The United Nations is expected on Thursday to allow the Palestinians to raise their flag at its headquarters in New York in a symbolic move highlighting Palestinian aspirations for statehood.

The General Assembly will vote at 3:00 pm (1900 GMT) on a draft resolution that diplomats say is almost certain to garner a majority in the 193-nation forum.

Tunisian opposition parties and independent figures have called for a demonstration Saturday against a controversial anti-corruption bill, defying a ban on public protests under a state of emergency.

The protest on Tunis's Habib Bourguiba Avenue, a focal point of the country's 2011 revolution, will "demand a withdrawal of the bill which creates impunity and divides Tunisia," said al-Joumhouri party secretary general Maya Jribi.

Softly spoken schoolgirl Mariam Malak has become an unlikely symbol of the fight against corruption in Egypt after scoring the sum total of zero in her final exams.

The 19-year-old top student, a teacher's daughter in a small village in the poor southern province of Minya, dreams of becoming a doctor like her two brothers.

France carried out surveillance flights over Syria for a second day on Wednesday as it prepares for possible attacks on Islamic State jihadists, the army said in a statement.

The flight was carried out to "acquire intelligence on the terrorist group Daesh," said the statement, using an Arabic acronym for the jihadists who control parts of Syria and Iraq.

A car bomb exploded near a prison in the Libyan capital where former officials of Moammar Gadhafi's regime, including the dictator's playboy son, are being held, an official said.

"A car bomb exploded close to the Al-Habda al-Khadra prison, where there is also an interior ministry brigade headquarters," prison spokesman Othman al-Ghellani told AFP.

Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli demonstrators clashed outside British Prime Minister David Cameron's London residence on Wednesday ahead of a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Police officers separated the two groups into pens and took away at least two protesters following scuffles and chanting by both sides, according to an AFP photographer.

Warplanes of the Saudi-led coalition on Wednesday bombed Shiite Huthi rebel positions in Sanaa, stepping up attacks in the wake of a deadly missile strike on its troops, witnesses said.

They said the latest raids targeted arms depots held by the Huthi rebels and renegade troops loyal to ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh in southeast Sanaa. 

Algerian soldiers killed two Islamist gunmen Wednesday during an ongoing operation against Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb group, the defense ministry said.

The two were killed near Ain el-Hamra village in the Boumerdes region, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of Algiers.

President Reuven Rivlin said Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has missed several chances to repair ties with Washington, which have been frayed by the Iran nuclear accord.

In an interview with army radio, Rivlin also acknowledged his own differences with the premier, especially over ties with the United States, Israel's number one ally. 

Palestinian officials said Wednesday that a first congress in nearly 20 years set for mid-September will be postponed to an undetermined date amid speculation over the intentions of President Mahmoud Abbas.

The postponement should not be more than three months, Salim al-Zanoon, head of the Palestinian National Council, told reporters, with key members of the Palestinian leadership calling for more time to prepare.