Egypt's military ruler on Tuesday said the country's decades-old state of emergency will be lifted on Wednesday except in cases of fighting "thuggery," but human rights groups slammed the move as cosmetic.

"I have taken a decision to end the state of emergency, in all parts of the country, except in fighting acts of thuggery, starting on the morning of January 25, 2012," Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi said Tuesday in a televised address.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay expressed shock Tuesday at Iraq's execution of 34 people and called for an immediate suspension of the death penalty there.

Pillay said she was shocked at the lack of transparency over the executions, including two women, in Iraq last Thursday following their conviction for different crimes.

Libya's interim government met on Tuesday to discuss the deadly clashes in the former regime's bastion of Bani Walid as sources said calm returned to the town.

"The government is in a meeting to discuss the issue of Bani Walid," a source in the administration of Prime Minister Abdul Rahim al-Kib told Agence France Presse.

Syria said on Tuesday it will spurn further Arab efforts to resolve its political crisis, as Gulf states piled on pressure by deciding to pull out their observers and urging strong U.N. action.

The Arab League said its monitors would be confined to base from Wednesday unless Damascus gives its approval for the mission to continue for a second month after an informal extension ran out.

The committee tasked with drafting Syria's new constitution has decided to limit presidential terms to a maximum of two seven-year mandates, al-Watan newspaper said on Tuesday.

The draft constitution will be submitted to President Bashar Assad in "the coming days" before being put to a referendum, said the newspaper, which is close to the government.

The Arab League has formally requested a meeting with U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon to discuss its plan for resolving the Syria crisis and to ask for the Security Council's support, a senior League official said Tuesday.

The request was made jointly by the pan-Arab bloc's secretary general, Nabil al-Arabi, and by Qatar's premier, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, who chairs a League panel on the crisis, Arab League deputy leader Ahmed bin Helli told Agence France Presse.

Israeli forces overnight demolished the home of a Bedouin family near Jerusalem for the fifth time, along with four other structures in an unrecognized Bedouin village, an Israeli NGO said on Tuesday.

Israel's Civil Administration, the military body that oversees the West Bank, confirmed the demolitions.

Envelopes containing white powder initially feared to be anthrax arrived at six Israeli diplomatic missions in Europe and the U.S., Israeli media reported on Tuesday.

According to reports, embassies in The Hague, Brussels and London and consulates in New York, Houston and Boston on Monday received envelopes with the word "anthrax" on them, containing what turned out to be harmless white powder.

Opposition figure Georges Sabra has left Syria for France where he told the Liberation daily that "the Syrian people deserve to be protected by the U.N."

"My party sent me here to help the SNC (Syrian National Council, the country's largest opposition group), to work as a team," the head of the Democratic People's Party told Liberation's Tuesday edition

Gulf Arab states have decided to pull their observers sent to Syria as part of an Arab League mission out of the restive country, they announced in a joint official statement on Tuesday.

"Gulf Cooperation Council states have decided to follow Saudi Arabia's decision to pull out its observers from the Arab League mission in Syria," the GCC statement said.