A group of about 20 Iraqis burnt the French flag near the country's embassy in Baghdad on Thursday in protest at a Paris weekly's "abuse" of the Prophet Mohammed.

French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has printed cartoons depicting Mohammed, including one on the cover of its "survivors" issue published after jihadist gunmen attacked its Paris offices, killing 12 people.

Director of the Department of the Middle East and North Africa at the French Foreign Ministry Jean-François Girault decided to suspend his endeavors to reach a breakthrough regarding the presidential stalemate in Lebanon unless new developments occur.

According to al-Joumhouria newspaper published on Thursday, the French diplomat informed Lebanese officials that he postponed an expected visit to Beirut to make way for new developments.

The foreign ministers of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France ended their latest Berlin crisis meeting Wednesday with a joint call to cease hostilities in Ukraine but no breakthrough agreement to stop the bloodshed.

The talks had been held against the unpromising backdrop of fresh clashes between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Moscow rebels in the east of the former Soviet republic, and after Ukraine's president accused Moscow of fueling the war with fresh troops and tanks.

A group of pro-Syrian regime hackers briefly took over the Twitter account of France's Le Monde newspaper early Wednesday, tweeting several messages including one reading "Je ne suis pas Charlie".

The tweet was a negative reference to the "Je Suis Charlie" (I am Charlie) hashtag that became a popular way of showing solidarity in the wake of this month's Islamist attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead.

A French probe has shown that regular accusations leveled at Qatar that it finances terrorism are "not true", Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Wednesday.

"We had our intelligence services carry out precise investigations that showed that was not true," Fabius said of the lingering accusations against the tiny, oil-rich Gulf state.

France unveiled a raft of measures Wednesday to curb radicalization and better monitor jihadists two weeks after an Islamist killing spree in Paris that sent shockwaves across Europe.

Jitters from the worst attack on French soil in decades have spread to the country's neighbors and the European Union promised a new counter-terrorism strategy would be ready by May.

Somalia's Shebab militants, al-Qaida's main affiliate in Africa, on Wednesday urged supporters in Europe to follow the example of Islamist gunmen who carried out attacks in Paris.

The Shebab, who called the attack on the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly in Paris a "heroic operation" against a "lair of evil and center of disbelief", offered specific warnings to France.

Western countries are trying to use the Ukraine conflict to topple President Vladimir Putin and wreck Russia's economy, the president's spokesman said in an interview published on Wednesday.

"In the West they are trying to kick out Putin, to isolate him in international politics, to throttle Russia economically due to their interests, to bring down Putin," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

France has charged four suspects with assisting one of the Islamist gunmen who carried out the Paris attacks, a prosecutor said Wednesday.

Four men aged between 22 and 28 were charged and remanded in custody on Tuesday night, three of them suspected of having bought "equipment" for Amedy Coulibaly, who gunned down a policewoman on January 8 and killed four people in a hostage drama at a Jewish supermarket the next day.

Ukraine on Tuesday accused Russian forces of attacking its soldiers after crossing over into the ex-Soviet state's war-wrecked separatist east in violation of a September truce deal.

The charges -- met with initial silence by Moscow -- should add further tensions to difficult talks in Berlin on Wednesday aimed at stemming a spike in fighting that has already killed 4,800 people and driven a million from their homes.