The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported to U.N. Security Council members on Syria's suspected nuclear activities Thursday during a closed-door meeting.

"Council members were briefed by the IAEA, who provided the technical details that led to its conclusion of the violation by Syria of its nuclear non-proliferation obligations," said a French source.

The United States said Thursday that it disagreed with the Arab League after it said it would submit a request for recognition of a Palestinian state to the United Nations.

"We do not believe attempts to resolve final status issues in international bodies like the United Nations are able to bring about the enduring peace, which both the parties and the United States seek," the State Department said in a written statement.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Thursday sent a message of support to embattled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, urging him to resist and calling on European nations to worry about their own domestic issues.

"There is Gadhafi resisting. Until when will this outrage last?" Chavez said at a meeting of his ministers. Part of the event was broadcast on the state television network VTV.

Sudan's government and a Darfur rebel group, the Liberation and Justice Movement, on Thursday signed a peace accord in Doha, as a key rebel faction rejected the deal.

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir and leaders of Chad, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Eritrea and Qatar attended the signing of the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur, a fruit of talks sponsored by the African Union, United Nations and Arab League.

South Sudan Thursday became the newest member of United Nations, as it joined the world's top club amid pledges to help one of the planet's poorest states take its first steps.

"I declare South Sudan a member of the United Nations," said Joseph Deiss, president of the U.N. General Assembly, after a vote by acclamation admitted the country as the U.N.'s 193rd member.

The relatives of seven Estonian tourists whose four-month kidnap ordeal in Lebanon ended Thursday hailed their release, while officials thanked France and other allies for helping win their freedom.

"Our father, sons, husbands and brothers are free! These four months were long and exhausting," the men's relatives said in a joint statement.

The Arab League will submit to the United Nations a request for recognition of a Palestinian state, Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi said on Thursday in Doha.

The Arab peace initiative committee "has decided to submit a call to the member states of the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state," Arabi told a news conference after a meeting of the committee in the Qatari capital.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has a "suicidal plan" to blow up the capital Tripoli if it is taken by rebels, the Kremlin's special envoy to Libya told a Russian newspaper Thursday.

"The Libyan premier told me: if the rebels seize the city, we will cover it with missiles and blow it up," Kremlin envoy Mikhail Margelov said in an interview with the the Izvestia daily.

Libyan rebels repulsed loyalists who had retaken the desert hamlet of Gualish on Wednesday and chased them to the outskirts of Asabah, shelling the town from nearby hills, an Agence France Presse correspondent said.

The rebel breakthrough came as an insurgent commander downplayed talk of a political solution, saying strongman Moammar Gadhafi refuses to go.

Iran's ambassador to Iraq was slightly injured in an accident at a checkpoint outside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, a security official said on Thursday.

"The incident occurred Tuesday at the main entrance to the Green Zone, when a bomb detector reported a problem but the driver of the vehicle (carrying the ambassador) did not notice and continued on his way. The barrier then hit the vehicle," he said.