Kuwait on Thursday remanded in custody 24 opposition activists pending further investigation on charges they stormed the parliament building last week, their lawyer said.

"After interrogation all night, the public prosecutor this morning remanded them in police custody until Thursday night when questioning will resume," said Al-Humaidi al-Subaie, coordinator of the opposition defense team.

A French aid worker kidnapped in Yemen's restive south was released on Thursday, just two days after her abduction, an official told Agence France Presse.

"The Frenchwoman... was released along with two Yemenis," municipal official Hasan Ali told AFP.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal on Thursday hailed a new era of partnership between their two rival movements at talks in Cairo aimed at cementing a stalled a unity deal.

Speaking to reporters after several hours of talks, the two leaders said they had managed to iron out their differences and turn over a new page in their strained relationship.

Loyalists of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh shot dead five people in Sanaa on Thursday who had been protesting against a power transfer deal that promises him immunity from prosecution, medics said.

The five were all killed by live rounds, said the medics at a field hospital set up protesters in the capital's Change Square, where they have been camped out since February.

An influential Iran parliamentarian has said that the country has arrested twelve agents of the American Central Intelligence Agency, the country's official IRNA news agency reported.

Parviz Sorouri, who sits on the powerful committee of foreign policy and national security, that the alleged agents had been operating in coordination with Israel's Mossad and other regional agencies, and targeted the country's military and its nuclear program.

France renewed its support for humanitarian corridors in Syria on Thursday but said such a move would have to either be agreed by Damascus or come under an international mandate.

Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Wednesday that France would ask its EU partners to consider the idea of setting up protected escape routes for Syrian civilians fleeing the regime of Bashar Assad.

Egypt's military rulers apologized on Thursday for the deaths of demonstrators at the hands of police as protests demanding an immediate handover to civilian control entered a seventh day.

At least 35 protesters have been killed since Saturday -- when clashes erupted -- and more than 2,000 injured, prompting expressions of concern from Western governments and a call from the United Nations for an independent inquiry into the "excessive use of force."

Two men were shot dead during renewed Shiite protests in Saudi Arabia, as police exchanged fire with gunmen who "infiltrated" the funeral of another protester, the interior ministry said Thursday.

It said the new deaths late Wednesday brought to four the death toll of protests that began on Monday in the Eastern Province, while nine others were wounded, including two policemen and a woman, according to a statement carried by SPA state news agency.

The United States Wednesday called on Bahrain to punish those guilty of human rights abuses in anti-government violence this year, and said it would closely follow its ally's actions.

The statement followed the publication of a special independent commission report in Bahrain that found police used "excessive force" and tortured detainees in a crackdown on the Shiite-led democracy protests in March.

U.S. President Barack Obama urged Yemen on Wednesday to immediately implement a deal under which President Ali Abdullah Saleh has agreed to hand over power after 33 years in office.

"The United States will continue to stand by the Yemeni people as they embark on this historic transition," Obama said in a written statement.