Thousands of demonstrators marched on Saturday in the Venezuelan capital Caracas against what they see as President Nicolas Maduro's heavy-handed repression of dissent.

At least 31 people have been killed in more than six weeks of student-led protests against the government, representing the biggest challenge yet to Maduro, the elected socialist heir to longtime late president Hugo Chavez.

Somali government forces supported by African Union troops took control of a key southern town on Saturday as they closed in on a major bastion of al-Qaida-linked Shebab rebels, officials and witnesses said.

Witnesses reported that the Somali and AMSIOM troops fought a heavy battle outside Qoryooley in lower Shabele region before finally wresting control of the town and closing on the Shebab coastal base of Barawe.

Italy's former prime minister and media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi on Saturday dismissed rumors that one of his children would fly his party's colors in the European Union's May elections.

"Those are all inventions," Berlusconi, 77, told activists of Forza Italia, the party he founded 20 years ago. "My children will not be candidates."

A Ukrainian far-right paramilitary group that played a key role in protests that ousted pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovych last month said Saturday it had formed a political party.

"The Pravy Sektor (Right Sector) political party was created today," member Andriy Denissenko said in a YouTube video after a meeting held behind closed doors for security reasons.

Around 100 fugitives from ETA said Saturday they will return to the Spanish Basque country from southwestern France as the considerably weakened separatist group moves towards a historic disarmament.

Earlier this month western Europe's last major violent separatist movement said it would put its arsenal of weapons "out of operational use," more than two years after announcing a definitive end to armed activity.

Turkey's government on Saturday defended its internationally condemned ban on Twitter as a "preventive measure" to stop "character assassinations" following a wave of corruption investigation leaks.

"Twitter has been used as a means to carry out systematic character assassinations by circulating illegally acquired recordings, fake and fabricated records of wiretapping," the office of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a statement sent to Agence France Presse in English.

A former victim of sexual abuse by priests will sit on a new commission created to root out pedophilia in the Catholic Church, the Vatican said on Saturday.

Pope Francis in a statement revealed the first eight names of officials who will sit on the commission, which was first announced on December 5 last year.

Violence broke out at a mass demonstration in Madrid late Saturday when dozens of youths began throwing projectiles at police, who responded by charging at them.

Tens of thousands of people marched on the Spanish capital in a mostly peaceful protest against austerity policies, but an Agence France Presse journalist said youths later began smashing windows and setting bins on fire.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his U.S. counterpart John Kerry will discuss the Ukraine crisis on the sidelines of a nuclear summit in The Hague next week, a Russian foreign ministry official said Saturday.

"A meeting between Lavrov and Kerry is planned on the sidelines of the summit in The Hague," to be held Monday and Tuesday, Interfax news agency quoted the official as saying.

Public secondary schools in Nigeria's northeast Borno state have been closed indefinitely following deadly attacks blamed on Boko Haram Islamists, teachers and parents said Saturday.

The closure reportedly affects 85 secondary schools, catering to some 120,000 students across the troubled state, a stronghold of the militant sect waging a five year insurgency in Nigeria.