A suspected U.S. spy drone crashed near the south Yemen town of Loder on Tuesday before al-Qaida gunmen made off with the wreckage, a police official and witnesses said.

The drone crashed in Jahayn village near Loder, in Yemen's Abyan province where al-Qaida has a strong presence, and was found by local residents, the official told Agence France Presse.

The Palestinian cabinet decided on Tuesday to hold local elections on July 9, in what will be the first Palestinian vote since 2006, a source close to the government said.

"The Palestinian cabinet has decided that July 9 will be the date for local elections," he told Agence France Presse, saying a formal statement would be issued shortly.

Embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Tuesday formed a panel to oversee constitutional amendments, Vice President Omar Suleiman said, as anti-government protests entered their third week.

"President Mubarak today signed a decree for the formation of the constitutional commission which will oversee constitutional amendments, and required legislative amendments," Suleiman said in a statement read out on television.

Southern Sudan was well on track to become the world's newest state Monday after final results of its historic independence referendum showed that 98.83 percent of its people had voted for secession.

The results -- displayed at an announcement ceremony in Khartoum -- revealed that, out of 3,837,406 valid ballots cast, only 44,888 votes, or 1.17 percent, favored the status quo of unity with the north.

Authorities at Cairo airport began screening incoming and outgoing diplomatic pouches on Monday, the MENA agency said, a day after the foreign ministry accused diplomats of trying to bring weapons into Egypt.

"The pouches will be screened by X-ray ... to stop any illegal items from entering" Egypt, which has been rocked by two weeks of deadly nationwide anti-government protests.

Iran plans to launch several home-built satellites by March 2012, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday after the unveiling of four new prototypes.

"I think from the end of this (Iranian) year (to March 20) and through the next year, we will see many launches" of domestically-built satellites, Ahmadinejad said at a ceremony in Tehran.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak came under fresh pressure Monday to step down immediately as opponents said concessions made in landmark talks were not enough to halt a revolt against his 30-year reign.

As a winter sun began to peep through a chill morning mist, thousands of demonstrators emerged from under blankets and tarpaulins in central Cairo's Tahrir Square, which over two weeks has begun to resemble a tented camp.

Tunisia's interim government moved Sunday to ban the country's former ruling party as fresh violence left one youth dead in the country's south during protests against the remnants of the old regime.

In Tunis, the interior minister announced the suspension of ousted president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's Constitutional Democratic Assembly (RCD) as a first step towards its dissolution.

Some of the main groups behind Egypt's opposition revolt formed a coalition on Sunday, insisting they will not end their occupation of Tahrir Square until President Hosni Mubarak leaves office.

A statement by the "unified leadership of the youth of the rage revolution" vowed not to end their protest in the central Cairo square until seven demands are met -- chief among them "the resignation of the president."

Opponents of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's embattled regime on Sunday dismissed as insufficient an offer to include them in political reform plans and renewed their demand that he step down.

In a landmark concession, Vice President Omar Suleiman agreed to sit down with the groups, which included the banned Muslim Brotherhood, but the talks produced no immediate breakthrough in the two-week-old standoff.