Egypt's Islamist Nur party elected a new chief on Wednesday after a split within the powerful ultraconservative Salafi movement splintered the party ahead of parliamentary elections.

The party at a general assembly selected Yunis Makhyun, who was a member of parliament until a court annulled the Islamist-dominated house in June, in a vote shown live on television.

Kuwait's lower court rejected a petition by pro-opposition private television channel al-Youm on Wednesday against its closure by the government last month, the channel's lawyer said.

"We have not seen the reasons for the court's ruling. We plan to file an appeal against the verdict in the coming few days," Nawaf Sari told AFP.

Five members of the "February 20" protest movement saw their sentences reduced on Wednesday to six months on appeal, after they were jailed for taking part in a non-authorized demonstration.

The five young men had variously been given prisons terms of between eight and 10 months in September on charges that also included attacking public officials in the course of duty.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki accused anti-government protesters who have blocked off a key trade route for two weeks of abusing their freedoms and causing "chaos", in a speech on Wednesday.

Maliki said security forces could intervene to end the protests, which have swept Sunni-majority provinces in western and northern Iraq since December 23, but also renewed an offer to consider some of the demonstrators' demands.

Turkey has been holding for several days a cargo plane en route from the United Arab Emirates to Iran after its crew refused to document its load, a customs ministry official told Agence France Presse on Wednesday.

"The plane owned by a Turkish company had to make an emergency landing at Istanbul's Sabiha Gokcen airport due to technical reasons," the official said on condition of anonymity.

The top Russian and U.S. negotiators on Syria will meet chief international mediator Lakhdar Brahimi in Geneva on Friday for fresh talks, Moscow's pointman on the crisis said on Wednesday.

"The trilateral meeting between (Russian Deputy Foreign Minister) Mikhail Bogdanov, (U.S. Undersecretary of State) William Burns, and (U.N.-Arab League envoy) Lakhdar Brahimi has been planned for January 11 in Geneva," Bogdanov told Interfax.

Prosecutors in the United Arab Emirates have begun interrogating women linked to a group of Islamists held for allegedly plotting to seize power in the Gulf state, news agency WAM said on Wednesday.

The UAE announced in July it had dismantled a group it said was plotting against state security and challenging the constitution.

Forty-eight Iranians held hostage by Syrian rebels for five months arrived in a Damascus hotel on Wednesday after being freed in a prisoner swap for more than 2,000 regime prisoners.

The Iranians, described by Tehran as "pilgrims" by Tehran and by the rebels as captured Revolutionary Guards members supporting Syrian forces, looked visibly exhausted, with some weeping, an Agence France Presse correspondent reported.

Two women were found dead in the West Bank Wednesday after their car was swept away in floods brought by a storm that for days has blasted the Middle East with rain, hail and snow.

Snow carpeted Syria's war-torn cities but sparked no let-up in the fighting, instead heaping fresh misery on a civilian population already enduring a chronic shortage of heating fuel and daily power cuts.

Saudi Arabia beheaded a Sri Lankan maid on Wednesday after she was convicted of murdering her employer's baby, the interior ministry announced, despite calls for a stay of execution.

Rizana Nafeek smothered the infant to death after an argument with the child's mother, her employer, the ministry statement carried by the official SPA news agency said.