Al-Qaradawi last delivered a Friday prayer sermon in Egypt in 1981 after the assassination of former President Anwar el-Sadat. Other prominent Muslim scholars were also banned from delivering the Friday sermon, such as Abd al-Hamid Kishk, Sheikh Mohammed al-Ghazali, and Sheikh Ahmed El-Mahallawi. El-Mahallawi lately returned to leading Friday prayers during the revolution at al-Qaed Ibrahim Mosque in Alexandria.

Sheikh Qaradawi confirmed in a telephone call with the German Press Agency that he would lead tomorrow's prayers in Tahrir, with hundreds of thousands expected to attend. Some of Qaradawi's sons and daughters took part in the Tahrir demonstrations leading up to the overthrow of Mr Mubarak.

The demonstration was organised through websites such as Facebook and Twitter and was closely coordinated with hundreds of other people who are based in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, one of the organisers told AFP. "We are giving the Palestinian factions until March 5 to make a reconciliation deal," said Badur Zamara, one of the protest organisers who works for a youth organisation called Sherek Forum.

Zamara said the group was planning a sustained pressure campaign which would include marches, rallies and protests, all calling for Hamas and Fatah to reconcile their differences. "They have already failed to do this but we feel that we can do what the factions couldn't do," he told AFP, saying the protesters wanted to use "Egyptian tactics" to bring about reconciliation within the bitterly divided Palestinian national movement.

Last month, a group of young, disgruntled Egyptians organised a series of anti-government rallies that mushroomed into an unprecedented civil protest movement that succeeded in bringing down the 30-year regime of Hosni Mubarak within the space of just 18 days. The uprising sparked shock waves across the Middle East, and has prompted widespread calls for democratic reform. Zamara said activists in Gaza were planning to hold a rally on Friday.

"King Abdullah... is the only person who can carry out these reforms," the prince told the broadcaster. "On his departure, may that be in many years to come, latent trouble will surface and I have warned of this on many occasions. We need to resolve the problems in his lifetime," the prince added. Talal added that if Saudi authorities "don't give more concern to the demands of the people, anything could happen in this country".

Talal has long called for reform in Saudi Arabia and formed the liberal political group "Free Princes Movement" in 1958 in reaction to the hostility between former kings Saud and Faisal. Because of his involvement with the Free Princes Movement it is unlikely that Talal, a former ambassador to France, will ever become king. Leaders throughout the Arab world are anxiously studying the spread of protests which have already unseated the presidents of Tunisia and Egypt.

A pro-government demonstration is also expected to be held, just hours after Bahrain banned public gatherings. Tanks have been stationed at strategic points around the streets of Manama. Soldiers would take every measure necessary to preserve security, the interior ministry said. Western countries have urged Bahrain to show restraint in dealing with protesters and called for meaningful reform in the small Gulf state kingdom.

The use of the military is a course that puts the Bahraini royal family into direct confrontation with members of the Shia Muslim majority who make up the bulk of the protesters, the BBC's Middle East correspondent, Jon Leyne, reports from Cairo. Since independence from the UK in 1971, tensions between the Sunni elite and the less affluent Shia have frequently caused civil unrest. Shia groups say they are marginalised, subject to unfair laws and repressed.

Washington is watching with growing concern as unrest and violence spread across the Middle East, threatening its regional interests, BBC state department correspondent Kim Ghattas reports from Washington. While Bahrain is tiny, with a population of less than one million, it is home to the US navy's Fifth Fleet and is near another key US ally in the region, Saudi Arabia.

At a mass rally in Beirut Monday, Hariri said he would not join the new government being formed by Najb Mukati. Instead, as he told thousands of protesters at a rally commemorating the the assassination of his father, Rafik Hariri, he plans to lead a "million-man march" next month, evoking a similar event six years ago, when some one million protesters gathered to protest Syria's interference in Lebanese affairs.

The protest will take place on March 14, the date of the earlier protest and the name of Hariri's former ruling coalition. The coalition was toppled when Druze leader Walid Jumblatt jumped to Hizbullah's side, giving the terror group the votes it needed to take control of the Lebanese parliament. "We are going on March 14 to say no," Hariri told the crowd. "No to the betrayal of coexistence... no to [Hizbullah's] armed internal tutelage, no to moving Lebanon to an axis rejected by the Lebanese," an axis which consists of, he said, Iran, Syria, and Hizbullah.

One of the major issues in Lebanese politics has been the investigation by an international tribunal of the elder Hariri's murder in 2005. Most observers expect the tribunal to finger Hizbullah as being behind the murder, with the terror group threatening violence if it is blamed for Hariri's death. In his speech, Hariri defended the tribunal, which, he said, "will accuse members and will not do so randomly," he said. "It has to be based on evidence and proof."

Hizbullah had used intimidation to bully its way into office on the background of the investigation, Hariri said. "We congratulate them on a majority that was hijacked by the intimidation of weapons and we congratulate them on a power that was stolen from the will of the voters."

"Our mistake may have been that we extended our hand truthfully every time," Hariri said, telling the crowd that he had been trying to work out an arrangement by which Lebanon could put his father's murder behind it, and move on to a new spirit of cooperation. "But we were met every time with deceit, and our genuine intention was taken as a point of weakness and a sign of fear."

The case stems from a 2006 blast from the San Francisco city board that called the Catholic church's teachings "an insult to all San Franciscans" and accused the Vatican of being a "foreign country" that "meddles with and attempts to negatively influence this great city's existing and established customs and traditions."

The case is being fought by officials with the Thomas More Law Center, who are arguing that the Supreme Court should take this opportunity "to secure and maintain uniformity of decisions on an important issue of federal law." "The crux of the problem is that this court's Establishment Clause jurisprudence... tends to be hostile toward religion," the petition to the court said. The formal statement from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors attacked the church's belief because it prohibits the adoption of children by homosexuals.

The resolution, adopted March 21, 2006, calls the Vatican a "foreign country" that is meddling in the city's affairs. Further it states that the church's moral teachings are "insulting to all San Franciscans," "hateful," "insulting and callous," "defamatory," "absolutely unacceptable," "insensitive" and "ignorant." The resolution further references the Inquisition and calls on the archbishop of San Francisco and other Catholic officials to defy church teachings and beliefs.

According to the TMLC, Catholic doctrine teaches that allowing children to be adopted by homosexuals would mean doing violence to these children, "in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development." "Such policies are gravely immoral, and Catholic organizations must not place children for adoption in homosexual households," the center explained.

Catholic League spokesman Bill Donohue told WND at the time the comments denouncing church doctrine were "incredible, invective and bigoted comments." "This is beyond belief. It clearly is a hostile environment," he said.

The uprisings that removed Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali on January 14 and Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak four weeks later have shown the people are capable of doing it themselves, even when up against huge odds. Scholars and opposition figures, who all opposed the Iraq war, said the uprisings, which have so far sparked street action in Algeria, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan and Iran, also exposed the ulterior motives behind US backing for police states.

"The West must change its mistaken belief that we are not fit for democracy and freedom. Now is the time for Western powers to recognise the desires of the Arab people and to remove their support of their despotic allies," said Ali Al-Ahmed, a Saudi dissident based in Washington. "Tunisians and Egyptians have proven Western powers and analysts wrong about the Arabs desire for freedom," he said.

Western countries long saw rulers such as Mubarak and Ben Ali as strongmen able to deliver on Western foreign policy needs while cracking down on convenient Islamist threats such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Ennahda party in Tunisia.

"I say to the fighters of the Islamic Resistance: Be ready. If a new war is imposed on Lebanon we may ask you to take Galilee, to free Galilee," Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech to mark his Shiite party's martyrs' day. He vowed that the death of Imad Mughnieh, killed in a February 2008 car bombing in Damascus that Iranian-backed Hezbollah has blamed on Israel, would not be forgotten or go unpunished.

"I do not want to go into details. Suffice to say that our decision remains the same and will be executed, God willing, at the right time," he said to thunderous applause from hundreds of his supporters gathered in a stadium. "To the Zionist generals, I say: Anywhere you go in the world, at any time, watch out, for the blood of Imad Mughnieh will not go to waste."

A month-long war between the Shiite militant group and Israel in 2006 destroyed much of Lebanon's infrastructure and killed more than 1,200 Lebanese, mainly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mainly soldiers. Nasrallah's comments came a day after Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak warned that his army may have to re-enter Lebanon to ensure Hezbollah "remembers" the 2006 war.

Israel's state-funded Channel One television said Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, a vociferously far-right partner in the conservative coalition, had spoken out of turn as the Defense Ministry "had preferred to ignore" the ships' approach. Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Israel was tracking them and had alerted "friendly nations in the region" accordingly.

Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper described the two Iranian ships as a MK-5 frigate and a supply vessel, which would not present a significant danger to the Jewish state. Still, with Israeli-Iranian tensions long running high, the theoretical possibility of the geographically distant enemies encountering each others' forces in the Mediterranean Sea was enough to send oil prices surging.

Syria is one of Israel's neighboring adversaries. It has an alliance with Iran which has deepened along with Tehran's isolation from the West over its disputed nuclear program, which the Jewish state sees as an existential threat. The vessels will "dock at a Syrian port for a year," a senior Israeli official told Yedioth Ahronoth, adding there was no justification for Iran to put warships into the Mediterranean.

The US space administration NASA confirmed that Monday's solar flare was the largest in four years, and the event sparked predictions of heightened activity on the northern hemisphere of the sun. "X-class flares are the most powerful of all solar events that can trigger radio blackouts and long-lasting radiation storms," disrupting telecommunications and electric grids, NASA said.

Solar flares are classified as A, B, C, M or X, with each class having a peak 10 times greater than the preceding one. NASA also said the flare caused "sudden ionospheric disturbances" in the atmosphere above China and the CMA warned there was a high probability that large solar flares would appear over the next three days.

In a letter addressed to President Abdulaziz Bouteflika, he said the government was no longer capable of addressing the nation's challenges. Mr Mehri, 84, said that change must come soon. "The voices calling for a peaceful change of this system are many. This change cannot be postponed any longer," he said.

A former leader of the country's ruling FLN party and one of the founders of the Algerian state, Mr Mehri played a pivotal role in Algeria's bloody struggle for independence. He helped negotiate the Evian Treaty, ending 130 years of French colonial rule in Algeria.

Inspired by the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, opposition parties and human rights groups have been staging pro-democracy rallies in the capital. They say they will march every Saturday until democratic change is introduced. Meanwhile, Algeria's Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia has said the government will lift a 19-year state of emergency by the end of the month.

The British Geological Survey (BGS) has issued a geomagnetic storm warning, and says observers might be able to see aurorae from the northern UK. The eruptions are expected to hit the Earth's magnetic field field over the next couple of days, causing an increase in geomagnetic activity.

The unpredictable activity on the Sun can interfere with modern technology on Earth, such as electrical power grids, communications systems and satellites - including the satellite navigation (or sat-nav) signals used on Earth. In 1972, a geomagnetic storm provoked by a solar flare knocked out long-distance telephone communication across the US state of Illinois.

And in 1989, another storm plunged six million people into darkness across the Canadian province of Quebec.

Researchers say the Sun has been awakening after a period of several years of low activity.

At least two people died in the police operation, according to the opposition, while 100 sustained injuries. The protesters are calling for wide-ranging political reforms and had been camped out since Tuesday. Clashes earlier in the week left two dead and dozens injured in the country.

Ahead of the storming of the square the US had expressed concern at the violence and called for restraint and respect for the "universal rights of its citizens" and "their right to protest". Bahrain is a key US ally, hosting the US Navy's Fifth Fleet. On Wednesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the US was "watching events from Bahrain and around the region very closely".

Since independence from the UK in 1971, tensions between the Sunni elite and the less affluent Shia have frequently caused civil unrest. Shia groups say they are marginalised, subject to unfair laws, and repressed. In 2001, voters approved a National Action Charter that would transform Bahrain into a constitutional monarchy. The next year, Sheikh Hamad proclaimed himself king and decreed that a National Assembly be formed. He also began a cautious process of democratic reform. There was also greater protection of democracy and human rights. Although political parties were banned, "political societies" could operate.

Dozens of people were injured in violent demonstrations on Tuesday night in the eastern city of Benghazi. The unrest there followed the detention of an outspoken government critic. Pro-democracy protests have recently swept through several Arab nations, with the presidents of Tunisia and Egypt forced to resign amid growing unrest. But this week's demonstrations were the first display of defiance in Libya, where dissent is rarely tolerated.

Witnesses say that at one stage up to 2,000 people were involved in the protests early on Wednesday in Benghazi, which saw a march on government offices in the city. The protesters are said to have thrown stones and petrol bombs, and set vehicles alight. Witnesses said police used rubber bullets and water cannon to disperse them.

The protests reportedly began after the arrest of Fathi Terbil, who represents relatives of more than 1,000 prisoners allegedly massacred by security forces in Tripoli's Abu Salim jail in 1996. He was later said to have been freed. In a speech broadcast on Wednesday evening, Colonel Gaddafi made no mention of the unrest but said the "revolutionaries" would prevail.

"Down with the enemies, down with them everywhere; down with the puppets everywhere, the puppets are falling, the autumn leaves are falling!" Mr Gaddafi said. "The puppets of the USA, the puppets of Zionism are falling."

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials who dealt with his claims, has told the Guardian that he fabricated tales of mobile bioweapons trucks and clandestine factories in an attempt to bring down the Saddam Hussein regime, from which he had fled in 1995. "Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right," he said. "They gave me this chance. I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy."

The admission comes just after the eighth anniversary of Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations in which the then US secretary of state relied heavily on lies that Janabi had told the German secret service, the BND. It also follows the release of former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld's memoirs, in which he admitted Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction programme.

The careers of both men were seriously damaged by their use of Janabi's claims, which he now says could have been - and were - discredited well before Powell's landmark speech to the UN on 5 February 2003. The former CIA chief in Europe Tyler Drumheller describes Janabi's admission as "fascinating", and said the emergence of the truth "makes me feel better". "I think there are still a number of people who still thought there was something in that. Even now," said Drumheller.

In a series of meetings with the Guardian in Germany where he has been granted asylum, he said he had told a German official, who he identified as Dr Paul, about mobile bioweapons trucks throughout 2000. He said the BND had identified him as a Baghdad-trained chemical engineer and approached him shortly after 13 March of that year, looking for inside information about Saddam's Iraq. "I had a problem with the Saddam regime," he said. "I wanted to get rid of him and now I had this chance."