A protest and scuffles with police occurred in central Tehran on Wednesday in the first sign of public unrest over Iran's plunging currency, which this week has lost more than half of its value.

Hundreds of police in anti-riot gear stormed the capital's currency exchange district of Ferdowsi, arresting illegal money changers and ordering licensed bureaux and other shops closed, witnesses told Agence France Presse.

The Kuwaiti cabinet on Wednesday approved a draft decree calling for the ruler of the oil-rich Gulf state to dissolve the 2009 parliament, the information minister said.

Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah Al-Sabah said the decision was taken at an extraordinary meeting of the cabinet, the official KUNA news agency reported.

A Yemeni alliance of groups that want independence for the south of the country said in a statement Wednesday that they will boycott next month's national dialogue proposed by the government in Sanaa.

The Southern Movement "refuses to take part in the national dialogue conference" which will be held in mid-November, the umbrella group said in a statement concluding its three-day conference held in Aden, the capital of the formerly independent South Yemen.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is likely to call elections in mid-February 2013, more than six months early, Israeli media and ministers said on Wednesday.

In recent weeks, speculation has been rife that Netanyahu, who continues to ride high in the polls, might bring forward elections scheduled for next October, rather than try to pass a controversial new budget before the vote.

Car bombs tore Wednesday through Syria's second city Aleppo, leaving dozens dead, as violence across the country killed 147 people, monitors said.

Two blasts went off in quick succession near a military officers' club around Aleppo's Saadallah al-Jabiri Square, ripping off a hotel's facade and flattening a two-story cafe, an Agence France Presse correspondent reported.

The U.S. military and intelligence agencies are compiling detailed dossiers on those believed to have attacked the U.S. consulate in Libya ahead of possible retaliation, the New York Times reported.

Citing U.S. officials, the Times reported late Tuesday that the top-secret Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) was collecting information on the deadly attack last month that killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.

Latin American and Arab leaders agreed to form a joint investment bank during a summit in Peru at which they also discussed the increasingly bloody civil war in Syria.

At the end of the two-day meeting on Tuesday, the heads of state announced the investment bank would integrate national banks and could finance common projects between the Union of South American Nations and the Arab League.

One person was killed and five others wounded during clashes near Bani Walid, a final bastion of supporters of slain Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, local leaders said Tuesday, warning of looming disaster.

"A resident of Bani Walid was killed in combat against armed groups from the city Misrata," Bani Walid spokesman Massud al-Waer told AFP.

Violence across Syria has killed at least 31,022 people, most of them civilians, since the outbreak of an anti-regime revolt in March last year, a monitoring group said.

"At least 22,257 civilians, 7,578 soldiers and 1,187 defectors have been killed in violence in the past 18 months," Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman told Agence France Presse.

A Palestinian taxi injured four Israeli soldiers in a hit-and-run incident in the West Bank on Tuesday, but it was not immediately clear if it was a deliberate attack, police told Agence France Presse.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said those injured were part of a group of six soldiers standing at the side of the road alongside their vehicle, near the settlement of Neveh Daniel, southwest of Bethlehem.