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Gulf Ministers Meet in Riyadh to Discuss Iran ‘Meddling’

Gulf Arab foreign ministers were to meet Sunday in the Saudi capital to discuss Iranian interference after Arab world unrest spilled over into some of the region's Western-backed monarchies.

Abdul Latif al-Zayani, the Gulf Cooperation Council's new secretary general, condemned "Iran's meddling in the internal affairs of GCC countries" on the eve of the meeting, saying it "threatened security and stability in the region".

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Demonstrator Dead, Scores Injured as Saleh Urges Opposition to End Protest

Yemeni police killed an anti-regime protester and wounded scores more on Sunday, medics and witnesses said, as President Ali Abdullah Saleh called for an end to protests demanding that he step down.

They said security forces shot dead a young man seen tearing up a poster of Saleh at a demonstration in Taez, some 200 kilometers south of the capital.

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Assad Names New PM as Thousands of Mourners Rally in Douma

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad appointed former agriculture minister Adel Safar the new premier on Sunday and asked him to form a government as thousands joined the funeral procession for protesters killed in Douma.

Cell phone and internet networks failed for several hours on Sunday "due to an overload", according to a customer representative, a day after authorities carried out a wave of arrests in protest cities.

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Palestinian Factions Vow to Avenge Israel Strike

Militant groups in the Gaza Strip vowed again Sunday to avenge the killing of three of their own, saying Israel would be punished for the strike.

"The occupation's crimes will not go unpunished and it will bear all consequences," said a joint statement from the military wings of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other armed Palestinian factions.

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Israel Demands Retraction of U.N. Gaza War Criticism

Israel on Sunday demanded the retraction of a United Nations report deeply critical of its deadly 2008-2009 offensive on the Gaza Strip after the main author expressed regret over the conclusions.

South African judge Richard Goldstone had faced down enormous criticism in Israel at the time over the report which accused both Israel and the Hamas rulers of Gaza of potential war crimes during the 22-day conflict.

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'Civilians among 13 Dead' in Coalition Raid East of Libya’s Brega

A coalition air raid late on Friday killed 13 people, four of them civilians, some 15 kilometers (10 miles) east of the battleground Libyan oil town of Brega, a rebel civilian official told Agence France Presse.

The four civilians comprised an ambulance driver and three medical students from the second city of Benghazi, who were part of a rebel convoy of five or six vehicles, said Issa Khamis, liaison officer for the rebels' transitional government in the town of Ajdabiya, east of Brega.

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Syria in Dawn Crackdown Ahead of Protester Funerals

Syrian security forces made dawn arrests on Saturday as mourners prepared to bury the first of at least nine people killed in anti-government protests on the Muslim day of rest, rights activists said.

The arrests came in the tribal region around the town of Daraa, some 100 kilometers south of the capital, which has been one of the main centers of more than two weeks of demonstrations.

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Saudi Arabia Urges Iran Not to Interfere in Gulf

Saudi Arabia has urged Iran to mind its own business after a parliamentary panel in Tehran warned that Riyadh was "playing with fire" by deploying troops in Bahrain.

"Iran's statement deliberately ignores Iran's interference in the region's affairs and its violation of the independence and sovereignty of the region," a government official said late on Friday, quoted by state news agency SPA.

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Hamas Warns Israel after the Death of 3 Members

Hamas on Saturday warned Israel of "consequences" after its latest air strike on Gaza killed three members of the radical Islamist group's armed wing.

Medical staff and witnesses said earlier one Palestinian was also wounded in the air strike in the southern Gaza Strip.

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Facebook Sued for $1 Billion Over ‘Third Intifada’ Page

Facebook and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg have been hit with a lawsuit seeking more than $1 billion in damages over a page on the social network which called for a "Third Intifada" against Israel.

Facebook this week shut down the "Third Intifada" page, which had almost 500,000 fans, but the lawsuit filed in a court here claims that the social network showed "negligence" by not quickly responding to appeals to remove the page.

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