Israeli police also barred men under the age of 50 from prayers at the Jerusalem site of the mosque compound, which is holy to both Muslims and Jews and where clashes broke out last week.

Defence Minister Ehud Barak ordered the army to seal off the Israeli-occupied West Bank until midnight on Saturday, an army spokesman said, citing a heightened risk of attacks.

Since the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising in September 2000, Israel has sealed off the West Bank ahead of major holidays, but only rarely on other occasions.

The closure was announced one day after US Vice President Joe Biden concluded a visit of the West Bank and Israel aimed at promoting renewed peace talks but marred by an announcement that 1,600 new settler homes would be built in annexed east Jerusalem.

The announcement infuriated the US administration, ignited international condemnation and cast doubts over the outlook for the indirect talks which the Palestinians had reluctantly agreed to hold after a 14-month hiatus in negotiations.

The Arab League withdrew its support for the indirect talks and the Palestinians said Israel's move severely damaged the peace process.

US Middle East envoy George Mitchell on Thursday called Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, who is on a visit to Tunisia, to press him to go ahead with the planned talks, a Palestinian official said, asking not to be named.

But Abbas demanded US guarantees that Israel first freeze the project to build new homes in the east Jerusalem settlement of Ramat Shlomo.

Abbas told US officials that "it is very difficult for us to go to any negotiations, direct or indirect, without the cancellation of the Israeli building project," Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP on Friday.

The US State Department insisted on Thursday it had not heard anything to indicate the Palestinians had pulled out of the planned talks. It said the talks could still go ahead and pointed out Mitchell due back in the region next week.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday apologised for the timing of the settlement announcement made as Biden was holding a day of talks in Jerusalem on Tuesday.

Biden welcomed a clarification that construction would not start for several years, saying this would give negotiators time to tackle the issue, but he also reiterated condemnation of Israel's go-ahead for the project.

The Palestinians, however, dismissed the statement, saying the issue was the plan itself, not the timing of the announcement.

The international community considers all Jewish settlements in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, to be illegal.

Under US pressure, Israel imposed in November a partial, 10-month moratorium on settlement projects in the West Bank, excluding east Jerusalem.

Israel, which seized east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it in a move not recognised by the international community, considers the city its eternal and indivisible capital.

The Palestinians see east Jerusalem as the capital of their promised state.

Police stepped up security in east Jerusalem on Friday, particularly around the Old City, where the Al-Aqsa mosque compound is situated.

Clashes between rock-throwing protesters and Israeli police broke out at the site last week after Netanyahu decided to include two West Bank holy sites on a list of Israeli heritage sites.

The hilltop compound containing Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock is Islam's third-holiest site, after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. Jews call the site Temple Mount and consider it their holiest site.

"Thirty-nine people were killed and 95 wounded in the attacks," Punjab provincial police chief Tariq Saleem Dogar told reporters on live TV.

"We have collected concrete technical evidence, which will help identify the attackers. Both the attackers were on foot," he added.

Sarkozy's meeting with Brown comes ahead of a European Union summit likely to be dominated by the economic recovery.

But many will be watching his meeting with opposition leader David Cameron, who could become prime minister within weeks if the Conservatives win the forthcoming general election, widely expected in May.

Though both Sarkozy and Cameron are from the centre-right, the Conservatives have broken off from the president's Union for a Popular Movement in the European Parliament and the pair have not met since June 2008.

Brown's Downing Street office said his meeting with Sarkozy would focus on preparations for the EU summit later this month, when the 27-country bloc's recovery from the economic slump is set to dominate.

"They like to keep in touch before the big Brussels summits," Brown's spokesman said.

The Financial Times newspaper said the pair could try to strike a compromise deal over EU reforms which Washington and London believe could damage the hedge fund and private equity industries.

Britain, Europe's biggest centre for hedge funds, is concerned that draft EU directives to introduce tighter regulation could throw up new barriers to business.

European defence is also likely to feature highly in the leaders' talks.

With a general election expected on May 6, Sarkozy will also try to mend fences with Cameron, whose party is ahead in the opinion polls.

The French president will want to assess how far Anglo-French ties could change if Cameron wins power, analysts say.

Cameron has pulled the Conservatives out of the European People's Party, the main centre-right group in the European Parliament, saying they could no longer tolerate its federalist outlook.

The move angered many of Europe's other mainstream parties of the right.

French Europe Minister Pierre Lellouche in November called Cameron's plans to take back powers from Brussels "pathetic", and accusing the Conservatives of having a "very bizarre sense of autism" in their attitude to the EU, though Paris later pulled back on the comments.

However, Conservative foreign affairs spokesman William Hague on Wednesday pledged they would play a "leading role" in the EU if they are voted in.

In a keynote speech, he sought to reassure European capitals worried about a return to the battles of the 1980s and 1990s under Conservative prime ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major.

"If we win the coming general election, it is our firm intention that a Conservative government will be active and activist in the European Union from day one, energetically engaging with our partners," he said.

Hague said the Conservatives would vigorously promote European co-operation on climate change, energy security, and pressing for freer and fairer global trade, as well as pushing for Turkey's membership of the EU.

"We have the heads of both the bombers. There was an interval of 15 seconds between the two attacks. They were on foot. Their target was army vehicles," Chaudhry Mohammad Shafiq told reporters at the site.

"At least 20 people were killed. Army personnel, were injured, some of them are in a serious condition," he added.

Rescue workers and paramedics rushed to the R A Bazaar, a densely populated area of the city of eight million often considered Pakistan's cultural capital.

Television footage showed casualties being bundled into ambulances and armed soldiers standing guard along a main road, lined with trees and where witnesses said there were shops and a mosque.

On Monday, a suicide car bomber destroyed offices used to interrogate suspected militants in Lahore, killing 15 people in an attack claimed by Pakistan's mainstream Taliban faction.

That attack underscored the chronic insecurity in nuclear-armed Pakistan, an ally in the US-led war on Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan, despite a recent lull in violence.

A wave of suicide and bomb attacks across Pakistan has killed more than 3,000 people since 2007. Blame has fallen on Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants bitterly opposed to the alliance with the United States.

Pakistan's military claims to have made big gains against Taliban and Al-Qaeda strongholds over the past year, following major offensives in the northwestern district of Swat and the tribal region of South Waziristan.

So far this year, there has been a decline in violence by Islamist militants in Pakistan after a significant increase in bloodshed in late 2009.

Officials have linked the reduction to the suspected death -- still not confirmed -- of TTP leader Hakimullah Mehsud and military offensives that have disrupted militant networks.

Washington says militants in Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal belt are supporting the war in Afghanistan, where more than 120,000 NATO and US troops are battling a deadly Taliban insurgency.

The national election commission, meanwhile, said the claims of fraud were either politically motivated or fuelled by lack of understanding of the counting procedures.

But it would nevertheless investigate any complaints it received.

"There has been clear and flagrant fraud," said Intisar Allawi, a senior candidate in ex-prime minister Iyad Allawi's Iraqiya bloc, the main rival to Maliki's State of Law Alliance.

"There were persons who manipulated or changed the figures to increase the vote in favour of the State of Law Alliance."

She said that Iraqiya's own election observers for last Sunday's poll had found ballot papers in garbage dumps in the northern disputed province of Kirkuk.

But Iyad al-Kinaani, an official in Iraq's Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), told AFP such claims were fuelled by political motivations or a lack of understanding of the count.

"When we receive any accusations and there are problems, we block the ballot box and start an investigation," Kinaani said.

"We are used to receiving these accusations from political blocs because either they do not know our procedures or they have not had good results in the election.

"That is why they are talking about fraud."

On Thursday, Hamdiyah al-Husseini, another election commission official, said IHEC had received around 1,000 complaints over the vote, but did not provide further details.

Some 4,000 protesters began early demonstrations in the capital, chanting incantations for good luck, while at least 30,000 others gathered in the rural north before starting their journey to Bangkok for the main rally on Sunday.

Organisers insist the demonstrations will be non-violent, but the government is rolling out a 50,000-strong security force and has enacted a tough security law that allows the authorities to impose curfews and limit movements.

Coming two weeks after Thailand's top court confiscated 1.4 billion dollars of Thaksin's assets, the protests are the latest chapter in a political crisis that has beset Thailand since Thaksin was toppled in a 2006 coup.

"I offer my moral support to the Red Shirts who are making a sacrifice and are coming out to write history today," Thaksin said on a Twitter posting. He lives abroad, mostly in Dubai, to avoid a jail term for corruption at home.

About 20,000 protesters had left Thaksin's home city Chiang Mai for Bangkok, according to Reds' leader Petchawat Wattanapongsirikul, while 10,000 had departed Udon Thani in the northeast, said another leader, Kwanchai Praipana.

Thousands of others had gathered in other provinces but exact numbers were not yet available, organisers and officials said.

The protest is set to be the biggest since the Red Shirts rioted in Bangkok in April, leaving two dead and scores injured. Organisers have dubbed it a "million-man march" though the government predicts around 100,000 will turn up.

The Red Shirts mainly represent Thailand's rural poor who benefited from Thaksin's populist policies and say the government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is elitist, military-backed and has ignored their democratic rights.

They want Abhisit to stand down and call new elections, but he rejected their call Friday.

"I will only dissolve parliament for the common good, not just for temporary peace, so my government will continue to work," said Abhisit, who cancelled a weekend trip to Australia because of the looming rally.

Thaksin, meanwhile, is still loathed by the rival royalist "Yellow Shirts" backed by Bangkok's establishment, who accuse him of corruption and of insufficient loyalty to the revered royal family.

Thaksin, who made his fortune in telecommunications, has been rallying his supporters via text messages, videolink and his Twitter page.

Thirty-five countries have issued some form of warning to visitors to the kingdom because of the protests, according to the Tourism Authority of Thailand.

Three small explosions were heard in the southern city of Surat Thani on Friday. Nobody was hurt. Deputy prime minister Suthep Thaugsuban blamed the incidents on political agitators.

Bangkok's main airport, which was besieged by protesters in 2008, has made contingency plans for the rallies and The Stock Exchange of Thailand also has measures prepared to ensure trading is not affected between March 12 and 15.

Analysts say the number of Reds that actually turn up will be key to deciding whether they have any chance of pushing out the government before Thailand's next elections, due in December 2011.

The Reds have held a number of protests since Abhisit came to power in December 2008 after a court decision removed Thaksin's allies from government following the Yellow Shirt airport blockade.

Obama Thursday called on China to adopt a "market-oriented" exchange rate policy, increasing the pressure on Beijing to allow the yuan -- effectively pegged to the dollar since mid-2008 -- to appreciate.

The United States and the European Union, key trade partners for China, say the Communist leadership has intentionally kept the currency low to boost its exports, vital to the country's emergence from the global crisis.

"We believe the yuan exchange rate issue will not help shrink or increase our trade surpluses and deficits," People's Bank of China vice governor Su Ning said, according to Dow Jones Newswires.

"We don't agree with politicising the renminbi exchange rate issue," Su said on the sidelines of China's annual session of parliament.

"We also don't agree with a country taking its own problems and having another country solve them."

Obama, whose speech to the Export-Import Bank in Washington was the latest salvo in an increasingly tense Sino-US relationship, said the rebalancing of the global economy was essential in the aftermath of the global slowdown.

"Countries with external deficits need to save and export more. Countries with external surpluses need to boost consumption and domestic demand," the US leader said.

"And as I've said before, China moving to a more market-oriented exchange rate will make an essential contribution to that global rebalancing effort."

Speculation is mounting that the US Treasury will soon label China a currency "manipulator" in a forthcoming semi-annual report.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said last week that the yuan would be kept "basically stable" in 2010, but experts say there is room for potential movement.

Relations between China and the United States have been strained for months over a number of issues, including the value of the yuan, several trade disputes, US arms sales to Taiwan and Obama's meeting with the Dalai Lama.

The two countries are also at odds over Google's threat to leave China after what it said were China-based cyberattacks on its source code and on the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists around the world.

China has repeatedly said it is up to Washington to resolve the problems in the relationship, which Obama said last year was one that would "shape the 21st century".

Also on Thursday, the US State Department slammed China's human rights record in an annual report, highlighting increased repression in the restive Tibet and Xinjiang regions, and the detention and harassment of activists.

"The government's human rights record remained poor and worsened in some areas," the State Department said.

China had yet to comment on Friday, but it regularly protests against the report, describing it as interference in its domestic affairs, and has often hit back with criticism of the United States' own treatment of its people.

Tomas Ojea Quintana made the recommendation in a report to be examined next Monday by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, noting "systematic violation of human rights" when he visited the country in February.

The report adds to growing international outrage at Myanmar's military regime after it issued new laws for elections due later this year that bar detained pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi from taking part.

"According to consistent reports, the possibility exists that some of these human rights violations may entail categories of crimes against humanity or war crimes under the terms of the statute of the International Criminal Court," said the report.

Quintana pointed out that the "mere existence of this possibility" requires the Myanmar government to investigate the allegations.

But the junta has failed to remedy abuses such as the recruitment of child soldiers, discrimination against the Muslim minority in northern Rakhine state and the deprivation of basic rights to food, shelter, health and education.

The UN should therefore consider setting up a panel to probe the allegations, Quintana said -- echoing a long-term demand of rights groups for Myanmar's ruling generals to face war crimes charges.

"Given this lack of accountability, UN institutions may consider the possibility to establish a commission of inquiry with a specific fact finding mandate to address the question of international crimes," he said.

He said rights violations had continued unabated for years in Myanmar without any intervention from the junta.

He charged that the violations "are the result of a state policy that originates from decisions by authorities in the executive, military and judiciary at all levels."

The expert also renewed a call for Myanmar to release more than 2,100 political prisoners, as well Suu Kyi, ahead of this year's elections.

Suu Kyi called on Myanmar citizens on Thursday to respond to the "unjust" laws, under which her own National League for Democracy must expel her from the party ranks or face dissolution.

"She didn't think such a repressive law would come out," said her lawyer and NLD spokesman Nyan Win after he visited the opposition leader, who has been detained for 14 of the last 20 years.

The new laws also officially annul the result of Myanmar's last elections in 1990, which the NLD won by a landslide. The junta never allowed the party to take power.

Nordic foreign ministers late Thursday joined the United States, Britain and other nations in criticising the election laws.

Rights groups meanwhile hailed Quintana's report.

"This is the first time in the nearly 20 years of UN involvement in my country that an UN official made a credible, meaningful and important recommendation to help transform the situation in Burma," said Aung Din, executive director of the US Campaign for Burma.

"I hope the UN Security Council and other UN institutions will act accordingly to set up a commission of inquiry, suggested by the Special Rapporteur without further delay. This is the time for action," he added.

Myanmar's "severe human rights abuses" -- including deaths in custody, rape and torture -- were also highlighted in a separate report released Thursday by the US State Department.

The State Department's annual report said that Buddhist monks were subjected to particularly "cruel treatment," including beatings, due to the role the clergy played in 2007 pro-democracy protests crushed by the junta.

It reported severe repression of ethnic minorities including the forced displacement of villagers to make way for development and migration by Burmese.

The action was taken "for security reasons" including a risk of attacks, the spokesman said Friday. The area was sealed off at midnight on Thursday.

Israeli police have also said they would bar Muslim men under the age of 50 from prayers on Friday at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound, one of Islam's holiest sites, fearing unrest.

The moves come after violent clashes at the site, which is also holy to Jews, during last week's Muslim prayers, and fresh tensions over Israeli plans to build 1,600 homes for Jewish settlers in mostly Arab east Jerusalem.

The army said some medical and religious workers, teachers, journalists and others would be exempted from the West Bank closure.

Since the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising in September 2000, Israel has usually sealed off the West Bank ahead of major holidays, saying the move is necessary to prevent attacks, but only rarely on other occasions.

"The IDF (armed forces) will continue to operate in order to protect the citizens of Israel while maintaining the quality of life of the Palestinian population in the area," the military said in a statement.

Ranked one of the most corrupt countries in the world, Cambodia passed the law in parliament on Thursday, more than 15 years after legislation to tackle graft was first proposed, but only days after the draft was shared publicly.

Opposition and rights groups said the draft was flawed and asked for more debate, and a statement this week from the UN country team in Cambodia encouraged enough time to ensure "a transparent and participatory" process.

"This so-called 'UN Country Team' should not act out of its mandate, in flagrantly interfering in the internal affairs of a UN member state," said a statement by Cambodia's foreign affairs ministry.

"Furthermore, it should refrain from acting as if it were the spokesperson of the opposition parties," it added.

All lawmakers from the opposition Sam Rainsy Party walked out of parliament in protest just hours before the draft law was passed by 82 lawmakers, mostly from Prime Minister Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party.

A national anti-corruption council and an anti-corruption unit will be created to oversee investigations, but critics said it was unlikely either body would be effective because both would be controlled by the ruling party.

Public figures face up to 15 years in prison if convicted of accepting bribes, according to the draft law.

The law will take effect after receiving approval from Cambodia's Senate and promulgation from King Norodom Sihamoni, which are both considered formalities.

Cambodia was ranked 158 out of 180 countries on anti-graft organisation Transparency International's most recent corruption perception index.

It was also ranked the second most corrupt Southeast Asian nation after Indonesia in an annual poll by the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy, seen by AFP on Tuesday.

Last year, a US diplomat said that graft costs Cambodia up to 500 million dollars every year, an allegation the government rejected as "unsubstantiated."