Nico Rosberg topped the times for Mercedes in Saturday morning's third and final crash-hit free practice session ahead of Sunday's Monaco Grand Prix.

Twelve people were hospitalised and two of them were in a critical condition after a female suicide bomber blew herself up in Russia's restive Dagestan region Saturday, in the second bombing attack this week, a police spokeswoman said.

Tens of thousands of Catholic faithful attended a ceremony in Sicily on Saturday putting on the path to sainthood a priest shot dead by the mafia 20 years ago for preaching against organised crime.

Syrian rebels kept up their resistance Saturday to a massive assault on the strategic central town of Qusayr as the regime's agreement to attend a planned peace conference boosted pressure on opposition leaders to match the move.