U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Syrian National Council will demonstrate at international talks in Tunis on Friday that there is an alternative to President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

"We believe that the Syrian National Council, which will be there sitting at the table, will show that there is an alternative to the Assad regime, one that respects the rights of all Syrians," she told reporters in London on Thursday.

Seven Syrian activists collaborating with the Avaaz action group were found "executed" in Homs, while two others, including a foreigner, remain missing, the non-governmental organization said Thursday.

The group of nine men, including one foreign paramedic, had set off on foot for Baba Amr on Wednesday morning after hearing that two foreign journalists were killed in the flashpoint district of Homs, said Avaaz's Alex Renton.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his rival Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal on Thursday postponed talks on forming a unified government, a Fatah official said, in a further delay to ending an almost five-year rift.

The official with the Abbas-led party said the talks were postponed "because Hamas continues to prevent the election committee from registering voters in Gaza," the Islamist-ruled Palestinian territory.

Russia and China on Thursday rejected pressure to change their position on Syria after vetoing a United Nations resolution condemning the Damascus regime for its bloody crackdown on the opposition.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi to discuss the two powers' future strategy on the crisis, less than a month after the U.N. Security Council vote.

Syrian regime forces killed 63 people and pounded rebel districts of the flashpoint central city of Homs for a 20th straight day on Thursday.

Seventeen unidentified bodies, 10 children, a media activist and a dissident soldier were among the 63 victims, the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said.

A French reporter who was wounded in the Syrian city of Homs said Thursday she needs urgent medical attention and asked to be evacuated quickly, in a video posted online by anti-regime activists.

Edith Bouvier, a reporter for the French daily Le Figaro, made the appeal in the footage, sitting alongside French photojournalist William Daniels, who said he was not wounded but also keen to be extracted urgently.

An eventual fall of Syria's regime, followed by the rise of an Islamist government could create a quandary for Jordan, a small country that has strategic ties with its northern neighbor, analysts say.

At the same time, even if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime survives pro-democracy protests against his 11-year rule, relations between Amman and Damascus are unlikely to improve, at least in the short term.

Arab and Western powers will challenge the Syrian regime to accept a proposal to allow in humanitarian aid at the "Friends of Syria" meeting in Tunis on Friday, a U.S. official said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed the "unified humanitarian proposal" with counterparts on the sidelines of an international conference on Somalia in London on Thursday, the official said on condition of anonymity.

Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime will not fall and Iran stands beside it, the top foreign policy adviser to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Thursday.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran supports the Syrian government and will oppose those who act against Syria," Ali Akbar Velayati said in remarks reported by the Fars news agency.

The Kuwaiti government on Thursday ordered a probe into the alleged transfer of millions of dollars of public funds into the private foreign accounts of the former prime minister, a statement said.

At an extraordinary meeting, the cabinet asked the Audit Bureau, the state's accounting watchdog, to "examine the transfers" and report back with the results, said a statement issued by the cabinet.