By vetoing a draft U.N. resolution against Bashar Assad's Syrian regime, Russia and China risked provoking its opponents to violence, the leader of Syria's newly united opposition said Wednesday.

"Supporting Bashar Assad in his militarist and fascist project will not encourage the Syrian people to stick to a peaceful revolution," Burhan Ghalioun, president of the Syrian National Council (SNC), told AFP in Paris.

Vetoes by Russia and China of a U.N. Security Council resolution against Syria marked a "historic day," President Bashar Assad's aide Bouthaina Shaaban told AFP on Wednesday.

"This is a historical day that Russia and China as nations are standing for the people and against injustices," Shaaban said after the veto of the resolution, which had called for "targeted measures" against Syria if Assad's regime pursued its deadly crackdown on protests.

France said Wednesday that it opposed moves by the Palestinian Authority to seek rapid recognition as a full state member of the United Nations cultural organization UNESCO.

"We don't think UNESCO is the appropriate arena," foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said, after Arab members of the world body said they wanted the Palestinians to be promoted from observers to full members.

A Bahraini special court on Wednesday sentenced 13 Shiites to five years in jail for trying to set ablaze a police station during democracy protests, the chief military prosecutor said.

The National Safety Court, set up by the Sunni-ruled kingdom after Shiite-led protests were crushed in March, gave six other demonstrators one-year terms in the same case, Colonel Yusof Fleifel said, quoted by BNA state news agency.

Israel is a "threat" to its region because it owns nuclear weapons, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday.

"I right now see Israel as a threat for its region, because it has the atomic bomb," Erdogan was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency, during an official visit to South Africa.

Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his government would announce a package of sanctions against neighboring Syria despite a U.N. resolution blocked by Russia and China.

"Unfortunately, the draft prepared in the form of a warning (against Syria) was vetoed during the vote at the U.N. Security Council yesterday," Erdogan was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency.

Syrian state television has aired an interview with a woman who had reportedly been found decapitated, armless and skinned in a morgue last month, amid a deadly protest crackdown.

Zaynab al-Hosni became a symbol of the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad after international human rights watchdogs said late September that her mother had found her mutilated body in a morgue.

A prominent Saudi Shiite cleric has urged protesters to use "words" rather than "bullets" in their fight for equality in the Sunni-ruled kingdom after violent clashes in a Shiite village.

In a sermon to worshippers at a mosque in the village of al-Awamiya late Tuesday, Sheikh Nimr Nimr said Shiites must "not respond to bullets with bullets," according to the text of the sermon published online.

The decision by Russia and China to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution targeting Syria marked a "sad day for the Syrian people" and for the council itself, France said Wednesday.

"The Security Council should not remain silent in the face of the Syrian tragedy," Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said in a statement, after the veto blocked the European call for "targeted measures" against Damascus.

OPEC member Kuwait is bracing for a major political showdown over a graft scandal involving MPs as the opposition mounts a fierce campaign to oust the prime minister.

Liberal, nationalist and Islamist opposition groups have united following allegations that pro-government MPs accepted hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes, with fingers pointed at the government as the source of the money.