South Africa on Tuesday accused U.N. Security Council powers of "conveniently" ignoring human rights abuses in the disputed territory of Western Sahara.

The council again rejected growing demands for the U.N. peacekeeping force in the Moroccan-controlled territory to have a permanent rights investigation duty.

Syria is still seeing "unacceptable" levels of violence, international envoy Kofi Annan told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday, after dozens of people were killed across the country despite a ceasefire.

"The situation in Syria continues to be unacceptable," Annan told a closed-door meeting. He spoke after a car bomb rocked central Damascus, wounding three people, while nearly 60 people were killed across the country a day earlier ahead of the deployment of 300 U.N. peace observers.

Organizers of next month's presidential election on Tuesday formally barred the last prime minister to serve under ousted Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak from standing.

The electoral commission's decision came after the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which took power on his overthrow in February last year, approved a bill adopted by the Islamist-dominated parliament earlier this month banning the candidacies of all senior Mubarak-era officials.

Iran has “deployed forces and equipment” in order to “defend” three islands in the Gulf that are claimed by the United Arab Emirates, Iran’s state-run radio station quoted a senior official as saying.

"Various types of offensive and defensive systems, including brigades of IRGC marines, have been deployed in the Iranian islands, especially in Abu Musa, the Lesser Tunb and the Greater Tunb,” Commander of IRGC Naval Forces Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi said on Monday, according to the radio station’s English-language website.

A car bomb on Tuesday rocked central Damascus and 56 people were killed in fresh violence across the country, a day after nearly 60 were killed across Syria despite a hard-won ceasefire and the upcoming deployment of 300 U.N peace monitors.

Three people were wounded when the blast went off in the Marjeh district of the capital, Syrian state television reported, blaming "terrorists", the government term for rebels.

Hundreds of Egyptians protested outside the Saudi embassy in Cairo on Tuesday demanding the release of an Egyptian human rights activist held by Saudi authorities who claim he possessed banned drugs.

The protesters chanted slogans against the Saudi regime as they called for the "immediate" release of Ahmed Mohammed al-Gizawi, arrested on arrival at Jeddah airport last week.

Yemen's President Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi held talks with FBI Director Robert Mueller in Sanaa Tuesday on the growing threat from al-Qaida in the country's embattled south, the state news agency reported.

They discussed "efforts in the fight against terrorism, and against al-Qaida in particular," according to SABA, which added that their talks focused on the terror network's expansion in Yemen's southern Abyan province.

Prominent Palestinian activist and writer Salameh Kaileh was arrested overnight at his home in Damascus by Syrian authorities, human rights lawyer Anwar Bunni said on Tuesday.

"The security services entered Kaileh's home in the suburb of Barzeh at 2:00 am (2300 GMT Monday) and arrested him without explanation," said Bunni.

Yemeni troops, backed by armed civilians, are advancing on southern Abyan's capital Zinjibar, under al-Qaida control since last May, security officials and the interior ministry said on Tuesday.

"The army is advancing towards the center of the city," a military official told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity, adding that both sides have suffered casualties in fierce battles on the eastern and southern outskirts of Zinjibar that have raged since early Tuesday morning.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has given a visiting Kuwaiti minister a shotgun that belonged to Saddam Hussein, a source at Talabani's office in Sulaimaniyah told Agence France Presse on Tuesday.

"The Iraqi president on Friday presented to Sheikh Nasser Sabah al-Ahmed al-Jaber al-Sabah, minister of the diwan (royal court) of the Kuwaiti prince, a Brno rifle that belonged to Saddam Hussein which Talabani recovered after the liberation of Iraq" in 2003, the official said.