Countries rocked by the Arab Spring uprisings face "turbulent and difficult" times, Britain's foreign secretary warned Thursday, hours after expelling diplomats loyal to Moammar Gadhafi from Britain.

William Hague said the movements could be derailed by faltering economies, sectarian feuds and counter-revolutions, predicting "a lot of problems and even convulsions" for years to come, in an interview with The Times.

The U.S. Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Democratic Sen. John Kerry, introduced a bill to counter a Republican-crafted legislation approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee to bar defense aid to Egypt, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority and Yemen if groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizbullah and Hamas are part of the government.

Kerry said the country faces "tremendous foreign policy and national security challenges worldwide, from helping countries manage peaceful, democratic transitions in the Middle East, to preventing violence, conflict, and terrorism from engulfing key partners, and to leading humanitarian responses to forestall drought, famine and natural disasters."

Egypt's ex-president Hosni Mubarak, due to go on trial next week for murder, is refusing food in his hospital detention and has become extremely weak, state media reported on Wednesday.

Mubarak, 83, has been detained since April on charges of ordering the killings of anti-regime protesters and corruption. He is under arrest in a Red Sea resort hospital, where he receives treatment for a heart condition.

Clashes broke out on Tuesday between workers at an industrial free zone in the Egyptian canal city of Ismailiya and military police in which 38 people were injured, witnesses and medics told Agence France Presse.

At least 5,000 workers from the Ismailiya Public Free Zone, where 80 factories produce textiles and leather, had tried to leave the industrial compound where they have been striking and were blocked by military police, witnesses said.

A Cairo court on Monday decided to merge the trials of former president Hosni Mubarak and ex-interior minister Habib al-Adly, both accused of killing protesters during an uprising that toppled the regime.

The decision came as former prime minister Ahmed Nazif was charged in a corruption case by military prosecutors, in the first case of a former regime official facing military justice.

Hundreds of protesters hurled stones at a convoy of vans taking Egypt's once-feared interior minister Habib al-Adly from court on Monday after a judge delayed his murder trial.

The judge postponed until August 3 the trial of Adly, who appeared in the dock in his first trial for allegedly ordering the killing of protesters during an uprising that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak.

Hundreds of protesters were still camped out in Cairo's Tahrir Square Sunday following a night of bloody clashes with rival demonstrators loyal to the ruling military council.

Fierce battles erupted in the Abassaya neighborhood after anti-regime protesters were blocked from reaching the headquarters of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF).

Six months after they launched a revolution that ousted the regime, Egyptian bloggers have acknowledged that it takes more than a Facebook page on the Internet to overthrow a dictator.

"The Internet played a key role but it was not the only tool. The revolution really belongs to the people," said Wael Abbas, a veteran Egyptian blogger who has been posting his thoughts in cyberspace since 2004.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi heaped praise on toppled Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, describing him as "poor and modest" and saying he deserved honor rather than humiliation.

"I know Hosni Mubarak, a poor and modest man" who loves his people, Gadhafi said in an audio message broadcast on state television late Saturday to mark the anniversary of the 1952 coup in Egypt led by Gamal Abdel Nasser against the monarchy.

Egypt's military ruler on Saturday stressed the army's commitment to democracy, as protesters kept up pressure on the general over the slow pace of reforms since a revolt ousted Hosni Mubarak.

Field Marshall Hussein Tantawi, the head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and Mubarak's longtime defense minister, pledged to work for a free system through fair elections and a constitution.