Saudi men were voting on Thursday in municipal elections, the last all-male affair in the Muslim kingdom after a royal decree this week gave women the right to cast ballots in four years.

Some 5,324 candidates are competing for 1,056 seats -- only the second elections in Saudi Arabian history -- to fill half the seats in the country's 285 councils. The other half are appointed by the government.

Turkey on Thursday slammed Israeli plans to expand a settlement in east Jerusalem and said the move further underlined the need for the world to back the Palestinian bid for full U.N. membership.

"Israel's decision raises serious doubts about its sincerity and its true intentions," Turkey's foreign ministry said in a statement. "It constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and is unacceptable."

Fierce clashes erupted in the Yemeni capital on Thursday between troops loyal to embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh and forces led by defected General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, witnesses said.

The firefights broke out in the north of the city between forces from the elite Republican Guard, led by Saleh's son Ahmed, and soldiers from Ahmar's First Armored Division, which provides protection for anti-Saleh protesters.

Libya has issued a summons for Moammar Gadhafi's former prime minister Baghdadi al-Mahmudi, who fled the country for neighboring Tunisia, the interim justice minister said Wednesday.

"The prosecutor general has issued a summons for former Prime Minister Baghdadi al-Mahmudi," the minister, Mohammed al-Alagi, told a news conference in Tripoli.

The U.S. embassy in Riyadh warned American citizens on Wednesday of a plot by a "terrorist group" to kidnap Westerners in the Saudi capital.

In a statement on its website, the embassy advised "U.S. citizens in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that we have received information that a terrorist group in Saudi Arabia may be planning to abduct Westerners in Riyadh."

Saudi King Abdullah has revoked a sentence of 10 lashes imposed on a woman for breaking the ban on women driving in the conservative kingdom, a Saudi princess said Wednesday on her Twitter account.

"Thank God, the lashing of Sheima is cancelled. Thanks to our beloved King. I'm sure all Saudi women will be so happy, I know I am," said Princess Amira al-Taweel, wife of billionaire Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.

Syrian forces killed fourteen civilians and unidentified attackers assassinated the nuclear engineer Aws Abdel Karim Khalil in the Syrian city of Homs, 160 kilometers north of Damascus on Wednesday.

The “2011 Syrian Revolution against Bashar Assad” Facebook page disclosed 12 of the civilians’ names. The names are: Al-Mounjid Bachir Mansour, a person from Al Rozz, Lieutenant Ahmad Khalaf, the recruit Mohammad Hasyan, Abdul Menhem Bahbuh, Moussa al-Zuluk, Zuheir Traboulsi, Jamal Sifo, Mahmud Hilal, Moussa Abdul Hadi al-Danaf, Sharif Moussa, and Fayez Salam.

The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday sent the Palestinian bid to join the United Nations to a specialist committee to report on the application.

A full session of the 15-member council that lasted barely two minutes was the first public discussion of the application. The United States has vowed to veto any Palestinian bid.

Anti-Gadhafi fighters Wednesday appealed for help from NATO after being blasted by rockets fired by loyalist troops in Bani Walid, one of the ousted Libyan leader's last bastions.

Among 11 National Transitional Council fighters killed in the barrage was senior commander Daou al-Salhine al-Jadak, whose car was struck by a rocket as he headed towards the front late on Tuesday, NTC chief negotiator Abdullah Kenshil told Agence France Presse.

The treasurer of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) was one of five Islamist militants killed by Algerian troops a clash this week east of the capital, a press report said Wednesday.

The French-language daily Liberte named him as Adel Bourai, alias Ayoub, aged 27, from the Boumerdes region where the Algerian army began a major sweep late last week.