Saudi King Abdullah appointed 30 women to the previously all-male consultative Shura Council in decrees published on Friday, marking a historic first as he pushes reforms in the ultra-conservative kingdom.

The decrees, published by the official SPA news agency, give women a 20 percent quota in the Shura Council, a body appointed by the king to advise him on policy and legislation.

U.N.-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi was meeting with top U.S. and Russian officials Friday on the Syria crisis although there was little hope of a breakthrough.

Brahimi, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov and U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns were meeting at the U.N. headquarters in Geneva. They made no comment as they arrived for the closed-door talks.

Palestinian activists on Friday began setting up an "outpost" in E1, a strip of West Bank land east of Jerusalem where Israel said it would build thousands of new settler homes.

"We have set up 20 tents, and have enough equipment to stay here for a long time," said Abir Kopty, spokeswoman for the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee.

Rebels Friday overran Taftanaz airbase in north Syria, a watchdog said, marking a significant advance

"The fighting at Taftanaz military airport ended at 11:00 am (0900 GMT) and the base is entirely in rebel hands," said Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman.

A U.S. submarine's periscope struck a vessel in the Gulf on Thursday but apparently caused no major damage or injuries, the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet said in a statement.

The USS Jacksonville, a Los Angeles-class sub, "struck a vessel while operating in the Persian Gulf" at about 5:00 am local time (0200 GMT), the statement said.

The United States is increasingly focused on how to secure Syria's chemical weapons if President Bashar Assad falls from power, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday.

Panetta said he would not consider sending ground troops into the war-torn country, even to secure chemical sites, but he left the door open to some U.S. military presence if Assad's downfall is followed by a peaceful transition.

A delegation of Roman Catholic bishops from Europe and North America pledged on Thursday to press their governments to act against the "injustice" of Israel's West Bank separation barrier.

During a three-day trip ending on Thursday, the eight prelates visited Christian congregations in the Gaza Strip, Bethlehem, the West Bank town of Beit Jalla and Madaba and Zarqa, in neighboring Jordan.

The premiers of Algeria, Libya and Tunisia are set to meet in the Libyan oasis of Ghadames on Saturday to discuss security along their common borders, a Libyan official said.

"A tripartite meeting between the prime ministers of Algeria, Libya and Tunisia will be held on Saturday in Ghadames to discuss border security," the protocol official told AFP on Thursday.

The 48 Iranians held hostage by rebels for more than five months in Syria and freed in a prisoner exchange arrived back in Tehran on Thursday to an official welcome, the official IRNA news agency said.

The rebels agreed to swap the Iranians, described by the Islamic republic as pilgrims but by the rebels and Washington as members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, for more than 2,000 detainees held by the Syrian regime.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's latest reconciliation talks with exiled Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal are not the act of a man seeking peace with Israel.

"Abu Mazen (Abbas) gave an embrace to the head of a terror organization who only a month ago stated that Israel should be wiped from the map," a statement from Netanyahu's office quoted him as saying.