Israeli and U.S. scientists said on Sunday that comatose ex-premier Ariel Sharon showed "significant brain activity" in an MRI scan, responding to pictures of his family seven years after a stroke left him unconscious.

Ben Gurion University, in the southern Israeli town of Beersheva, said its neuroscientists, an expert from the city's Soroka hospital and Professor Martin Monti from the University of California, Los Angeles ran two hours of pioneering tests on the former prime minister.

President Mohamed Morsi Sunday declared a state of emergency in three provinces hit by rioting which has left dozens dead, warning he was ready to take further steps to confront threats to Egypt's security.

Emergency measures would come into effect in the provinces of Port Said, Suez and Ismailia "for 30 days starting at midnight (2200 GMT Sunday)," Morsi said in an address on state television.

A Tehran court on Sunday sentenced an Iranian-American pastor to eight years in prison over his role in underground churches in the Islamic nation, a U.S. group supporting him said.

Saeed Abedini, a naturalized U.S. citizen who converted to Christianity, was convicted of threatening Iran's national security over underground church activities a decade ago, according to the American Center for Law and Justice.

A Jerusalem court on Sunday set February 17 as the opening date for former Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman's trial on corruption charges.

The case is to be heard by a panel of three judges, according to a copy of the ruling by the Jerusalem magistrates court.

A Muslim Brotherhood official and member of the local council from Misrata shot dead as he left a mosque in the Libyan city, a local source told Agence France Presse on Sunday.

"Sheikh Mohamed bin Othman was shot dead as he left a mosque after prayers" on Saturday, the source said on the condition of anonymity.

Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki has decided to postpone a visit to Gaza until the end of March so as not to impede with Palestinian reconciliation efforts, his office announced on Sunday.

It said the delay to the visit planned for February 9 was agreed at a meeting between Marzouki and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Addis Ababa on the sidelines of an African Union summit.

Angry anti-riot policemen on Sunday barred Egypt's interior minister from attending the funeral of two colleagues killed in clashes in the city of Port Said, the official news agency MENA reported.

It said dozens of policemen prevented Mohammed Ibrahim from entering the Cairo mosque where the funerals were held for the two killed in clashes with demonstrators on Saturday.

A Security Council team pledged support for Yemen's political transition in a rare visit to Sanaa Sunday that drew thousands to the streets to demand the scrapping of immunity for ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh under a U.N.-backed deal.

The brief visit by a delegation of representatives from the council's 15 members is to "support the political transition" led by President Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi, British representative Mark Lyall Grant told reporters in the capital.

The United Arab Emirates is to put on trial 94 Islamists accused of plotting against the Gulf state, attorney general Salem Kobaish announced on Sunday.

He said the accused, whose arrests were announced in July, will go on trial for "having created and led a movement aimed at opposing the basic foundations on which the state's political system is built and at seizing power."

President Bashar Assad's chances of political survival are shrinking by the day, Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev charged on Sunday, accusing the embattled Syrian leader of making a possibly fatal error in delaying reforms.

"He should have acted much more quickly and reached out to the peaceful opposition which was ready to sit at the negotiating table with him," Russian news agencies quoted Medvedev as saying.