BBC News

The United Nations Security Council says it will impose sanctions on Sudan and South Sudan unless they stop fighting and resume negotiations. The council unanimously passed a resolution giving the two countries 48 hours to stop the violence and two weeks to start talking. Fighting erupted several weeks ago in border regions with South Sudan occupying Sudan's most productive oil field at Heglig.

The authorities in Libya have introduced a new law making it a criminal offence to praise or glorify the former leader Colonel Gaddafi, his sons or his regime. From Tripoli, Rana Jawad.

One member of the National Transitional Council, Ahmed Abu Zeid, told the BBC this is a temporary law that is necessary during this transitional period, and likened those who glorify the Gaddafi era to those who praise Nazis. Libya's legislators say that the spread of dangerous

propaganda

that aims to disrupt military operations in defending the country will be punished with life imprisonment. The country was described as still going through wartime conditions.

Egyptian security forces have halted violent clashes in Cairo after demonstrators were set upon by plain-clothes attackers. At least 20 people were killed and more than 100 injured. The army and riot police used armoured vehicles to separate the protesters and their attackers, who were

hurling

petrol bombs and stones. The demonstrators have been protesting for several days against the exclusion of a radical Islamist candidate from presidential elections when they were attacked at dawn.