The death toll in a roadside bombing Wednesday in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province has risen to 19, 12 of them women and children, local officials said.

Helmand governor's spokesman Daud Ahmedi and provincial security force commander Mohammad Ismail both confirmed that 19 people including women and children had been killed. Ahmedi initially put the death toll at 12.

Egyptian presidential candidate Mohamed elBaradei has accused Islamist parties which won a majority in elections last week of relying on slogans which he said would be laid bare if they gained power.

The Islamists picked up two-thirds of votes cast for parties in the election last Monday and Tuesday in a third of Egypt's districts, with a new hardline Salafi party winning almost a quarter.

A civilian was killed as a shell hit a bus in Yemen's flashpoint city of Taez where fighting has cost more than 30 lives since last week, medics said on Tuesday.

The bus was heading towards the restive northern al-Hasab district late on Monday when it was hit by an artillery round fired by troops loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the sources said.

U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon ad interim Robert Watkins stressed on Monday the importance of maintaining peace and stability in Lebanon at this time of dramatic changes in the region.

He said after holding talks with Speaker Nabih Berri at Ain al-Tineh: “In that regard, I very much welcomed the role that the speaker played last week in finding a solution to the funding of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. His role was very much appreciated by the United Nations.”

Syrian authorities on Monday arrested blogger Razan Ghazzawi at the border with Jordan as she headed to Amman to take part in a workshop on press freedom in the Arab world, activists said.

The Syrian Centre for Media and Free Expression called for the release of Ghazzawi, who was to represent the group at the forum, and for the authorities to halt "the repression of bloggers and journalists" in Syria.

Activists from environmental group Greenpeace managed to sneak into a French nuclear power plant on Monday in what they said was a bid to highlight the dangers of atomic energy.

In a statement, Greenpeace said some members had entered the nuclear site at Nogent-sur-Seine, 95 kilometers southeast of Paris, to "spread the message that there is no such thing as safe nuclear power."

A senior U.S. official on Monday urged South Korea and other allies to expand sanctions on imports from Iran for its suspected nuclear weapons program, calling the Islamic country "a pariah state".

Robert Einhorn, the U.S. State Department's special adviser for non-proliferation and arms control, said the allies should show a "clear and unified message".

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon is set to visit Beirut in January as part of his tour to the region - his third trip to Lebanon, a source in New York told An Nahar newspaper.

Contacts are underway between Lebanese authorities and the U.N. Secretariat to set the date for his visit either on the first or the second week of January, the sources said.

Speaker Nabih Berri warned on Monday that he will call for a parliamentary session to inquire the cabinet about Lebanon’s offshore oil wealth project.

“After the Special Tribunal for Lebanon crisis was resolved, the cabinet should turn to the oil (exploration project) … I will not accept any delay,” Berri told al-Joumhouria newspaper.

Sudan delayed the expulsion of Kenya's ambassador by two weeks to give Nairobi time to cancel a warrant for the arrest of President Omar al-Bashir, the foreign ministry said on Saturday.

A Kenyan judge on Monday issued the local warrant for Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and genocide in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, after the government failed to arrest him when he visited Nairobi last year.