Iran has told the U.N. Security Council that Saudi-led air strikes have twice hit close to its embassy in Yemen and warned of "serious consequences" if more such bombings occur.

Iran's ambassador to the United Nations Gholamali Khoshroo said in a letter released Tuesday that the embassy in Sanaa suffered severe damage during air strikes on May 25 and that this followed a similar attack on April 20.

Saudi Arabia has summoned Iran's ambassador over a mass poisoning which killed four children and left 28 other Saudi pilgrims sick, official media said on Tuesday.

Riyadh called in the envoy "to express its serious concern over the incident, hoping the Iranian authorities quickly carry out investigation procedures to uncover the circumstances", said Osama Nugali, the foreign ministry's information division chief, quoted by the Saudi Press Agency.

Saudi Arabia on Tuesday beheaded a Syrian drug trafficker and two Saudis convicted of murder, despite concerns raised by rights' experts that trials are not conducted fairly in the kingdom.

Their cases bring to 97 the number of executions of locals and foreigners carried out in the conservative Muslim kingdom this year.

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat has advised Christian parties not to waste historic opportunities and to agree on a consensual candidate other than Free Patriotic Movement chief Michel Aoun and Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea.

Saudi Arabia and Iran are in a dispute over the situation in Yemen, so there won't be any mediator to help Lebanese MPs elect a new president, Jumblat said in remarks published on Tuesday.

A cross-border missile strike from Yemen on Monday killed two more Saudi soldiers, the Riyadh-led coalition said, days after four died in battle and a Scud missile was fired.

The attack in the Asir border region happened at 8:40 am (0540 GMT), the coalition said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.

The EU on Monday renewed calls on Saudi Arabia to stop lashing blogger Raif Badawi after the country's top court upheld the sentence against him for insulting Islam.

Badawi received the first 50 of the 1,000 lashes he was sentenced to outside a mosque in the Red Sea city of Jeddah on January 9. Subsequent rounds of punishment were postponed on medical grounds.

Yemen's exiled president took a hard line Monday ahead of weekend peace talks in Geneva, ruling out negotiations with Iran-backed rebels and denouncing Tehran's "dangerous" meddling in his country.

President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi said the sole item for discussion would be the implementation of a resolution adopted by the U.N. Security Council in April demanding the rebels withdraw from the large areas of the country they have seized.

China on Monday touted "tremendous achievements" in human rights, citing legal improvements, poverty alleviation, freedom of speech and protection for minorities, even as campaign groups point to a tough crackdown on dissent and civil society.

"The tremendous achievements China has made in its human rights endeavours fully demonstrate that it is taking the correct path of human rights development that suits its national conditions," said the report.

Former MP Ghattas Khoury revealed Monday that ex-Prime Minister and Mustaqbal leader Saad Hariri discussed with the movement's officials in Saudi Arabia recently the latest crises in Lebanon, in particular the controversy of appointing high-ranking security and military officials.

Khoury, who is Hariri's adviser, pointed out that the Jeddah meeting included “all the surfacing crises.”

Saudi Arabia's supreme court has upheld a sentence of 10 years in jail and 1,000 lashes against blogger Raif Badawi on charges of insulting Islam, his wife said on Sunday.

The judgment came despite worldwide outrage over his case and criticism from the United Nations, United States, the European Union, Canada and others.