Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari demanded on Wednesday that Iran stop shelling positions of Kurdish rebels inside Iraq, saying it damages ties between the neighboring countries.

"We again demand that the Iranian government stop its continuing shelling" of the separatist Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) "because this is not constructive for Iraqi-Iranian relations and damages ties," he told reporters.

A suicide bomber blew himself up to avoid arrest in the eastern Algerian town of Bouhamza, causing no other casualties, newspapers reported Wednesday.

According to El Watan's online edition, the suspect set off an explosives belt he was wearing when local security encircled him as he left a shop after buying large quantities of food on Tuesday.

Iranian exiles Wednesday rejected a U.S. plan to relocate thousands of outlawed regime opponents from Iraq's Camp Ashraf to another Iraqi site pending a transfer to nations willing to accept them.

The fate of the 30-year-old camp, located near the border with Iran and home to some 3,400 people, has been in the spotlight since an Iraqi security raid in April left 34 dead and scores injured, triggering sharp condemnation.

Local Palestinian elections planned for October 22 will only take place in the West Bank and not in Gaza, a senior electoral source said on Wednesday.

Speaking to Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity, the official said the government had informed the Central Elections Commission (CEC) of a decision taken earlier on Wednesday to limit the elections planned for October to the West Bank.

Some 200 youth activists who oppose Syria's regime opened a four-day meeting in Istanbul Wednesday, hoping to improve coordination among the groups working to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

The group that includes Syrians living in the country, as well as in the United States, Europe and Saudi Arabia, are united in "trying to bring together the new Syria," said Banah Ghadbian, a 17-year-old Syrian-American.

The Palestinians will in September approach the U.N. Security Council to seek full membership in the global body, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said on Wednesday.

"We are going to the Security Council through a request to the secretary general of the United Nations to seek full membership in the U.N. and recognition of Palestine on the 1967 borders," he said.

Syrian security forces shot dead at least 11 people in a swoop on the town of Kanaker near Damascus early Wednesday, a human rights activist said.

"The security forces raided homes at dawn on Wednesday and during the operation 11 people were shot dead and more than 250 arrested," head of the National Organization for Human Rights Ammar Qurabi told Agence France Presse.

Israeli troops raided the Freedom Theater in the northern West Bank city of Jenin early Wednesday, arresting two employees, their colleagues told Agence France Presse.

The raid comes three months after the theater's director, Juliano Mer-Khamis, was gunned down by an unknown assailant in the city's refugee camp.

Britain on Wednesday recognized Libya's rebel council as the country's sole legitimate government, after dramatically expelling all remaining staff loyal to Moammar Gadhafi from the London embassy.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said he had invited the National Transitional Council (NTC) to take over the embassy and appoint an official envoy to London in a major boost for the rebel movement fighting Gadhafi's regime.

Yemen must launch a "credible" transition plan and all sides in the political crisis should reject violence, the EU's chief diplomat said Wednesday after talks with the Yemeni foreign minister.

EU foreign policy Chief Catherine Ashton urged the government to work with all parties in Yemen to "immediately take forward" a political transition after six months of anti-government protests.