Libya's General National Congress, the country's highest political authority, extended its mandate Monday until the end of next year, a GNC spokesman said.

The GNC had accepted the "principle... to fix the end of the mandate for December 24, 2014 to hand over power to another legislative body," Omar Hmeidan said.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Monday invitations to the next round of Syria peace talks would be sent by the end of year as he launched a fresh appeal for Iran to participate.

"The invitation list is near complete, I hope the question of Iran's participation is resolved soon," Ban told reporters.

Egypt's army said Monday that, since August, it has killed 184 "terrorists" in North Sinai, where militants have carried out nearly daily attacks against security forces after the toppling of president Mohammed Morsi.

The military has "eliminated 184 terrorists and radicals," state news agency MENA quoted army spokesman Colonel Ahmed Ali as saying.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday hit out at the United States for what he described as "unacceptable" wiretapping of his predecessor Ehud Olmert, as reported in the media.

"Given the close relations between the United States and Israel, there are things we cannot do, and that is unacceptable for us," Netanyahu said at a meeting of his Likud party.

The mother of a young Iraqi television presenter who was shot dead in the northern city of Mosul met and forgave her killer, saying he sent her daughter to paradise.

Al-Mosuliyah television channel, for which Nawras al-Nuaimi worked before she was gunned down during a robbery near her home on December 15, broadcast a report on her killing and her murderer's arrest.

A Qatari activist pledged on Monday to challenge his U.S. Treasury designation last week as an al-Qaida supporter, insisting his organization focuses on rights violations.

Abdul Rahman al-Naimi, the founder and head of the Geneva-based Alkarama Foundation, told reporters in Doha he was "innocent" and that he would take "legal measures to counter the U.S. accusations".

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas urged Christian pilgrims from around the world to visit the Holy Land to mark the visit of Pope Francis, set for 2014, in a Christmas message on Monday.

The pontiff is to make a brief visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories from May 25, his first to the Holy Land, Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot said last week.

France's interior minister said Monday that a controversy over a joke made by French President Francois Hollande suggesting that Algeria was unsafe, which sparked a diplomatic row with Algiers, "was behind us".

The controversy erupted after Hollande joked during a speech last week to the CRIF Jewish representative group that French Interior Minister Manuel Valls had just returned "safe and sound" from a trip to Algeria, and "that's already a lot."

More than 450 Muslim Brotherhood members imprisoned in Egypt launched a hunger strike Monday over their "inhuman treatment" after being jailed following the military's overthrow of president Mohammed Morsi, the group said.

A Twitter account operated by the Brotherhood, which has largely been driven underground by a massive crackdown, said prisoners have been "banned from family visits, legal counselling, medical care and (live in) overcrowded and unhygienic cells."

President Bashar Assad of Syria, which has been ravaged by conflict for almost three years, said Monday his country is being confronted by a major offensive by Islamist extremists.

"The country is facing a takfiri ideology," Assad said, using a term for Sunni Muslim extremists.