French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet held talks Saturday with his Saudi counterpart in Riyadh on bolstering ties between their ministries, SPA state news agency reported.

The meeting focused on "strengthening bilateral relations and existing partnerships between the defense ministries" of the two countries, SPA quoted defense minister Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz as saying.

A man and a woman died of asphyxiation caused by tear gas grenades fired by Bahrain's security forces to disperse protests in Shiite villages, the country's main opposition group said on Saturday.

Ahmed Abdul Nabi, 31, died after a tear gas grenade landed in his family's house in the village of Shahrakan, said a statement by al-Wefaq, citing family members.

Syria's army resumed heavy shelling of the rebel hubs of Homs and Hama on Saturday, monitors reported, as international envoy Kofi Annan arrived in Russia in a new push for peace.

As the violence continued unabated across Syria the opposition announced new steps to pile the pressure on the regime of President Bashar Assad, with army deserters closing ranks and creating a unified military council.

Iraq detained 22 policemen on Saturday after 19 inmates, including two men on death row, escaped from a prison in the northern city of Kirkuk a day earlier, the local police chief said.

"We are investigating 22 policemen who have been detained, to find out about the escape of the terrorists," Kirkuk provincial police chief Jamal Taher Bakr told AFP, adding that local police were hunting for those on the run.

U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's visit to China to discuss the crisis in Syria, initially scheduled for this weekend, will take place on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Chinese foreign ministry said.

Annan's spokesman had said on Friday he would visit Beijing and Moscow at the weekend for talks in two countries criticized for resisting global efforts to condemn Syrian President Bashar Assad.

A young Palestinian was shot and wounded on Saturday in a clash with Jewish settlers in the West Bank, Palestinian security sources said.

The trouble erupted when a group of around 40 Israeli settlers entered the Burqin area in the north of the occupied territory and clashed with residents, they said.

Human Rights Watch on Friday called for Iraq to launch a criminal investigation into allegations that a bodyguard of the country's fugitive Sunni vice president who died in custody was tortured.

Amir Sarbut Zaidan al-Batawi died earlier this month in prison, and Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi released photographs which his office said showed the 33-year-old was tortured, though security forces and judicial authorities insist he died of kidney failure.

The army resumed shelling the central Syrian protest cities of Homs and Hama on Saturday, monitors reported, as international envoy Kofi Annan headed to Russia in the latest push for peace.

Mortar shells rained down on the flashpoint Khaldiyeh district of Homs continuously for two hours in the morning, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, adding that it had no information about casualties.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano moved Friday to allow Syrians in the United States to stay beyond their visas and avoid the risk of returning to their violence-torn country.

Napolitano said in a statement that, "in light of deteriorating conditions in Syria," the Department of Homeland Security will be designating Syria temporary protected status (TPS) for Syrians currently in the United States.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave the green light Friday to resume $1.3 billion in annual military aid to Egypt despite fears it is slipping in its avowed transition to democracy.

The move marked the denouement of a crisis in the 30-year-old U.S.-Egyptian alliance that erupted over a crackdown in December on pro-democracy groups by Egypt's interim military rulers.