The army has stopped a pickup truck loaded with contraband arms near Egypt's border with Libya, the scene of an armed revolt since February, the state news agency MENA reported on Sunday.

It said the vehicle was intercepted around 90 kilometers south of the Salloum border post but the driver managed to flee.

Libya's rebel council issued a blunt warning to neighboring Algeria on Sunday, insisting that it must "stop supporting Gadhafi," as tensions between the North African countries bubbled to the surface.

Abdul Hafiz Ghoga, vice president of Libya's National Transitional Council, accused Algeria of supporting Moammar Gadhafi militarily in the early days of the near five-month-long war, and that it continued to support him politically.

The French foreign ministry on Sunday summoned Syria's ambassador to France over damage done to the French embassy and a consulate in Syria.

Syrian demonstrators caused the damage Saturday after France's ambassador to Syria visited the northern city of Hama, a stronghold of the anti-regime uprising.

A senior U.S. official denied Sunday that the U.S. envoy to Syria had been summoned by Syria's foreign office and accused Damascus of orchestrating violent protests over the weekend at the U.S. embassy.

Tensions have been escalating for months between Damascus and Washington over the Syrian government's crackdown on months of opposition protests seeking to oust President Bashar al-Assad.

Protesters who spent their second night in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Sunday vowed to keep up their sit-in despite a series of concessions by the Egyptian prime minister.

Pro-democracy activists had camped out on the square -- the focus of protests that ousted president Hosni Mubarak in February -- after mass nationwide rallies on Friday to demand political change.

A top aide to U.S. President Barack Obama called Sunday on Yemen's injured President Ali Abdullah Saleh to sign a deal transferring power, during a face-to-face meeting in Saudi Arabia.

Saleh, who has ruled Yemen since 1978, received top U.S. counter-terrorism official John Brennan in a hospital in Riyadh where he is recovering after being badly burned in a bomb attack at his presidential palace last month.

New U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta arrived on Sunday on an unannounced visit to Iraq, where Washington is currently negotiating to maintain a military presence beyond 2011, Agence France Presse reported.

Panetta, who flew in from a visit to Afghanistan, was to inform Iraqi leaders they must decide soon whether they want American troops to stay in Iraq beyond the scheduled pullout at the end of the year, a senior official in his delegation said.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday issued a decree naming Anas Naim as the new governor of the central city of Hama after firing Ahmed Khaled Abdul Aziz from the post on July 2, a day after huge anti-regime protests labeled the largest ever.

On July 2 some 500,000 people took to the streets, without security forces intervening, activists said, calling it the single largest demonstration of its kind since the pro-democracy movement erupted on March 15.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Sunday that the Jewish state recognizes South Sudan and wished the world's newest nation "much success."

"Yesterday, a new state was born, South Sudan. I hereby announce that Israel recognizes the Republic of South Sudan," he said. "We wish it much success."

The Syrian foreign ministry called in the French and U.S. ambassadors on Sunday to deliver a "strong protest" over their visit to the flashpoint central city of Hama last week, state media said.

"The ministry called in the U.S. and French ambassadors to deliver a strong protest against their visit to Hamas without prior authorization... which constitutes a flagrant interference in Syria's domestic affairs," the official SANA news agency said.