Egyptian border guards have arrested 68 Eritreans and Ethiopians trying to sneak across the border into Israel, a security official said on Sunday.

The 47 Eritreans and 21 from Ethiopia were seized late on Saturday by an Egyptian patrol following a brief chase and warning shots after they were surprised trying to negotiate barbed wire that marks the border, he said.

Egypt's new President Mohammed Morsi issued a decree on Sunday annulling the Supreme Court's dissolution of the Islamist-dominated parliament, the official MENA news agency reported.

"President Morsi has issued a presidential decree annulling the decision taken on June 15, 2012 to dissolve the people's assembly, and invites the chamber to convene again and to exercise its prerogatives," MENA said.

Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki on Sunday hailed the historic and largely peaceful elections in neighboring Libya, during a phone call to Libya's interim leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil.

Marzouki congratulated the president of the National Transitional Council "and all the Libyan people on the occasion of the elections that took place yesterday (Saturday) in an atmosphere that was mostly calm and saw a strong showing at the polling stations," his office said.

Syria's navy staged live fire exercises at the weekend, launching missiles from both sea and land to "simulate the scenario of repelling a sudden attack from the sea," the state news agency said on Sunday.

"The navy carried out the training successfully, repelling the hypothetical attack and hitting the given targets with high precision," SANA reported.

Italy hailed Libya's first free national election in decades as a "watershed" moment for its former colony and crucial energy source on Sunday, and said it was a decisive step forward towards democracy.

The General National Congress election on Saturday "marks a key watershed in the history of the country, constituting a decisive step forward in strengthening the democratic process," Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi said in a statement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Sunday he will back a controversial plan to compel ultra-Orthodox Jews and Arab Israelis to complete compulsory military or community service.

The decision was an about-turn for Netanyahu, who just last week had dissolved the panel whose recommendations he then endorsed, after a key coalition partner threatened to withdraw from the government if the proposals were not accepted.

Yemeni authorities have released 25 activists hours after they were arrested in the south following deadly clashes between police and separatists, activists said on Sunday.

The capital of the formerly independent South Yemen, Aden, was cautiously calm on Sunday, a day after a gathering by separatists commemorating the North’s seizure of the south in 1994 turned into a gunbattle.

U.N.-Arab League peace envoy Kofi Annan arrived in Damascus on Sunday, his spokesman said.

"The Joint Special Envoy for Syria, Kofi Annan, arrived in Damascus this evening for talks with President Bashar Assad," Ahmad Fawzi said, without elaborating.

The trial of Iraq's fugitive Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, accused of running death squads, was postponed on Sunday as judges await an appeals court ruling on the conduct of the trial.

Hashemi, last known to be in Turkey, is being tried in absentia along with several of his bodyguards in a case which when initially filed in December as U.S. troops were pulling out worsened a brewing political crisis.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Sunday warned time was running out to save Syria from a "catastrophic assault" after international envoy Kofi Annan admitted his peace mission was failing.

The comments by the top U.S. diplomat came as 15 people, including 12 civilians, were killed across the country, according to a rights watchdog.