Protesters on Wednesday flooded Madrid in a massive show of force against biting austerity policies, capping a Europe-wide day of strikes and protests.

Activists, chanting, whistling and setting off firecrackers, swamped a stretch of about two kilometers (more than a mile) of a broad avenue from the main Atocha railway station to the symbolic Plaza de Colon square.

Mali's Tuareg MNLA group, holding the country's vast north with the al-Qaida and Islamists, will soon hold formal talks with the armed Islamist Ansar Dine group, an MNLA official told AFP on Wednesday.

Reacting to Ansar Dine's pledge to no longer seek to impose sharia across the country, Mossa Ag Attaher hailed it as a "very encouraging step" and added that "formal talks with the Ansar Dine will be held in coming days."

The head of the U.S. Africa Command says Mali's military will take months to rebuild — even as West African nations and their Western backers examine ways of dislodging al-Qaida from the country's vast northeast.

Gen. Carter Ham says a weekend agreement by west African bloc Ecowas provided the "broad outlines" of a possible military intervention led by Mali's government against al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and its allies.

Top U.S. General Carter Ham on Wednesday urged a global fight against the al-Qaida group based in Africa saying it could "export violence" to the West.

Ham, the head of the U.S. Africa Command, also said that the al-Qaida in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) was linked to a deadly September 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi that killed U.S. ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three others.

Nancy Pelosi, the first female speaker of the House, said Wednesday she would seek to stay on as the chamber's Democratic minority leader, proclaiming there is "so much more I want to do."

"I have made the decision to submit my name to my colleagues to once again serve as the House Democratic leader," Pelosi told reporters as she stood shoulder to shoulder with more than 50 women Democratic representatives.

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen expressed his "full confidence" Wednesday in General John Allen, the head of alliance forces in Afghanistan who has been dragged into the scandal that toppled CIA director David Petraeus.

"I have full confidence in General Allen," Rasmussen said at a news conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

United States Defense Secretary Leon Panetta Wednesday backed the top US commander in Afghanistan, saying he had his "continued confidence".

General John Allen was placed under investigation after FBI agents probing email threats sent by former CIA director David Petraeus' mistress stumbled upon messages he had sent to another woman at the center of the scandal.

Russia's representative in international talks with Iran over its disputed nuclear program, Sergei Ryabkov, is to meet Tehran's top negotiator on Wednesday, news agencies reported.

Ryabkov, who is also deputy foreign minister, was due to meet Saeed Jalili in his one-day visit, the Iranian agencies said without elaborating on the content or the aim of the visit.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday criticized countries siding with the Syrian opposition and insisted Moscow was staying neutral in the conflict.

"We don't support anybody in this conflict, neither President (Bashar) Assad nor the rebels, contrary to what people generally think," Medvedev said in an interview with Finnish broadsheet Helsingin Sanomat.

The United States military will station a powerful radar and a space telescope in Australia as part of its strategic shift towards Asia, the two countries announced Wednesday.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta described the deal as a "major leap forward in bilateral space cooperation and an important new frontier in the United States' rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region".