The Egyptian government has resigned, state television announced on Saturday, hours after President Hosni Mubarak said amid nationwide protests that a new cabinet would be appointed during the day.

Mubarak had also pledged reforms after four days of nationwide revolt against his decades-long autocratic rule.

Iran's first nuclear power plant will be ready to generate electricity on April 9, atomic energy chief Ali Akbar Salehi said on Friday, in signs of yet another delay.

"We hope that on Farvardin 20 (April 9) ... we will witness the connection of the plant to the national grid," Salehi was quoted by the ISNA news agency as saying.

Riot police and hundreds of protesters clashed in the Tunisian capital Friday, as a new cabinet was sworn into office in a bid to end the unrest that has followed president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's ouster.

Security forces fired warning shots and tear gas, as some groups threw stones in the main government quarter where protesters have remained camped out in front of Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi's offices for five days.

Thousands of Jordanians demonstrated peacefully in Amman and other cities after weekly prayers on Friday to press for political and economic reform, and demanding that the government resign.

"Egypt, the Arab nation salutes you. We urge your men to get rid of (President Hosni) Mubarak," an estimated 3,000 people chanted as they marched in Amman city center holding national flags.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made a "historic mistake" by rebuffing a peace offer made during negotiations in 2008.

Excerpts from an upcoming memoir by Olmert were published Friday in the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot.

A massive car bomb ripped through a funeral ceremony in a Shiite district of Baghdad on Thursday, killing 37 people in the worst day of violence in the Iraqi capital in more than two months.

The blast was the deadliest in a series of bombings that claimed 42 lives across the city, and is the latest in a spate of violence in the past two weeks that has already killed more people this month than all attacks in December.

Thousands of Yemenis demonstrated in the capital on Thursday, calling on President Ali Abdullah Saleh to depart after being in power since 1978, Agence France Presse reported.

"Enough being in power for (over) 30 years," chanted protesters in demonstrations staged by the Common Forum opposition in four different locations in Sanaa.

At least 1,000 people have been detained in Egypt since Tuesday, in the most serious protests against President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year-rule, a security official said on Thursday, as activists vowed to continue rallying.

"At least 1,000 people have been detained around the country since the demonstrations started," on Tuesday, the official told Agence France Presse.

Egyptian police and protesters clashed in the center of the capital and in the port city of Suez on Wednesday, the second day of anti-government rallies that had been threatened with a massive security crackdown.

With the interior ministry having banned all protests, police fired tear gas at hundreds of people gathered near the journalists' syndicate in Cairo demanding the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, an Agence France Presse reporter said.

Tunisia said Wednesday it had issued an international arrest warrant for ousted president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who resigned this month amid protests against his regime and fled to Saudi Arabia.

The justice ministry said Ben Ali, his wife Leila Trabelsi and other members of his once all-powerful family were accused of illegally acquiring assets and transferring funds abroad during the veteran leader's 23-year regime.