Saudi King Abdullah has appointed Prince Saud bin Nayef as the new governor of the kingdom's oil-rich Eastern Province, home to the Shiite minority that frequently complains of discrimination, the official SPA news agency reported Monday.

Prince Saud replaces Prince Mohammed bin Fahd who was in office since 1985 but was strongly criticized by Shiite activists for his aggressive policy towards them.

At least 26 children were killed in violence in Syria on Monday, a watchdog said, fueling international calls for a war crimes probe into the 22-month conflict.

Reports of the child deaths came as Human Rights Watch accused President Bashar Assad's regime of expanding its use of banned cluster bombs.

Rape has been a "significant" weapon of war in the conflict raging in Syria since March 2011 and is the "primary" factor in the exodus of women and children refugees to neighboring Jordan and Lebanon, an aid group said on Monday.

In its report, "Syria: A Regional Crisis," the U.S.-based International Rescue Committee (IRC) described rape "as a significant and disturbing feature of the Syrian civil war".

Israel's hard-line former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman indicated on Monday that he would quit politics if convicted in his breach of trust and fraud case.

Such a decision could shake up the Israeli political system, because Lieberman is the driving force behind his kingmaker party, Yisrael Beiteinu.

Syria's regime has resorted to firing rockets containing cluster bombs, marking an expansion in its use of the banned munitions despite international condemnation, Human Rights Watch said on Monday.

The New York-based HRW has previously reported Syrian forces using air-dropped cluster bombs but in its latest statement said this had been expanded to the use of ground-based methods to spread the weapons.

Hundreds of Kuwait opposition supporters demonstrated on Sunday to demand the dissolution of the parliament elected last month in general polls boycotted by almost all political groups, witnesses said.

Carrying orange flags, protesters marched on the streets of Sabah al-Nasser, a predominantly tribal area just southwest of Kuwait City, and also chanted slogans demanding political reforms.

Iraq's finance minister, who has been locked in dispute with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, escaped an apparent assassination attempt on Sunday when his convoy was struck by a roadside bomb.

Rafa al-Essawi's convoy had been traveling between the towns of Fallujah and Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, when the bomb went off at around 7:00 pm (1600 GMT), two security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Russia said Sunday that removing Syrian President Bashar Assad from power was not part of past international agreements on the crisis and was impossible to implement, as violence across the country killed at least 100 people according to a rights group.

"This is a precondition that is not contained in the Geneva communique (agreed by world powers in June) and which is impossible to implement because it does not depend on anyone," news agencies quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying.

Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis supporting self-rule for the formerly independent south rallied in its former capital Aden on Sunday, Agence France Presse reported.

Waving People's Democratic Republic of Yemen flags and photographs of former vice president Ali Salem al-Baid, demonstrators gathered in Aden's Khor Maksar square.

Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo on Sunday agreed to form a delegation to visit Arab capitals and ask for help in easing the Palestinian financial crisis, the pan-Arab body said.

The delegation will comprise Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad, Arab League Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi as well as the foreign ministers of Iraq and Lebanon.