Saudi Arabia has barred Syrians from entering the country to perform the annual Muslim hajj pilgrimage, Syrian state media said Tuesday, marking the latest break between the two Arab nations.

"The Syrian High Committee of hajj has announced the halt to the pilgrimage this year, due to a failure to reach consensus with the Saudi authorities," the official SANA news agency reported.

Mitt Romney told donors the Palestinians "have no interest whatsoever" in peace with Israel and if elected president he would just kick the issue down the road, a leaked video showed Tuesday.

The Republican White House hopeful had already faced a barrage of criticism over initial excerpts from the May 17 fundraiser in which he writes off Democratic voters as "victims" that are beyond his help.

Egypt's public prosecutor on Tuesday ordered that seven U.S.-based Egyptian Copts be tried over their role in an anti-Islam film that sparked violent clashes around the world, his office said.

The seven -- Adel Riad, Morris Sadek, Nabil Bissada, Esmat Zaklama, Elia Bassily, Ihab Yaacoub and Jack Atallah -- were accused of "insulting the Islamic religion, insulting the Prophet (Mohammed) and inciting sectarian strife."

The international peace envoy for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi on Tuesday met Syrians staying at a Turkish refugee camp in his first encounter since taking over the mission from his frustrated predecessor.

The U.N.-Arab League envoy met representatives of some 1,300 Syrians at Altinozu camp in Hatay city, located on the border with their violence-racked homeland.

Saudi Arabia beheaded one of its citizens on Tuesday after convicting him of murder, the interior ministry said.

Mufreh bin Mohammed al-Assiri was found guilty of shooting dead another Saudi, Salman bin Issa al-Assiri, the ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

Tourists from South Asian countries that export labor to the UAE will require a university degree to get a visa as the rich Gulf state fights an illegal influx, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

Electricians, pipe fitters, masons, farmers, drivers, tailors and cleaners from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Philippines are now banned from obtaining a tourist visa, Gulf News daily said citing a senior immigration official.

Foreign ministers of the regional "contact group" on Syria agreed at talks in Cairo to hold more consultations in New York later this month, the official MENA news agency reported on Tuesday.

The top diplomats of Egypt, Turkey and Iran met in Cairo to discuss developments in conflict-stricken Syria, but Saudi Arabia, which is also a member of the group, was notably absent from the meeting.

Syrian troops shelled a number of districts in Aleppo at dawn on Tuesday and clashed with entrenched rebels, residents told Agence France Presse.

Clashes erupted in Bustan al-Qasr in the southwest and in nearby Izaa as the districts were shelled, the residents said, while also reporting fighting further south in Sukari, where many insurgents were holed up.

Iran is proposing it, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey dispatch observers to its ally Syria in an effort to quell the violence there, state media reported on Tuesday.

Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi put forward the suggestion at a regional "contact group" meeting held in Cairo on Monday, the official news agency IRNA and broadcaster IRIB said.

The Syrian army has tested a chemical weapons delivery system, firing shells at a research center in its northwestern desert region, the German magazine Der Spiegel reported Monday citing "witnesses".

"Five or six empty shells devised for delivering chemical agents were fired by tanks and aircraft, at a site called Diraiham in the desert near the village of Khanasir," east of the city of Aleppo, the periodical reported.