The emir of Kuwait has dissolved parliament for the second time in a year after a bitter dispute with the government. In a televised speech on Wednesday, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah also called for a snap general election to elect a new 50-seat parliament. Sheikh Sabah did not give a date for new elections, but under the Kuwaiti constitution they must be held within two months.

The emir said the MPs had abused democracy and become a threat to stability, pointing out that the people needed to choose another parliament because national unity was in danger.

It is the second time in a year the emir has disbanded the confrontational legislature, which has a contentious relationship with the cabinet.

'Rights and responsibilities'

"The decision I took today was not an easy one", he said.

"Parliament has rights, but they come with responsibilities. Democracy is a tool, not a goal in itself."

The Kuwaiti government resigned on Monday, a day before parliamentarians were due to question Sheikh Nasser Al Mohammed Al Sabah, the prime minister.

Nasser is alleged of mismanagement, breach of the constitution and misuse of public funds.

Saad al-Anezi, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Kuwait City, said: "Several MPs launched three tough questions against the prime minister, which is unprecedented in Kuwaiti history and is being described by the emir as an action that has exceeded all boundaries.

"Although he dissolved parliament, he called for new elections, and at the same time, is going to appoint a new prime minister, who is the crown prince who will be constitutionally protected from future grillings."

Kuwait's political crisis has delayed several bills, such as a stimulus package and a plan to set up a financial regulator.

"You have the economic crisis, with many people losing money on the stock market. The government responded by presenting a rescue plan to save some banks and some investment companies.

"Many MPs said they wouldn't approve this unless the government would buy the loans of many Kuwaitis, which amount to almost $18bn. The government found this totally unacceptable," al-Anezi said.

Predicted move

The emir's move was largely expected. Many, including some parliamentarians, have said the accusations were actually unfair, overly vague and personal in nature.

Parliament has a large contingent of conservative Islamist members that are often at odds with the ruling cabinet.

"The Islamists don't have a majority, but are a strong bloc. Between them, and if you add the tribal groups, the current parliament is a very conservative parliament," Al Jazeera's correspondent said.

"Many of the issues that come up are social and religious. One of the grillings against the prime minister was in fact about the destruction of a mosque that was illegally built."

Parliament was last dismissed in March 2008 in a bid to end clashes between the government and parliament members.

Since becoming prime minister in 2006, Nasser has resigned five times due to political disputes with MPs.

Kuwaiti leaders have dissolved the legislature five times since 1976, mostly to prevent parliamentarians from interrogating cabinet members or calling no-confidence votes.

No head of government has ever faced questioning by legislators.

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Libya shed light on Wednesday on a 33-billion-dollar scheme, contested by some as mad or wasteful, to extract water from deep beneath the Sahara and pipe it across the desert to its coastal cities. For the first time in a major international forum, Libyan officials gave a presentation of the "Great Man-Made River Project," a scheme that dwarfs all for ambition and cost, and defended it against charges of environmental vandalism and water theft. The scheme, already some two-thirds complete, is economically viable and should not stoke any conflict with Libya's neighbours, said Fawzi al-Sharief Saeid, director of the project's technical centre for groundwater management.

He put the total bill at 33.69 billion dollars in capital investment and running costs over 50 years.

"Studies have shown that the Great Man-Made River Project is more economical than other alternatives," being some nine to 11 times better value for money compared with desalination plants or water imported from Europe, he said.

At predicted extraction rates, "recoverable reserves would last for 4,860 years" for all four countries -- Libya, Sudan, Chad and Egypt -- that can draw upon its source, he said.

Despite its name, the project is not a river with banks.

Instead, it entails a network of 4,000 kilometres (2,500 miles) of pipes, which take water, sucked out from an ancient desert aquifer, to the northern coastal strip, where most of the country's 5.76 million people live.

Driven by Libyan leader Moamer Gathafi to promote food self-sufficiency, the Great Man-made River was hailed in leaflets at the World Water Forum in Istanbul as "The Eighth Wonder of the World."

Despite its mammoth size, the project has been going on for so long and so discreetly that it hardly registers on today's environmental radar screen, said Eugenia Ferragina, a senior researcher on water at Italy's National Research Council.

One reason is the tensions that persisted between Libya and the United States and have only recently eased.

The strategic nature of the scheme bred secrecy -- as well as conspiratorial rumours, aired in some western media in 1997, that the pipes were being used to store biological and chemical weaons.

"This is the first time at a World Water Forum that we hear (in detail) from our colleagues in Libya," said Andras Szollosi-Nagy, a senior official for water at UNESCO, who praised the transparency of their presentation.

"It's a huge engineering project... the biggest thing in town, whichever way you look at it."

But other experts shook their heads at the scheme's astronomical cost and questioned the wisdom of mining "fossil" water, deposited aeons ago, that will never be replenished by the Sahara's meagre rains.

Mark Smith, a water specialist with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), said: "The water is not going to be replaced. You can pump merrily away and do lots of things with it, but it's not sustainable.

"This is such an expensive option. Rather than go through all that expense, spend all that national treasure, you could buy the food from places where there is a sustainable source of water."

Ferragina said Gathafi's scheme was "senseless from the economic point of view" and laden with potential for stoking friction with neighbours.

"In many cases involving cross-border aquifers, if you start pumping on one side, it causes water to flow from the other side of the boundary to your side, because of gravity," she said.

"It becomes a pumping race, a race to see who can extract the water first."

"Gatdhafi's reach seems to have exceeded his grasp," said British writer Fred Pearce in a book on water scarcity, "When the Rivers Run Dry."

"The vast capital cost and the growing bills for pumping water from ever greater depths beneath the desert make wheat grown with the Saharan water among the most expensive on Earth."

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Rival Palestinian factions have agreed to hold elections by January next year after holding negotiations in Cairo over a unity government. However, at the conclusion of the Egyptian-mediated talks late on Sunday, Fatah and Hamas - the biggest Palestinian groups - continued to differ on a few points, including who would be in the new government. Some Western governments have been pushing for a Palestinian government run by non-partisan politicians and technocrats.

Wasil Abou Youssef, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Front, one of the groups taking part in Sunday's talks, told Egypt's state-run Middle East News Agency that they had agreed to hold joint presidential and legislative elections by January 25, 2010.

Sticking points

Last month, Palestinian factions had agreed to form five committees to tackle issues such as the composition of security agencies in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

The Palestinian territories have seen separate rule for the past 21 months, after Hamas fighters forced Palestinian Authority security forces loyal to Fatah out of the Gaza Strip in June 2007.

Reform of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), one of Hamas's demands, has also still to be agreed.

The PLO - dominated by Fatah and allied groups - has represented the Palestinians since 1964. More recent groups, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have never been a part of the organisation, despite enjoying popular support.

Another point of contention is Hamas's acceptance of peace accords signed between Israel and previous Fatah-run governments, which would amount to formally recognising the state.

Among the new government's tasks will be to lead the reconstruction of Gaza, which saw billions of dollars worth of damage during a three-week Israeli offensive earlier in the year.

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Four South Korean tourists and their Yemeni guide have been killed in an explosion in southern Yemen, security officials say. The blast at a tourist site in the southern province of Hadramut on Sunday also injured three other South Koreans. There were conflicting reports about the nature of the bombing, with a security official telling The Associated Press that it was a suicide attack and another saying it was a roadside bomb detonated by remote control. One official told the Reuters news agency that "maybe it was a terrorist attack but it could also be remnants of dynamite from a mine going off".

No group has claimed responsibility for the explosion and security sources have not accused any group.

But Khaled al-Hammadi, a journalist in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, told Al Jazeera that the attacks come after the announcement of new leadership for al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula.

"The Yemeni government has conducted a lot of operations to combat al-Qaeda's operations in the country with the co-operation of the international community, particularly the US government.

"There are currently a lot of [court] trials in which al-Qaeda members are accused," he said.

The blast occurred in the fortress town of Shibam a Unesco World Heritage site famous for its 16th century mud brick buildings that rise up to 16 storeys.

It happened as the tourists passed a vehicle at the entrance to Mahram Bilqis, an ancient oval-shaped temple celebrated for belonging to the Queen of Sheba, an official said.

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DUBAI - French President Nicolas Sarkozy is due to formally open his country's first Gulf-based military base in Abu Dhabi in May, the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat said on Saturday . The Saudi-owned paper quoted French diplomatic sources as saying that Sarkozy would travel to the United Arab Emirates to inaugurate the base amid efforts by France to bolster relations in the oil-rich Gulf region.

In 2008 France signed an agreement with the UAE to set up its first permanent military base in Abu Dhabi, the wealthiest and largest of the nation's seven emirates.

"It will be the first such French base in the Gulf and it will face the Strait of Hormuz," a French presidential source said in January 2008.

The strategic Strait of Hormuz, which separates the UAE's neighbours Iran and Oman, is a vital conduit through which an estimated 40 percent of the world's crude oil passes.

French officials said last year that the base will eventually host 400-500 French army, navy and air force personnel.

France is a leading military supplier to the UAE, and the two countries are linked by a 1995 defence pact.

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SAN FRANCISCO - Facebook on Wednesday launched Arabic and Hebrew versions of the world's most popular social-networking website as it continued customizing itself to languages around the planet. Facebook went live last year with French, Spanish and German versions of its service, which is available in 40 languages. Engineers at the California-based Internet firm are working on adding 60 more languages to its repertoire. "Our goal is to make Facebook available in every language across the world," Facebook engineer Ghassan Haddad wrote in an online message.

Arabic and Hebrew versions of the website were tricky to create because writing in those languages is read right-to-left instead of left-to-write as is the case with English.

"Supporting different languages on the Web always entails many technical, cultural and linguistic issues, but right-to-left languages present extra challenges," Haddad wrote.

"Over the past 20 years, I have worked on hundreds of translation projects with different companies. Few of those projects ever tackled right-to-left languages because of the technical challenges."

Facebook created a "dynamic explosion" feature to deal with the fact that Arabic and Hebrew words are sometimes used differently depending on whether a person being referred to is a man or a woman, according to Haddad.

Facebook said it uses the only written form of Arabic, a Modern Standard style used by Middle Eastern media, publishing, and religious circles.

"Even with the use of one written form, significant regional variations exist, especially related to words for modern advances such as in the area of technology," Haddad wrote.

Facebook enlists its community to get local languages correct at its websites.

"If you speak a language other than English, check out our Translations application to participate in the process of making Facebook available to everyone, anywhere--no matter what language they speak," Haddad wrote.

Founded in 2004 by former Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook claims to have 175 million members worldwide.

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The leaders of Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt and Kuwait have pledged to work together to advance the causes of their region. At the end of a mini-summit in the Saudi capital, the Arab leaders said: "The leaders consider that their meeting marks the start of a new period in their relations which will see their four countries act together in the service of Arab interests." Wednesday's statement also signalled the launch of "serious and continuous action for the benefit of Arab countries and of their agreement to embark on a unified path regarding essential issues, topped by the Palestinian question".

The Riyadh summit was attended by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria, Hosni Mubarak, his Egyptian counterpart, and Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah of Kuwait.

The statement noted that the summit followed a call by the Saudi monarch for inter-Arab reconciliation made at an Arab economic summit in Kuwait City in January.

The gathering was designed to mark a thaw in relations between Syria on the one hand and Saudi Arabia and Egypt on the other after years of differences over Damascus' links to Iran and Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shia organisation.

Regional changes

Relations between Riyadh and Damascus had been further damaged in the wake of the 2005 assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri, a former Lebanese prime minister, who had close ties to the Saudi government.

Interim reports from a UN investigation into al-Hariri's killing alleged that Syrian officials had a hand in the plot, claims consistently denied by Syria.

With the al-Hariri case now under the auspices of a special tribunal in The Hague, Saudi Arabia is looking to unite regional powers before the Arab League summit in Doha, the Qatari capital, set to take place on March 30.

Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's senior political analyst, said that the meeting in Riyadh is an attempt by each of the leaders to address political changes affecting the region.

"Usually on the eve of most Arab League summits we find that Arab leaders, especially those from Saudi Arabia, Syria and Egypt, try to work out and manage their differences in order to come out on top in the Arab League summit and give a good impression of their regional behaviour," he said.

"This time, there is something more serious. The region has been changing over the last few years; there is a new administration in the US and it seems that there could be a radical right-wing government in Israel.

"That regional change is enticing each one of these three Arab leaders to enhance their position in order to be an indispensable party to any decisions."

Palestinian dialogue

In a parallel development, Egypt, with the support of Saudi Arabia, is brokering talks in Cairo between the rival Palestinian groups, Hamas and Fatah.

Fatah is led by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president.

Israel lists Hamas as a "terrorist organisation" and has so far only held talks with Fatah.

The meeting in the Egyptian capital is aimed at forming a national unity government for the Palestinians that can eventually engage in peace negotiations with Israel.

The Arab League summit in Kuwait in January left Arab countries split over Israel's 22-day assault on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, with Syria and Qatar adopting a more strident tone than Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

More than 1,300 Palestinians were killed during the war, which Israel said was aimed at preventing rocket fire from Palestinian fighters based in the coastal strip.

Peace initiative

The Saudis have since tried to get all 22 Arab states to support a fresh push for the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative for Israel and the Palestinians.

The plan offers Israel recognition from all Arab states in return for the establishment of a Palestinian state based on borders before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and the principle of right of return for Palestinian refugees.

The Saudis have repeatedly called on Washington and Israel to support the plan, stressing that it will not be indefinitely on offer.

"Israel must realise that the choice between peace and war will not be available all the time, and that the Arab initiative on the table today will not be on the table forever," King Abdullah said at the Kuwait summit.

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Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, is to hold talks with his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah in Riyadh as part of efforts to improve relations between the countries. The leaders will hold talks in the Saudi capital on Wednesday, in the run-up to an Arab League summit expected to take part at the end of the month. "Bilateral relations ... and ways of strengthening them in various fields in addition to regional and international issues of common concern" will be discussed, the Saudi state news agency SPA reported.

The visit by Assad marks a relaxing of tensions between the Syrian and the Saudi government after years of differences over Damascus' links to Iran and Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shia organisation.

Relations had been further damaged in the wake of the 2005 assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri, a former Lebanese prime minister who had close ties to the Saudi government.

Interim reports from a UN investigation into al-Hariri's killing alleged that Syrian officials had a hand in the plot, claims consistently denied by Damascus.

With the al-Hariri case now under the auspices of a special tribunal in The Hague, Saudi Arabia is looking to unite regional powers before the Arab League summit in Doha, the Qatari capital, set to take place on March 30.

Palestinian dialogue

In a parallel development, Egypt, with the support of Saudi Arabia, is brokering talks in Cairo between the rival Palestinian groups, Hamas and Fatah.

Fatah is led by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president.

Israel lists Hamas as a "terrorist organisation" and has so far only held talks with Fatah.

The meeting in the Egyptian capital is aimed forming a national unity government for the Palestinian that can eventually engage in peace negotiations with Israel.

An Arab League summit in Kuwait in January ended left Arab countries split over Israel's 22-day assault on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, with Syria and Qatar adopting a more strident tone than Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

More than 1,300 Palestinians were killed during the war, which Israel said was aimed at preventing rocket fire from Palestinian fighters based in the coastal strip.

Peace initiative

The Saudis have since tried to get all 22 Arab states to support a fresh push for the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative for Israel and the Palestinians.

The plan offers Israel recognition from all Arab states in return for the establishment of a Palestinian state based on borders before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and the principle of right of return for Palestinian refugees.

The Saudis have repeatedly called on Washington and Israel to support the plan, stressing that it will not be indefinitely on offer.

"Israel must realise that the choice between peace and war will not be available all the time, and that the Arab initiative on the table today will not be on the table forever," King Abdullah said at the Kuwait summit.

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A British convoy carrying medical relief for the impoverished residents of the Gaza Strip has crossed into the territory from Egypt. Gazans cheered and waved Palestinian flags as the convoy finally entered the territory through the Rafah border crossing on Monday, after being stranded on the Egyptian side of the border for two days. "The group was stopped at the border for various reasons, there were various negotiations going on over what would be let through the border; how many people, how much humanitarian aid," Al Jazeera's Todd Baer, reporting from the Rafah crossing, said.

"After an 8,000km journey, nearly one month on the road and a day and a half on the Egyptitan side of the Rafah border, the Lifeline for Gaxa convoy finally made it into the Gaza Strip. It was a remarkable scene."

The convoy is led by George Galloway, a British member of parliament.
"Galloway has been heavily criticised and there were a lot of sceptics saying this could simply not be done. Today, George Galloway and 300 volunteers who gave up a month of their lives to help the people of Gaza proved all of them wrong," Baer said.

The passage of the convoy through Egypt had been controversial.

The convoy was pelted with stones and vandalised in the Egyptian town of El-Arish, 45km south of the Rafah border crossing, before being cleared to enter Gaza.

'Overwhelmed with happiness'

As he entered Gaza, Galloway said he was "overwhelmed with happiness".

"I have entered Palestine many times but the most emotional of these is after the 22-day genocidal aggression against the Palestinian people," he said.

Galloway said that he planned to meet "the heroes of Palestine's resistance, the government of Palestine, the people of Palestine".

The convoy comprising 110 vehicles has brought aid supplies valued at $1.4m.

Israel's Gaza offensive, which it said was aimed at stopping rocket and mortar attacks by Palestinian fighters, devastated the Gaza Strip. More than 1,300 Palestinians were killed and thousands of homes were destroyed in the assault which ended in January.

Israel and Egypt have sealed Gaza off from all but limited humanitarian aid since Hamas seized full control of the territory in June 2007 after pushing out forces loyal to Mahmoud Abbas, the West Bank-based Palestinian president.

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Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister, has submitted his resignation to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president. Announcing the decision on Saturday, Fayyad said the resignation would take effect after the formation of a Palestinian national unity government. He, however, said he would quit no later than the end of March.

Fayyad's announcement comes ahead of the resumption of power-sharing talks between Abbas, who heads the Fatah movement, and his rivals from the Palestinian Hamas group.

Fayyad, a former World Bank economist, was appointed by Abbas after Hamas's takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007.

His decision to resign is being seen as a goodwill gesture towards Hamas, as the group had repeatedly demanded that Fayyad step down.
"This step comes in the efforts to form a national conciliation government,'' Fayyad said.

However, Hamas officials were dismissive about his resignation.

Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for the group, said Fayyad's government was unconstitutional and worked for private interests.

Palestinian reconciliation

Al Jazeera's Nour Odeh, reporting from Ramallah, said: "The timing may be a little surprising. However, the people certainly expected Salam Fayyad to step down and make way for a government that will enjoy the acceptance of all Palestinian factions.

"The prime minister had already announced that he will put his fate of his cabinet at the hands of president Mahmoud Abbas in preparation for a government of national unity by the end of this month," she said.

Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, welcomed Fayyad's decision to stand down.

"The resignation is a positive, constructive step to support the national dialogue, because the aim of the dialogue within three weeks is to come up with the formation of a national unity government.

"It is natural to say that this government will resign, opening the door for a new unified government."

Delegations from Fatah and Hamas, as well as other Palestinian groups, have set up committees to look at forming a unity government and holding elections.

Ghazi Hamad, a Hamas spokesman, told Al Jazeera: "I think there is a strong determination among Hamas, Fatah and all Palestinian factions to succeed because there is no other alternative.

"If we fail in the national project and dream for the Palestinian people ... then we face disaster and catastrophe."

A planned unity government by Fatah and Hamas will deal with foreign governments, co-ordinate reconstruction in the Gaza Strip and prepare for Palestinian presidential and legislative elections.

"His resignation means that there is enough reason to believe that this dialogue will work, that an agreement will be reached and that Palestinians after almost two years of division will finally have a united government once again," Odeh said.

Analysts say the desire on the part of Palestinians to achieve reconciliation between their divided groups has grown since Israel's three-week military offensive in Gaza, which ended on 18 January.

Fatah and Hamas have long been rivals but their feuding boiled over in June 2007 when Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip by driving out security personnel loyal to the Palestinian president.

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