"Yesterday I did not make anything to eat as there was no electricity for the entire day," says Umm Fadi, a resident of Artuz district near Damascus that has been caught up in the fighting between rebels and regime forces.

Like most Syrians, the mother of four faces a shortage of oil and gas and has to resort to cooking on a wood fire or, when there is power, an electric stove.

A U.N. commission of inquiry on Syria called Monday for direct access to the U.N. Security Council to make the case for referring crimes committed in the war-torn country to the International Criminal Court.

"We want access... directly to the Security Council and the General Assembly," said Vitit Muntarbhorn, one of the four investigators who make up the commission.

The Federal Supreme Court of Abu Dhabi on Monday heard the lawyers of 94 Islamists accused of plotting to seize power in the United Arab Emirates before scheduling the next sessions to March 18 and 19.

Eighty-five Islamists including 12 women appeared in court, for the second hearing in the largest trial in the history of the UAE, state news agency WAM reported quoting the justice ministry.

Kuwaiti coast guards shot dead on Monday a suspected drugs smuggler as they chased a boat in the emirate's territorial waters, the interior ministry said.

The ministry did not reveal the identity of the dead man but a security official told Agence France Presse that he was Iranian.

Lawmakers from Tunisia's secular opposition Monday denounced remarks attributed to an MP from the Islamist Ennahda party that female circumcisions in Africa are carried out for "aesthetic' reasons.

"It is unacceptable that a member promotes crimes against women," lawmaker Nadia Shaaban said in the National Constituent Assembly, referring to remarks purportedly made by Habib Ellouze, an MP from the ruling Ennahda.

The Syrian regime appears to be using local militias known as Popular Committees to carry out sometimes sectarian mass-killings in Syria, a U.N. inquiry team said Monday.

"In a disturbing and dangerous trend, mass killings allegedly perpetrated by Popular Committees have at times taken on sectarian overtones," the U.N. commission of inquiry, led by Brazilian Paulo Pinheiro, said in an update to its latest report on Syria.

Turkish security forces arrested Monday four Syrians linked to President Bashar Assad's regime over a deadly bomb attack on the volatile border last month, the interior minister said.

"Our security forces arrested four Syrian nationals and one Turkish citizen" over the minibus bombing which killed 14 people, Muammer Guler said in televised remarks. "We proved their links with the Syrian intelligence and army."

Toppled president Hosni Mubarak, awaiting trial over his role in the deaths of protesters, believes Egyptians should rally around his Islamist successor and end violent protests, his lawyer told Agence France Presse on Monday.

President Mohamed Morsi, twice jailed by Mubarak before he himself was overthrown on February 11, 2011, is the "elected president, people should rally around him," the former strongman told his lawyer Farid Deeb.

The king of Bahrain named his son Crown Prince Salman, a reputed moderate, as deputy premier, on Monday, as a promised national dialogue stalled between the Gulf state's Sunni regime and its Shiite majority.

The main Shiite-led opposition group Wefaq gave the appointment a guarded welcome, saying it hoped it would clear the way for a constitutional monarchy with an elected prime minister in place of the appointed incumbent, King Hamad's cousin, Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa.

EU foreign ministers strengthened sanctions against Iran on Monday for "serious human rights violations,” adding new names to a list of Iranians targeted by a visa ban and asset freeze.

The ministers renewed existing European Union sanctions for another 12 months while adding nine new names to the blacklist, bringing to 87 the total number of people subject to an EU travel ban and asset freeze.