminal acts and leading a "counter-revolutionary faction", state media said.

Thailand's premier called a snap election Monday to try to defuse the kingdom's political crisis but protesters kept up their fight to topple her government with an estimated 100,000 demonstrators flooding the streets of Bangkok.

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has faced more than a month of sometimes-violent street protests by demonstrators who want to suspend the country's democracy in favor of an unelected "People's Council.”

Singapore faced shocking scenes of burning cars and littered streets Monday following a riot by South Asian workers in the worst outbreak of violence in more than 40 years in the tightly controlled city-state.

The hour-long fracas on Sunday night, triggered when an Indian construction worker was struck and killed by a private bus in the Little India district, left the nation questioning the causes behind the violence.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on Sunday to urge for dialogue with his rivals as large-scale protests gripped Kiev, the U.N. said.

A U.N. statement said Ban "expressed his grave concern about the situation in Ukraine, emphasized that there must be no resort to violence and appealed for peaceful dialogue among all parties concerned."

Police and demonstrators clashed in Kurdish-dominated southeastern Turkey on Sunday as tensions mounted following the deaths Friday of two Kurdish protesters.

Police fired tear gas and water cannons to break up a demonstration by around 5,000 protesters brandishing effigies of the jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan in the main town of Diyarbakir.

Colombia's FARC rebels declared a 30-day unilateral ceasefire on Sunday and urged the government to do the same in the wake of a deadly bombing blamed on the guerillas.

The announcement, effective December 15, came in a statement issued in the Cuban capital where the FARC and Bogota are in talks to end their decades-long conflict.

Spanish rescue services rescued 90 African migrants over the weekend who were making a desperate attempt to reach Europe in makeshift boats, according to officials.

On Sunday rescuers and police said 44 migrants were intercepted in Spanish waters, while another 46 were rescued on Saturday, a local government official said.

African Union leaders gathered Sunday to mourn the death of Nelson Mandela, honoring the former anti-apartheid leader's fight for pan-Africanism and liberation on the continent.

"Madiba's life was the mirror image of the continent for the liberation of which he so relentlessly fought," AU Chairman and Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said, referring to Mandela.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that a "military option" was "necessary" for the success of negotiations aimed at reining in Iran's disputed nuclear program.

Netanyahu said the Jewish state shared U.S. President Barack Obama's "preference" to pursue diplomacy "but for diplomacy to succeed, it must be coupled with powerful sanctions and a credible military threat."

Hundreds of South Asian workers staged a riot in Singapore late Sunday following a road accident, leaving 10 police officers injured and at least six vehicles damaged, police said.

A police statement said the disturbance started in the congested Little India district when one person was killed after being hit by a bus. The victim's identity was not immediately disclosed.