Thousands took to the streets in predominantly Shiite southern Iraq on Tuesday in a show of support for the Shiite premier after more than two weeks of protests in the mainly Sunni Arab north and west.

The loyalist rallies are the latest twist in a long-running standoff within Iraq's unity government between Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his mainly Sunni Arab critics who accuse him of abusing counter-terror legislation to persecute the minority community.

Humanitarian workers distributing aid to Syrian refugees in northern Jordan after destructive rains were injured in a "stampede" on Tuesday, officials said.

"Refugees started to push each other as they ran towards the aid workers. They hurled stones at each other and there was a stampede, which hurt some aid workers," Anmar Hmud, a government spokesman for refugee affairs, told Agence France Presse.

The H1N1 influenza strain known as swine flu killed a 26-year-old Jordanian man on Sunday, Health Minister Abdullatif Wreikat said on Sunday.

"The 26-year-old died in hospital today in Irbid," in northern Jordan, Wreikat told state-run Petra news agency.

Nearly 9,000 Syrians, mostly women and children, fled to Jordan over the past six days to escape the bloodshed in their homeland, a government spokesman told AFP on Sunday.

"Some 8,835 Syrians fled to the kingdom since January 1 this year," said Anmar Hmud, a government spokesman for Syrian refugee affairs.

Jordan's elections commission on Wednesday approved an electoral list that was initially forbidden from registering under the name "Saddam Hussein," after the group agreed to change its title, state media said.

"The list has been accepted after it changed its name to the 'Nation's Honour.' Now we have 61 approved lists" for legislative elections this month, commission spokesman Hussein Bani Hani told the official news agency Petra.

Jordan's elections commission on Wednesday approved an electoral list that was initially forbidden from registering under the name "Saddam Hussein," after the group agreed to change its title, state media said.

"The list has been accepted after it changed its name to the 'Nation's Honor.' Now we have 61 approved lists" for legislative elections this month, commission spokesman Hussein Bani Hani told the official news agency Petra.

Jordanian riot police fired tear gas on Wednesday to disperse Syrian refugees at a northern desert camp after they clashed over blankets distributed by a local charity, an official and a witness said.

"The Jordan Hashemite Charity Organization was giving away 2,000 blankets at the Zaatari camp. Some refugees tried to grab more blankets, angering other Syrians and clashes broke out," Anmar Hmud, a government spokesman for refugee affairs, told Agence France Presse.

Two Jordanian peacekeepers have been freed after 136 days of captivity in Sudan's Darfur region, the African Union-U.N. mission to the troubled region said on Wednesday.

"They are safe," UNAMID spokeswoman Aicha Elbasri told Agence France Presse. "This is the longest hostage-taking incident (for UNAMID)."

Agriculture Minister Hussein al-Hajj Hassan banned on Wednesday the import of livestock from the southern Brazilian state of Parana where a case of atypical mad cow disease was confirmed last month.

Al-Hajj Hassan banned as well the import of frozen meat from Parana.

Jordan's electoral commission has refused to register an independent list of candidates calling itself "Saddam Hussein" after the executed Iraqi dictator, the group's leader said on Sunday.

"We have filed an appeal against the electoral commission's rejection of our Saddam Hussein list," Faiz Ziyadneh told Agence France Presse.