Egypt's state prosecutor on Thursday ordered imprisoned former dictator Hosni Mubarak to be transferred to a military hospital after his health deteriorated, a source at the prosecutor's office said.

Mubarak, serving a life sentence over the killings of protesters, was briefly taken to hospital on December 19 for scans after he fell in his prison bathroom and hurt his head.

Yemeni police have found the mutilated body of an officer kidnapped last month in the eastern province of Hadramawt, a security official said on Thursday, pointing to al-Qaida militants as suspects.

"The security forces found the body of Lieutenant Colonel Al-Numeiri Abdo al-Oudi," who was the deputy police chief in Al-Qotn village, the official said.

France said on Thursday that President Bashar Assad should not have any role in Syria's political transition as he had too much blood on his hands.

"Bashar Assad, who is still ferociously repressing his people and bears responsibility for the 45,000 victims of this conflict cannot be part of the political transition," foreign ministry deputy spokesman Vincent Floreani said.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has sacked Health Minister Marizeh Vahid Dastjerdi, the sole woman in his cabinet, state television reported on Thursday.

The minister had proposed price hikes for a number of medicines due to the plunge of the Iranian rial against the U.S. dollar and Western sanctions imposed on the country over its disputed nuclear program.

Human Rights Watch on Thursday accused Kuwaiti police of using "excessive force" against opposition protesters and called on the Gulf state's rulers to respect the right to peaceful assembly.

The New York-based group said riot police had on several occasions used "what appears to be excessive force to disperse largely peaceful protesters at a series of demonstrations".

A bomb intended to take out soldiers killed two youths from the same family in the restive Bouira region of central Algeria, newspapers said on Thursday.

The two, aged 12 and 14, were on their way home from an olive grove when one of them trod on the explosive device which had been buried in the ground, some reports said. Others said it had been placed in a bag under a tree.

International peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi on Thursday called for "real" change in war-torn Syria and the installation of a transition government with full powers until elections can be held.

"We need to form a government with all powers... which assumes power during a period of transition. That transition period will end with (presidential or parliamentary) elections," the U.N. and Arab League envoy told reporters.

Russia on Thursday denied the existence of any joint plan with the United States on the crisis in Syria, after reports of an initiative that would see President Bashar Assad step down in 2014.

"There was not and is not such a plan and it is not being discussed," foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich told reporters, saying Russia's Syria policy was still based on an accord with world powers made back in June for an inter-Syrian dialogue.

A Syrian government delegation led by Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Muqdad on Thursday began talks at the Russian foreign ministry on the crisis in the country, Russian news agencies said.

The delegation was at the foreign ministry in Moscow, the reports said, without giving further details about the nature of the talks, amid speculation of a new Russia-U.S. initiative to end the crisis.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held talks with Jordan's King Abdullah II in Amman recently to discuss violence in Syria and the country's chemical weapons stock, Israeli media said Thursday.

Public radio, as well as several local newspapers, said Israeli and Jordanian officials had confirmed the meeting, which was first reported in the al-Quds al-Arabi daily on Wednesday.