An artillery attack in the central province of Homs killed at least 10 people on Tuesday, a watchdog said, adding that warplanes launched air strikes on multiple rebel bastions across Syria.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that five women were among those killed in the shelling of Houla in Homs province.

Two Iranians on trial for an alleged botched bomb plot against Israeli diplomats in Bangkok appeared in court again Tuesday as their Thai lawyer protested their innocence.

Mohammad Khazaei, 42, and Saeid Moradi, 29, are among five Iranians suspected of involvement in the February 2012 blasts, that followed attacks in India and Georgia and saw Tehran accused of a terror campaign.

Egypt's top court was on Tuesday to rule whether Egypt's Islamist-dominated Senate should be dissolved as well as on the validity of a panel that wrote the country's controversial constitution.

In advance of the landmark rulings, dozens staged a sit-in overnight outside the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) on the banks of the Nile in Cairo, as riot police formed a cordon around the building.

A Palestinian teenager was on Tuesday shot dead by Israeli troops in the northern West Bank, not far from the separation barrier, Palestinian medical and security sources told Agence France Presse.

Samir Ahmed Awad, 17, died after being hit by a bullet to the chest and another to the leg in an area not far from the village of Ras Karkar, some 10 kilometers (about six miles) northwest of Ramallah, they said.

President Bashar Assad should be allowed to stand in the 2014 election like any other candidate and it is up to the Syrians themselves to decide their future leadership, a senior official has said.

"We are opening the way for democracy, or deeper democracy. In a democracy you don't tell somebody not to run," said Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Muqdad in an interview with the BBC on Monday.

At least 19 people died and more than 107 were injured when two railroad passenger cars derailed just south of Cairo after midnight Monday, the health ministry said.

The accident comes less than two weeks after a new transportation minister was appointed to overhaul the rail system, and just two months after a deadly collision between a train and school bus.

The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council are set to discuss the deteriorating situation in Syria at a meeting at the end of January, a Russian diplomat said Monday.

Russia's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mikhail Bogdanov, told the Interfax news agency that the meeting is likely to take place as Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N.'s peace envoy to Syria, presents a new report on the situation in the country.

The Palestinian Authority on Monday slammed a pre-election visit by hardline Israeli nationalist leader Avigdor Lieberman to a West Bank mosque as a "provocation" and "completely unacceptable."

"This visit is a provocation to Palestinian feeling," government spokeswoman Nour Odeh told Agence France Presse. "Especially by Lieberman, who has declared his aggression against the Palestinian people and who supports settlement."

Iran is on track to be able to produce material for at least one nuclear bomb by mid-2014 as sanctions hit its economy but fail to stop the atomic program, a U.S. think tank said Monday.

The Institute for Science and International Security, a private group opposed to nuclear proliferation, called for tougher U.S. economic sanctions against Iran and pressure on major trading partners to isolate Tehran.

More aid must reach Syrian refugees to meet "expanding needs", the head of the U.N.'s World Food Program said Monday ahead of a visit to camps in Turkey.

"This is a global crisis and we are working together to make sure that we meet the needs of those seeking our support," Ertharin Cousin said in an interview.