Russia must confront "the reality" of the deadly crackdown in Syria, EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said Thursday, after Moscow vetoed a U.N. resolution condemning the violence.

"My message to my Russian colleagues is they too need to recognize the reality of the situation on the ground" in Syria, said Ashton, who was making a two-day visit to Mexico.

Malaysian police Friday said they had detained a young Saudi journalist who fled his country after Twitter comments he made about the Prophet Mohammed triggered calls for his execution.

Hamza Kashgari was taken into custody after flying into Malaysia's main international airport on Thursday, police spokesman Ramli Yoosuf told Agence France Presse.

The United States issued a correction Thursday saying it has not yet obtained a document outlining the formal charges against U.S. citizens working for pro-democracy groups in Egypt.

"Yesterday, I implied that we had the document and that we needed to translate it and read it. It turns out that that was inaccurate," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.

Egyptian Bedouin kidnapped two police officers and 17 conscripts in Sinai on Thursday after a tribesman was killed in a shoot-out with police, security officials said.

The officials said the Bedouin took the policemen at gunpoint after attacking their station near the border with Israel in the increasingly restive peninsula.

The major powers gave a cautious welcome on Thursday to proposals to send a joint Arab League-United Nations mission to monitor Syria's deadly crackdown on protests.

France said there had to be "guarantees" for the mission. The U.S. and German ambassadors to the United Nations said their countries were studying the idea raised by U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday.

Libya has ordered Syrian diplomats to leave the country within 72 hours, just days after the main Syrian opposition group took over Damascus's mission in Tripoli, the official news agency reported Thursday.

The Libyan foreign ministry has given "72 hours for the Syrian diplomats to leave the country," the official LANA news agency reported, quoting a ministry statement.

The Palestinian leadership on Thursday endorsed the latest agreement between the heads of Fatah and Hamas and called for preparations for elections to be speeded up.

Palestinian President and Fatah head Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal inked an accord in Doha on Monday placing Abbas at the head of an interim government to supervise the run-up to elections later this year.

A cold weather spell has killed at least 44 people in Algeria over the past week, sparking strong press criticism of what it sees as the government's poor response to the emergency situation.

Channel Three radio, quoting official sources, Thursday said 30 died in road accidents caused by the weather, and 14 of asphyxia because of poor heating devices.

A German couple and their child drowned in a tourist submarine accident on Thursday off Egypt's Red Sea resort town of Hurghada, security officials told AFP.

The victims were a German man, his wife and child, they said.

The opposition Syrian National Council gathered in Qatar on Thursday to prepare for meetings with regional blocs on their government's lethal crackdown on protests, an SNC spokesman told Agence France Presse.

The SNC executive committee talks come "before two important meetings, one for the Gulf Cooperation Council and another for the Arab League," both of which are to take place on Sunday in Cairo, Mohammed Sarmini said.