The U.N.'s mediator on the Syria conflict met high-level Russian and US diplomats in Geneva on Thursday in hope of breathing new life into the flagging peace talks.

Lakhdar Brahimi met with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov and U.S. Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman in an attempt to unblock the process.

Pro-democracy demonstrators clashed with police in Bahrain Thursday as they marked the third anniversary of an Arab Spring uprising that was crushed with the help of Saudi-led troops.

It was the first of three days of protests called by the Shiite-led opposition to mark Friday's anniversary as they seek to give new momentum to their campaign for a constitutional monarchy in the Sunni minority-ruled Gulf state.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday endorsed Egyptian army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's undeclared bid to head the strife-torn North African nation as the two leaders negotiated a massive Moscow weapons deal.

Sisi came to Moscow with Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy for talks aimed at securing Russian assistance -- stagnant since the late Soviet era -- that could replace subsiding support from Cairo's more recent ally Washington.

Russia said on Thursday that its own draft U.N. Security Council resolution on bringing aid to desperate Syrian civilians does not include the threat of sanctions on the Damascus regime.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia had prepared two documents for U.N. Security Council discussion comprised of a draft on aid as well as a denunciation of "terror" sweeping the war-torn country.

The United States admits the situation in "crumbling" Syria is an "apocalyptic disaster" -- implicitly accepting that its policy toward the war-tormented country is not working -- but no better one is on the horizon.

The Obama administration is sticking to its line that it cannot "impose" outcomes on a chaotic battlefield between President Bashar Assad's forces and a splintered opposition, despite proliferating reports of atrocities, a deepening humanitarian crisis and fears extremist militants will find a haven in the midst of the horror.

Algerian search teams recovered one of the black box flight recorders of a military plane on Wednesday in their quest for clues to why it crashed killing all but one of 78 people on board.

Algerians began three days of mourning for the dead from the crash of the C-130 Hercules transport aircraft in the mountainous Oum El Bouaghi region of the northeast on Tuesday -- the country's worst air disaster in a decade.

Greenpeace's Greek chapter on Wednesday urged more transparency in a U.N.-led operation to dismantle Syria's chemical arsenal at sea in the eastern Mediterranean to calm fears in nearby coastal communities.

"There is a major communication shortage and the United Nations bears significant responsibility for this," Greenpeace Greece executive director Nikos Charalambides told Agence France Presse.

U.S. President Barack Obama will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for talks on Iran and U.S. Middle East peace moves on March 3, the White House said Wednesday.

Israel had previously announced the Israeli leader would travel to Washington the day before the talks for a visit which also includes a speech to the annual conference of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) lobby group.

A retired senior Algerian general has called on President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to step down "with dignity" and not run for a fourth term in April, in an interview published Wednesday.

Hocine Benhadid also accused the president's inner circle of "treason" after Amar Saidani, the ruling party's secretary general, publicly accused the powerful military intelligence chief of interfering in politics to the detriment of the country's security.

Syria's opposition laid out a transition plan for the war-ravaged nation at Geneva peace talks Wednesday, including chasing out foreign fighters and a path to elections, but the regime refused to discuss it.

The U.N.-brokered talks between the Syrian foes have been deadlocked amid repeated arguments about what should be discussed first, leading both sides to warn they could collapse.