Iraqi Kurdistan said on Monday it has granted refugee status to 30 Kurdish Syrian troops who defected to the region in the first such instance in the revolt against Bashar Assad's regime.

The autonomous Kurdistan region in north Iraq pledged it would not hand over the soldiers to Damascus after they crossed over in the past two days.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Monday its teams have succeeded in entering the central Syrian city of Hama for the first time in over a month.

A Red Cross spokesman in Geneva said a joint team of the ICRC and Syrian Arab Red Crescent brought an emergency delivery of food and other items for 12,000 people.

European Union foreign ministers on Monday agreed fresh sanctions on Syria, including a freeze on the assets of the central bank, the EU said Monday.

Other measures include an assets freeze and travel ban on seven Syrians close to President Bashar Assad, a ban on cargo flights into the 27-nation bloc and restrictions on trade in gold and precious metals.

Russia on Monday slammed as "one-sided" last week's Friends of Syria meeting in Tunis that condemned Damascus for its crackdown and vowed further sanctions against the Syrian regime.

"The meeting that was held in Tunis was clearly one-sided... It is clear to us that this meeting did not help create conditions that would stimulate all sides to seek a political solution," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Monday that a solution for getting wounded Western reporters out of the besieged Syrian city of Homs was in sight.

"We have the beginnings of a solution," he told RTL radio. "It seems that things are starting to move."

Beijing on Monday hit back at Hillary Clinton over her criticism of China and Russia's stance on Syria, calling the U.S. Secretary of State's comments unacceptable.

Clinton said Friday that the international community must work to change the positions of Moscow and Beijing, which have faced intense criticism for vetoing two U.N. resolutions condemning the Syrian regime.

Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down after 33 years at the helm on Tuesday at a ceremony at the presidential palace in Sanaa, formally handing power over to his deputy, Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi.

"I hand over the banner of revolution... to safe hands," said Saleh, the fourth veteran Arab leader to fall in just over a year, standing beside Hadi.

The wife of a photographer injured in an army bombardment in the Syrian city of Homs on Sunday called on Britain to rescue her husband despite the government deeming the mission too dangerous.

British photographer Paul Conroy and French reporter Edith Bouvier were wounded in the attack Wednesday which claimed the life of American war correspondent Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik.

Qatar urged the United Nations on Sunday to investigate Jewish settlement expansion in annexed Arab east Jerusalem, warning that Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories was unacceptable.

"We must act quickly to stop the Judaization of Jerusalem," said Qatar's emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, at the International Conference on Jerusalem in Doha.

The opposition Syrian National Council extended a hand Sunday to President Bashar al-Assad's Alawite community, warning of regime attempts to "drive a wedge" between religious groups.

"The regime has tried, since the beginning of the revolution, to fragment Syrian society and drive a wedge" between the different communities, the SNC said in a statement.