Four students were killed overnight and 28 wounded as Syrian government troops and pro-regime gunmen raided the university campus in the northern city of Aleppo, a monitoring group said Thursday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three of the wounded students were in critical condition and some 200 detained in the raid just after midnight.

Saudi Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz has described as "unacceptable" Iran's attitude towards three islands under its control which Gulf Cooperation Council member UAE claims it owns, a report said.

"I reiterate the kingdom's condemnation to the unacceptable attitude of neighboring Iran that continues to ignore the legitimate right of the United Arab Emirates over its three occupied islands," said Prince Nayef, who is also Saudi Arabia's interior minister.

A Cairo meeting between Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal and an official of the rival Fatah movement made no headway on the formation of a Palestinian national unity government, an official said on Thursday.

Two hours of talks Wednesday night in the Egyptian capital produced "nothing new," the Palestinian official told Agence France Presse, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The trial in absentia of Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, who complains of being politically targeted, was postponed a week on Thursday after his lawyers called for it to be held in a special court.

Hashemi, one of Iraq's top Sunni Arab officials, stands accused along with several of his bodyguards of running a death squad, but left Iraq weeks ago and is not expected to attend the trial.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling coalition has tabled a motion to dissolve parliament and call an early general election on September 4, Israeli media reported on Wednesday.

They said the motion from the coalition's parliamentary chairman, Zeev Elkin, would be debated by the Knesset at the start of next week.

Libya's ruling National Transitional Council on Wednesday criminalized the glorification of slain leader Moammar Gadhafi and his regime.

"Praising or glorifying Moammar Gadhafi, his regime, his ideas or his sons... is punishable by a prison sentence," said the text of the law read out to reporters by a judicial official following a high-level meeting.

Jordan's King Abdullah II on Wednesday swore in a cabinet tasked with pushing for reforms, but analysts said the new government was too "conservative" to deliver.

Led by Prime Minister Fayez Tarawneh, the 30-strong team includes 20 newcomers, including one woman, Nadia Hashem, as state minister for women's affairs.

A verdict in the trial of a Tunisian television station director accused of insulting sacred values for having screened the Franco-Iranian film "Persepolis" is set for Thursday, court sources said.

Nabil Karoui's Nessma television station broadcast the award-winning animated film, which recounts the Iranian revolution and its aftermath through the eyes of a young girl, on October 7 last year.

An al-Qaida splinter group wants a total of 45 million euros in ransoms for two European women aid workers and seven Algerian diplomats taken hostage, the group's spokesman said Wednesday.

The Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) spokesman Adnan Abu Walid Sahraoui gave the figures in reply to a written question submitted by Agence France Presse.

Egypt's military chief of staff said on Wednesday the army may transfer power to an elected president on May 24 if the vote is decided in the first round, state television reported.

The announcement came after four presidential candidates suspended their campaigns as the death toll mounted in bloody in clashes between anti-military supporters of a banned Islamist candidate and unidentified men in plainclothes.