Jordan has applied for a two-year term on the U.N. Security Council, the information minister said on Monday, after Saudi Arabia won a seat and then turned it down.

"Jordan has officially applied for a non-permanent seat on the U.N. security Council. The kingdom is interested in this seat and realizes its political and diplomatic responsibilities," Mohammad Momonai told Agence France Presse.

A rare sabre considered a "historic testimony" to the creation of modern-day Saudi Arabia sold for more than $1.2 million at an auction in France on Sunday.

The 24-carat-gold and steel sword, with an ivory handle and long curved blade, was bought for 955,400 euros over the phone "by a mysterious buyer who entered bidding mid-sale," said auctioneer Jean-Pierre Osenat.

Saudi Arabia suggested two proposals to help Lebanon avoid any vacuum in the Presidency post amid President Michel Suleiman's firm rejection to renew his term, which ends in May 2014.

According to al-Akhbar newspaper published on Monday, Saudi officials are convinced that the Lebanese rival parties will fail to agree on holding the presidential elections due to sharp differences.

Rare heavy downpours triggered flash floods in the Saudi capital on Sunday forcing schools and universities to close and prompting calls by the authorities for citizens to remain indoors.

At least three people were reported missing, the state news agency SPA said quoting civil defense spokesman Colonel Abdullah al-Harithi.

Scores of Ethiopians gathered outside the Saudi Arabian embassy in Addis Ababa Friday to protest over a crackdown against illegal immigrants in the oil-rich state that officials say has left three Ethiopians dead.

The protest, organized by an opposition group, was quickly broken up by police and activists said up to 100 people were arrested.

Saudi police on Thursday deployed in force in a poor neighborhood of Riyadh after rioting by illegal migrants the previous night left one person dead, an Agence France Presse correspondent said.

And in the commercial capital Jeddah, security forces dispersed a large protest by illegal migrants and arrested five Ethiopians suspected of organizing the demonstration, a police spokesman said.

Garbage is piling up on streets around the mosque housing the burial site of the Prophet Muhammad. Grocery stores have shut their doors and almost half of Saudi Arabia's small construction firms have stopped working on projects.

The mess is because foreign workers on which many businesses rely are fleeing, have gone into hiding or are under arrest amid a crackdown launched Nov. 4 targeting the kingdom's 9 million migrant laborers. Decades of lax immigration enforcement allowed migrants to take low-wage manual, clerical and service jobs that the kingdom's own citizens shunned for better paying, more comfortable work.

Al-Mustaqbal movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri slammed Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday, saying the March 14 alliance will not give his party any legitimacy to its “reckless” policies and will not become a partner with the party in a government that covers its role in Syria.

“We won't give Hizbullah any form of national legitimacy to reckless policies” that shove Lebanon in the region's turmoil, Hariri said in a statement in response to a speech made by Nasrallah earlier.

The March 14 alliance will work hard to hold the presidential elections at the end of President Michel Suleiman's mandate in May next year, Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea said.

There will not be a repeat of previous elections in a sense that the mandate expires without being able to elect a new president, Geagea said.

Conflicting reports emerged on Wednesday over whether President Michel Suleiman was aware that former Prime Minister Saad Hariri would be present during his meeting with Saudi King Abdullah in Riyadh.

According to As Safir newspaper, Suleiman wasn't informed about Hariri's participation, wondering in a report about the aim of such a move by Saudi Arabia.