Weekend clashes in southern Yemen left two government soldiers and 11 suspected members of al-Qaida dead, military and local sources told Agence France Presse Saturday.

Government troops have for months been battling al-Qaida linked fighters in the troubled Abyan province, notably in the areas surrounding the provincial capital Zinjibar, where the latest clashes took place.

A spate of gun and bomb attacks across northern and central Iraq on Saturday killed seven people and left four others wounded, security officials said.

In the disputed northern city of Kirkuk, a Shiite Turkman chemicals specialist for the state-owned North Oil Company was killed by a magnetic "sticky bomb" attached to his car.

An Arab League ministerial meeting slated for Saturday to mull a response to Syria which wants the bloc to lift sanctions in return for allowing in observers to monitor its deadly unrest was postponed.

Arab League chief Nabi al-Arabi suggested convening the meeting in mid-December at the bloc's Cairo headquarters, a diplomat said.

World powers piled pressure on Syria to let in observers as activists on Saturday reported at least 14 another civilians killed by security forces on the anniversary of International Human Rights Day.

"The world celebrates human rights as human rights are being violated in Syria," the opposition Syrian Revolution 2011 said in a message posted on its Facebook page.

Yemen's national unity government, led by the opposition, was sworn in on Saturday in the presence of Vice President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi, an official statement said.

The statement, carried by the official Saba news agency, said the swearing-in ceremony took place at the Republican Palace in the capital Sanaa.

Libya's new rulers are ready to forgive the forces of slain leader Moammar Gadhafi who battled rebels trying to topple his autocratic regime, National Transition Council chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil said on Saturday.

"In Libya we are able to absorb all. Libya is for all," Abdel Jalil said in Tripoli as he launched a national reconciliation conference organized by the NTC.

Canada is investigating 6,500 people from more than 100 countries, including Lebanon for fraudulently attempting to gain citizenship or permanent residency, the immigration minister announced Friday.

"Canadian citizenship is not for sale," Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said in a statement. "Canadians are generous people, but have no tolerance or patience for people who don't play by the rules and who lie or cheat to become a Canadian citizen."

Republican White House hopeful Newt Gingrich said in an interview out Friday that the Palestinians are an "invented" people and mocked President Barack Obama's effort to be a fair broker of Middle East peace.

"If I'm even-handed between a civilian democracy that obeys the rule of law and a group of terrorists that are firing missiles every day, that's not even-handed, that's favoring the terrorists," said Gingrich.

Syria on Friday appealed to the international community as well as Arab countries to help it find an "honorable exit" to the crisis it is facing, notably by stopping the flow of weapons into the country.

"We are appealing to the outside world and our brothers in the Arab world to help Syria (prevent the) channeling (of) weapons" into the country, foreign ministry spokesman Jihad Maqdisi told a news conference in Damascus, speaking in English.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon on Thursday hit back at criticism from Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, insisting that information on the number of deaths in the government crackdown is "very credible."

Ban told reporters during a trip to the Dadaab refugee camps in Kenya that he could not believe that less than 4,000 people had been killed, as Assad's government has claimed.