Geneva  - Saudi Arabia had its rights record reviewed Friday at the United Nations and came under criticism for women's rights issues in the kingdom as well as the state practise of corporal punishment.

Delegates of various nations criticized Saudi Arabia's "male guardianship system," which they said took away women's autonomy, as well as other legal measures that created inequality between men and women.

Riyadh - The Saudi government has published a list of 85 men worldwide it says adhere to "deviant" ideologies, common Saudi terminology for al-Qaeda, the official SPA news agency reported late Monday.

Saudi security forces urged the men to turn themselves in to Saudi embassies abroad and "return to reason and wisdom", adding that they could be reunited with their families, depending on the charges against them.

The SPA said that 15 of the men "who had been led astray" had done so since Saudi Arabia announced an amnesty programme for militants.

Oslo- The Norwegian Foreign Ministry distanced itself Wednesday from an e-mail sent by a Norwegian diplomat comparing Israel's offensive in Gaza with events in World War II and the persecution of Jews.

"We have clearly stated that the content does not represent Norway's official view," Foreign Ministry spokesman Haakon Svane told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The female diplomat, based in Saudi Arabia, sent an e-mail from her official foreign ministry account with some 40 photos from Gaza paired with World War II images.

Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), Jan. 21: Trine Lilleng, the first secretary at the Norwegian Embassy in Riyadh, has sent out an e-mail to friends, equating Israel''s Gaza offensive to Nazi''s Jew Holocaust.

The e-mail includes a juxtaposition of black-and-white pictures from the Holocaust with color images of Operation Cast Lead.

"The grandchildren of Holocaust survivors from World War II are doing to the Palestinians exactly what was done to them by Nazi Germany," the e-mail states.

A copy of the e-mail was obtained by The Jerusalem Post.

Dubai - The United Arab Emirates and Japan have signed a memorandum of cooperation that will pave the way toward developing nuclear power plants in the oil-rich Persian Gulf nation, local media reported Tuesday.

"As we evaluate a peaceful civil nuclear power program in the United Arab Emirates, one of our fundamental principles is that we will work with responsible nations that are experts in the field," UAE Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs Saif Sultan al-Aryani said

after signing the agreement on Monday.

Riyadh - Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, speaking at an Arab economic summit in Kuwait Monday, urged Israel to accept a six-year-old, comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace plan, saying it "will not remain on the table forever."

The plan promises normalisation of Arab relations with Israel in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from territories it has occupied since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and a "just settlement" of the Palestinian refugee question.