China has executed three people for a mass stabbing that killed 31 people last year, the country's top court said Tuesday, with authorities blaming the attack on separatists from mainly Muslim Xinjiang.

Iskandar Ehet, Turgun Tohtunyaz and Hasayn Muhammad were put to death for "leading a terrorist organisation and intentional homicide", the Supreme People's Court said in a microblog post.

Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil had intended to travel to Saudi Arabia over the weekend but the visit was canceled the last minute over Riyadh's role in pushing for the adoption of a statement at the United Nations Human Rights Council that condemns Hizbullah, sources said.

Bassil, a Free Patriotic Movement official, denied on Monday that he visited Riyadh to meet with Saudi officials or possibly al-Mustaqbal Movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal allegedly reiterated to al-Mustaqbal Movement chief and former Prime Minister Saad Hariri his complete rejection to allow Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun to reach the Baabda Palace.

Sources told As Safir newspaper published on Tuesday that Faisal's comments came during a meeting with Hariri in presence of Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz shortly after the Lebanese official's visit to Lebanon in February.

Gunmen killed 13 passengers travelling on a bus in Afghanistan on Tuesday, underlining the country's fragile security situation as President Ashraf Ghani holds talks with the United States in Washington.

The attack in Wardak province, which lies close to Kabul, is the latest to hit civilians in Afghanistan's still-bloody conflict.

Qatar's exerted efforts to release the abducted Lebanese servicemen, who were taken hostage by al-Qaida-affilaite al-Nusra Front, led to a significant progress as Doha called on Turkey to mediate the release of those taken captive by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

As Safir newspaper reported on Tuesday that three Qatari officers are following up the case of the abducted servicemen with al-Nusra Front since August.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi will reportedly demand the ambassadors to Lebanon of the five permanent United Nations Security Council members to press their countries to end the presidential deadlock in Lebanon.

The Security Council's five permanent members are the United States, China, Russia, Britain and France.

A deal that the Lebanese army had signed with Russia to buy anti-tank guided missiles and rocket launchers is facing an obstacle caused by the western sanctions imposed on Russia, As Safir daily reported on Tuesday.

The newspaper said that the agreement with Moscow to buy Kornet missiles and the long range rocket launchers faced technical and political problems because Lebanese authorities failed to transfer 38 million dollars to Russia.

The White House on Monday said a controversial program exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden that covertly collects masses of telephone data will end if Congress does not expressly reauthorize it.

The program -- which secretly tracks when telephone calls are made, to whom and for how long -- was introduced after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Tunisia's National Bardo Museum is set to reopen to the public Tuesday after a jihadist attack that killed 20 foreigners, as the country looks to restore faith in its tourism sector.

Museum officials said the reopening, which will be marked with a ceremony, was "a message" to the gunmen who killed the tourists and a police officer there last Wednesday.

North Korea on Tuesday ruled out any apology over the 2010 sinking of the South Korean navel corvette Cheonan, and demanded Seoul lift sanctions imposed after the incident in which Pyongyang has always denied involvement.

Two days ahead of the fifth anniversary of the sinking, in which 46 South Korean seamen died, the North's top military body, the National Defence Commission (NDC), condemned Seoul's steadfast insistence on the "cock-and-bull" idea that Pyongyang was responsible.