North Korea blew up an inter-Korean liaison office building just inside its border in an act Tuesday that sharply raises tensions on the Korean Peninsula amid deadlocked nuclear diplomacy with the United States.

Seoul's Unification Ministry said the building in the North Korean border town of Kaesong was destroyed at 2:49 p.m. It gave no further details.

Chinese authorities locked down a third neighborhood in Beijing on Tuesday as they rushed to prevent the spread of a new coronavirus outbreak that has infected more than 100 people in a country that appeared to have largely contained the virus.

The resurgence in China highlighted public health expert calls for vigilance as many nations move forward with easing virus restrictions to revive their economies.

Lebanese protesters took to the streets in Beirut and other cities Saturday in mostly peaceful protests against the government, calling for its resignation as the small country sinks deeper into economic distress.

The protests come after two days of rallies spurred by a dramatic collapse of the local currency against the dollar. Those rallies degenerated into violence, including attacks on private banks and shops.

Protests went ahead in support of the Black Lives Matter movement in far-flung parts of Australia on Saturday against the advice of government and health authorities but on a significantly smaller scale than the previous weekend, when tens of thousands rallied in cities along the east coast.

The biggest demonstration was in Perth, the Western Australia state capital, where the Australian Broadcasting Corp. estimated that 5,000 people gathered to honor George Floyd and remember indigenous Australian people who have died while in custody.

For months, Kamal Nasser, a successful plumbing contractor in Lebanon, has seen his business base erode.

There are almost no new construction projects as people save for gloomier days, and with the local currency on a downward spiral, he has not been able to import his most basic materials — tubes or plumbing valves from Europe and Ukraine.

In scenes not witnessed for years in government-controlled parts of Syria, dozens of men and women marched through the streets this week, protesting a sharp increase in prices and collapse of the currency, some even calling for the downfall of President Bashar Assad and his ruling Baath party.

"He who starves his people is a traitor," some of the protesters chanted at the protest in the southern city of Sweida.

Prime Minister Hassan Diab held an emergency Cabinet meeting Friday morning after a night of raging protests that saw demonstrators shut down roads across the country with burning tires in renewed protests spurred by a plunging national currency.

Scuffles with security forces broke out in several locations Thursday night as people spontaneously took to the streets after the pound tumbled to a new low against the dollar. Protesters in central Beirut pelted police and soldiers with rocks and smashed some storefronts, drawing volleys of tear gas.

A Japanese prosecutor on Thursday urged the U.S. to extradite two Americans accused of helping Nissan's former chairman, Carlos Ghosn, flee the country while he was out on bail.

Deputy Chief Prosecutor Takahiro Saito said Japan has issued arrest warrants for Michael and Peter Taylor for allegedly helping a criminal escape.

A former Green Beret and his son accused of smuggling ex-Nissan Motor Co. Chairman Carlos Ghosn out of Japan in a box are fighting their extradition to the country, arguing the offense is not a crime there.

Michael and Peter Taylor are wanted in Japan on allegations that they helped Ghosn flee the country in December while he was out on bail and awaiting trial on financial misconduct allegations.

Suspected Russian airstrikes pounded villages on the edge of the last rebel enclave in northwestern Syria, sending thousands of civilians fleeing, activists reported Tuesday -- scenes unseen in the area since a ceasefire three months ago.

The violence at the edge of Idlib province is the most serious breach of the cease-fire in place since early March, when an agreement between Turkey and Russia halted the Syrian government's three-month air and ground campaign into rebel-held Idlib.