British Foreign Secretary William Hague arrived in the Libyan rebel stronghold of Benghazi on Saturday for talks with the opposition's leadership, the Foreign Office said.

Hague, who is accompanied by international development minister Andrew Mitchell, will meet with Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the chief of the rebel National Transitional Council, it said in a statement from London.

Former Egyptian finance minister Youssef Boutros Ghali was on Saturday sentenced to 30 years in prison in absentia on corruption charges, an Agence France Presse correspondent said.

Judge Magdi Ghoneim of the Cairo criminal court sentenced Ghali to 15 years for squandering public money by using cars held in customs and 15 years for abusing his position for personal gain from ministry funds.

Iran's supreme leader called on the ruling conservatives to end their divisions, in a speech on Saturday marking 22 years since the death of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

"In the country there are different political views... Do not deprive someone of security if he does not seek regime change or betrayal, or does not want to carry out enemy orders, but does not share your view," said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Egyptian officials at the Rafah border with the Gaza Strip closed the crossing on Saturday, Palestinian police told Agence France Presse.

Ayub Abu Shaa, head of the Hamas police unit at Rafah, said phone calls to the Egyptian side went unanswered and a crowd of hundreds of Palestinians seeking to cross to Egypt were faced with a locked gate.

Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Mujawar and three other senior Yemeni officials wounded in shelling of the presidential compound were transferred to Saudi Arabia for treatment on Saturday, a medic said.

The condition of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was hospitalized at Sanaa's military hospital after also being wounded in Friday's attack, was "stable" and "of no cause for concern," the medical official told Agence France Presse.

Germany on Saturday ordered the closure of its embassy in Yemen and the rapid repatriation of its staff amid widespread unrest, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

"Even if the fighting in the capital is not directed against foreigners, the dangerous nature of the situation has led the foreign ministry to take this decision," the statement said.

Thousands of youth activists have rallied for the removal of Kuwait's prime minister, pushing the oil-rich Gulf state closer toward political turmoil.

"The people want to topple the prime minister," chanted more than 3,000 protesters who rallied late Friday night for the third straight week, braving temperatures close to 40 degrees Celsius in the desert state.

Clashes in Yemen's flashpoint city of Taez on Friday killed four soldiers and two protesters, a security official told Agence France Presse.

Two protesters were killed and 30 others were wounded by live rounds, while four soldiers were killed and 20 were wounded, said the official who added that some demonstrators were armed.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon on Friday expressed alarm at the heightened Syrian government crackdown on protests and said there were now more than 1,000 dead.

"The secretary general is alarmed at the escalation of violence in Syria, which has reportedly left at least 70 killed over the past week alone, bringing the total casualties since mid-March to over 1,000 dead, many more injured and thousands arrested," said a U.N. spokeswoman Vannina Maestracci.

Syrian security forces shot dead at least 25 people while dispersing tens of thousands of demonstrators in the central city of Hama on Friday, activists said, as anti-regime protests spread to Damascus.

Activists in the city told Agence France Presse by telephone that dozens of other people were wounded.