Tense Saudi Arabia bans protesting

SAUDI Arabia has banned protests, sending a strong signal that the small demonstrations in the east of the country will no longer be tolerated.

"The kingdom's regulations totally ban all sorts of demonstrations, marches, sit-ins," the interior ministry said. It added that security forces would stop all attempts to disrupt public order.

Inspired by protests in other Arab countries, Shi'ites have marched in the east in the past few days and there have been unconfirmed activist reports of a small protest at a mosque in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Friday.

More than 17,000 people have backed a call on Facebook to hold two demonstrations in the country this month in defiance of its powerful regime.

A loose alliance of liberals, moderate Islamists and Shi'ites have petitioned King Abdullah to allow elections in the kingdom, which has no elected parliament.

Meanwhile, in Yemen, several members of the Yemeni president's ruling Congress party have resigned as tens of thousands of people again took to the streets to demand President Ali Abdullah Saleh's removal.

In Bahrain thousands of protesters formed a human chain around the capital, Manama, as their campaign to loosen the Sunni monarchy's grip on power in the Gulf nation entered its third week.