Algeria has begun repatriating thousands of illegal workers to Niger in an operation likely to last several months, the Algerian Red Crescent (CRA) said on Monday.

A first group of 318 arrived at a reception centre on Saturday in the main city in southern Algeria, Tamanrasset, Saida Benhabyles of the CRA told Agence France Presse.

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani warned Monday that corruption poses a threat to the Islamic republic, pinning the blame in a thinly-veiled attack on powerful monopolies that control the economy.

"The people made the revolution in order to wipe out corruption," Rouhani told delegates at a conference in Tehran.

Yemeni security forces fired live ammunition and tear gas at separatist demonstrators in the southern port city of Aden on Monday, leaving some of them injured, witnesses said.

Supporters of the Southern Movement, which wants independence from Sanaa, had called for a "Day of Rage" and blocked roads across Aden.

Moncef Marzouki and Beji Caid Essebsi are to face off on December 21 in Tunisia's second round of presidential voting to decide who leads the nation that sparked the Arab Spring.

"Voting will take place on December 21," the head of the ISIE electoral organizing body, Chafik Sarsar, told a news conference on Monday.

The Syrian and Iranian foreign ministers have condemned Israeli airstrikes on two areas near Damascus, calling it an act of aggression that proves Israel was "in the same trench" with extremist groups fighting the Syrian government.

Israeli warplanes bombed the two areas Sunday, striking near Damascus' international airport as well as outside a town close to the Lebanese border. The Syrian government said the attacks caused material damage. Israel has not commented on the strikes.

Canada on Monday joined Britain in closing its embassy in Cairo to the public for security reasons, with neither country providing details about any specific threat.

The move comes amid increasing attacks by Islamist militants in Egypt and calls from the extremist Islamic State group for attacks on Western targets.

Yemeni President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi has fired his armed forces chief of staff as Shiite militiamen delay their withdrawal from the capital they seized in September, media reports said Monday.

Under a presidential decree, General Hussein Naji Hadi Khairan replaces Ahmed Ali al-Ashouel, who moves to the Majlis al-Shura (consultative council), the lower chamber of parliament.

The U.N. refugee agency said Monday 21 bodies have been recovered after Yemen reported dozens of Ethiopian migrants drowning when their boat sank near the entrance to the Red Sea.

The interior ministry in Sanaa said in a statement posted on its website Sunday that 70 migrants had died when their vessel capsized in bad weather off the port of Al-Makha, near Bab el-Mandab strait.

A Moroccan lawmaker close to Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane was killed in a train accident Sunday, his party said.

The incident involving State Minister Abdellah Baha occurred at about 6:00 pm (1800 GMT) in the city of Bouznika, his Justice and Development Party told AFP. 

More than 30 humanitarian organizations launched an appeal on Monday for countries to take in around 180,000 refugees from the Syrian conflict.

That figure would represent five percent of the projected refugee population by the end of 2015, according to the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).