Iraq's ailing President Jalal Talabani, who is being treated in Germany for a stroke, is recovering and will be able to fulfill his official duties upon his return, his doctor said on Saturday.

The remarks are likely aimed at quashing recent calls, in particular from Iraq's chief prosecutor, for the president to be replaced as the country grapples with a political crisis analysts have linked to a sharp increase in violence.

Tunisia's National Constituent Assembly on Saturday completed the long-delayed draft of the country's first post-revolution constitution, its top officials said.

NCA president Mustapha Ben Jaafar "signed on Saturday the final draft of the new constitution," said the body's vice president, Meherzia Laabidi.

A draft law regulating Egyptian civil society groups has become a barometer of the Islamist government's commitment to the ideals of the democratic uprising that brought it to power, with the text raising concerns both at home and abroad.

President Mohammed Morsi, who referred the bill to the Islamist-dominated senate on Wednesday, pledged that he "does not aspire to control civil society," in a departure from his overthrown predecessor Hosni Mubarak's strongman tactics.

Candidates in Iran's June 14 presidential election all agree that rampant inflation is the most pressing problem, but commentators Saturday bemoaned that in a first television debate none proposed real solutions.

Press commentators accepted the complaints of several candidates that the Friday debate's format, which gave little scope for real discussion of issues, had not helped them present their policies.

Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi accused Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Syria's former ally Turkey on Saturday of "terrorizing" his own people and called on him to resign.

"The demands of the Turkish people do not justify this violence, and if Erdogan is incapable of using non-violent methods, then he should quit," state television cited Zohbi as saying after rioting in Istanbul.

The two daughters of a missing Italian journalist on Saturday launched a video appeal asking Syrians to help them find their father who disappeared while on a mission in the war-torn country.

"We are the daughters of the Italian journalist and correspondent Domenico Quirico for La Stampa newspaper who disappeared in Syria 50 days ago," Metella and Eleonora said in the video posted on the daily's website.

The Syrian army backed by Hizbullah fighters bolstered its positions in the embattled opposition stronghold of Qusayr on Saturday, as rebels prepared for a renewed assault, raising fears for trapped civilians.

The opposition Syrian National Coalition issued a statement saluting rebel fighters in the town, including new battalions that have arrived in recent days.

Tunisia's interior ministry banned a rally in Tunis on Saturday by a controversial militia linked to the ruling Islamist Ennahda party but dozens flaunted the order and gathered anyway.

A branch of the League for the Protection of the Revolution in the capital's suburb of Kram had called for the rally to demand that a controversial bill on the "immunization" of the revolution be adopted quickly.

Iraq's defense ministry said on Saturday it has broken up an al-Qaida cell that was working to produce poison gas for attacks within the country as well as in Europe and North America.

The group of five people built two facilities in Baghdad to produce sarin and mustard gas, using instructions from another al-Qaida group, spokesman Mohammed al-Askari told a news conference.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday demanded that both sides battling for the strategic Syrian town of Qusayr allow civilians to flee the fighting, his spokesman said.

"He urges all sides to do their utmost to avoid civilian casualties," Ban's spokesman, Martin Nesirky, said in a statement.