The U.N. Security Council will hold a closed door meeting on Crimea Thursday, one year after Russia wrested the territory away from Ukraine, diplomats said.

Moscow, which claims it was forced to take over Crimea to protect ethnic Russians after the ouster of Ukraine's Kremlin-backed government, is refusing to attend the meeting, diplomats said on Wednesday.

The United Arab Emirates recalled its ambassador from Sweden Wednesday, widening a diplomatic row triggered by the Nordic country's criticism of Saudi Arabia.

The protest came a week after Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador from Stockholm, citing Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstroem's criticism of its human rights and democracy record in the Swedish parliament. 

Israeli center-left leader Isaac Herzog ruled out Wednesday prospects of a unity government with Benjamin Netanyahu, the day after losing a general election to the right-wing prime minister's Likud party.

"Going into opposition is the only realistic option facing us," he told a meeting of his Zionist Union party in Tel Aviv.

Brazil's Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected an opposition request that President Dilma Rousseff be investigated as part of a widening probe into a multi-billion-dollar corruption scandal at state oil giant Petrobras.

The justice in charge of the case, Teori Zavascki, turned down the petition on grounds it contained "technical errors," the court's press office said.

A former U.S. Air Force mechanic pleaded not guilty in New York on Wednesday to attempting to support extremists fighting in Syria, and could face trial as early as July.

Tairod Pugh, 47, appeared before federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis, the burly Muslim convert standing with his hands behind his back, dressed in a navy short-sleeved shirt and khaki trousers.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday triumphantly joined tens of thousands of supporters to mark one year since his takeover of Crimea, a seismic shift that shattered ties with Ukraine and the West.

Putin appeared on stage in front of a flag-waving crowd at a celebratory concert by the walls of the Kremlin to make an impassioned justification for seizing the Black Sea peninsula in a move that sent his poll ratings soaring.

France condemned Wednesday a bloody armed attack on a museum in the Tunisian capital in which 17 tourists from Poland, Italy, Germany and Spain were killed.

"I condemn this terrorist attack in the strongest terms. There has been a hostage-taking, without doubt tourists have been affected, killed," French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said in Brussels after talks with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

A popular Tunisian comedian, a television host and a colleague went on trial Wednesday in a case in which one them allegedly impersonated the president in a telephone conversation with a businessman.

Defense attorney Mounir Ben Salha asked the court to dismiss the case and to free satirist Migalo, whose real name is Wassim Lahrissi, television host Moez Ben Gharbia and Abdelhak Toumi.

Mexico's WikiLeaks-inspired whistleblower website is already making waves just days after its launch, even though it has yet to expose any government scandals.

MexicoLeaks was announced by star journalist Carmen Aristegui last week when she told her audience that her MVS radio team was part of the initiative.

Crises have a way of focusing minds. So it was with Eskander Budzhurov's 80-year-old mother when her son left the Crimean peninsula in a rush after it was annexed by Russia from Ukraine a year ago.

Budzhurov, a spry owner of a booth selling traditional Crimean Tatar snacks in Kiev, laughs as he recalls the mad dash to make his mother Skype-savvy before setting off with two sons for a new life, 800 kilometers (500 miles) away in the Ukrainian capital.