The U.N. Security Council will meet at 8:00 pm (0000 GMT) on Friday for a vote on a U.S.-Russian resolution on destroying Syria's chemical weapons, the U.N. confirmed.

The meeting, which will follow adoption of a Russia-U.S. disarmament plan for Syria, was confirmed by Australia, president of the Security Council for September.

The Russian prison authorities on Friday moved jailed Pussy Riot punk band member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova to the medical unit of her penal colony after her health worsened on the fifth day of a hunger strike.

Tolokonnikova began a hunger strike at her penal colony in central Russia's Mordovia region in protest at prisoners being forced to work excessive hours and being treated like "slaves."

Oil prices eased in Asian trade Friday after the United States and Russia agreed a draft U.N. Security Council resolution on destroying Syria's chemical arms, analysts said.

New York's main contract, West Texas Intermediate for delivery in November, dipped 32 cents to $102.71 in afternoon trade, while Brent North Sea crude for November was down 13 cents at $109.08.

Talks are making progress on a U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria's chemical weapons including coercive measures to ensure compliance, France said Thursday.

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who took part Wednesday in a meeting of the five veto-wielding powers, said that negotiations "have progressed overall" and he hoped for a resolution "soon."

Russia said on Thursday it was willing to join international efforts to safeguard Syria's chemical weapons during their destruction under an agreement brokered with Washington.

"When the process of eliminating the chemical weapons reaches its active phase, it will be necessary to provide for the safety of the sites where (the weapons) will be destroyed," said Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov.

A Russian court on Thursday began considering whether to prolong the detention of 30 Greenpeace activists suspected of piracy after they held a high seas protest on an Arctic oil platform.

The Lenin district court in the northern city of Murmansk on Thursday morning opened a hearing into the activists, including 26 foreigners, who launched a protest on an oil rig from Greenpeace's Arctic Sunrise ship.

The major powers inched toward a U.N. Security Council resolution to back the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons on Wednesday as U.N. experts resumed the hunt for evidence of poison gas attacks.

Russia and the United States are negotiating a Security Council resolution to legally enforce the disarmament plan that they agreed to head off a U.S. military strike.

President Michel Suleiman met on Wednesday with several world leaders during his visit to New York in the United States.

Suleiman held talks with new Iranian leader Hasan Rowhani at the headquarters of the United Nations in the U.S. state.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that 30 Greenpeace activists arrested in Russia over their open-sea protest in the Arctic were not "pirates" but they did break the law.

"I do not know the details of what has happened but it's completely obvious that of course they are not pirates," Putin told an international Arctic forum in the far northern city of Salekhard in televised remarks.

Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has backed a proposal to make divorce far more expensive as a way of discouraging ill-considered matches, state media reported Tuesday.

"The motives (for the suggestion) are understandable: switch on your brain when you're getting married, otherwise there's going to be material penalties," the prime minister said.