U.S. President Barack Obama met the crown prince of Bahrain Tuesday, as Washington backed the Sunni royal family's national dialogue to ease the political crisis in the Shiite majority kingdom.

Obama dropped by a meeting between Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa and U.S. National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, in a White House protocol mechanism used to allow the president to meet lower level officials.

Syrian Ambassador to France Lamia Shakkour on Tuesday denied that she had quit her post, in interviews with Syria’s state TV and Al-Arabiya TV, shortly after the France 24 network aired an audio statement purportedly from her saying she was quitting.

In her phone interview with Al-Arabiya, Shakkour said her voice was imitated by the person who called France 24, stressing that she did not speak to any television.

Western powers on Tuesday stepped up moves for a U.N. Security Council vote condemning Syria's crackdown on opposition protests, despite strong opposition from Russia and China.

France, Britain and the United States are considering pressing for a vote by the 15-member Security Council on a resolution that could embarrass Russia and China by forcing them into a veto.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has vowed to fight to death in a surprise speech during the heaviest day of NATO shelling in the capital Tripoli.

Gadhafi's voice suddenly emerged on Libyan television Tuesday afternoon -- barely an hour after the last some 30 NATO strikes pounded the capital.

Syrian dissidents warned Tuesday of a harsh backlash as troop reinforcements headed to northwestern Syrian after the authorities said 120 policemen were massacred in the town of Jisr Shughour.

The Syrian Revolution 2011, a Facebook group spurring protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, called for "Tuesday of resurrection" rallies and appealed to the army to protect civilians against regime agents.

Tunisians will learn Wednesday whether the first elections since their popular uprising toppled longtime ruler Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and sparked off the Arab Spring will be held as promised on July 24.

The interim government faces objections over the date from the independent electoral commission, which said truly credible polls could not be organized in such a short time and called for a postponement to October 16.

Russia is not playing the role of mediator in the Libya conflict, Foreign Minister Segei Lavrov said on Tuesday after a Kremlin envoy was dispatched to the rebels' stronghold in Benghazi.

President Dmitry Medvedev's envoy Mikhail Margelov met Libyan rebel leaders on Tuesday in the first trip by a top Russian official to their stronghold, as NATO warplanes pounded the capital.

Iran's navy has sent submarines to the Red Sea "to collect data," its first mission in distant waters, the Fars news agency reported Tuesday without giving further details.

"The submarines, dispatched in May, have entered the Red Sea after a mission in the Gulf of Aden to collect data on the sea bed in the high seas and to identify other warships," Fars said quoting an unnamed source.

Saudi Arabia's consultative Shoura council has recommended allowing women to vote in the next local polls, in at least four years, without being permitted to run for office, a member said Tuesday.

Saudi men in the ultra-conservative kingdom will vote in September to elect half the members of municipal councils across the country, but Saudi women who are deprived of many basic rights, remain banned from voting.

Two Saudi border guards were shot dead by a man who attempted to cross the frontier into Yemen before he was killed by Saudi forces, the interior ministry spokesman said Tuesday.

General Mansour al-Turki said a colonel and a sergeant were shot dead, while another sergeant was wounded by a Saudi national whom they tried to stop from crossing into Yemen in a 4x4 vehicle early Tuesday.