Jordan police said it arrested on Wednesday five Jordanian men, including a terror convict, for planning to infiltrate into neighboring Syria with automatic weapons.

"Police today raided a house in the border town of Torra and arrested five Jordanians and seized automatic weapons, including Kalashnikovs," a police statement said.

The European Union agreed Wednesday to extend its sanctions against President Bashar Assad's regime for a further three months, EU diplomats told AFP.

The decision will be formally adopted Thursday when ministers from the 27-nation bloc gather for talks.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met two senior U.S. officials on Wednesday to discuss his controversial bid for elevated U.N. recognition, diplomats said.

Abbas held talks with Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and U.S. Middle East envoy David Hale at his hotel, diplomats said.

Russia strongly condemned on Wednesday twin car bombings that killed more than 50 people near Syria's capital in a neighborhood favorable to the regime of traditional Moscow ally Bashar Assad.

"We condemn in the strongest terms these new terrorist crimes, which nothing can justify," the foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that the attacks showed "the traditional methods of international terrorist organizations like a-Qaida".

Tunisia's Court of Cassation on Wednesday ordered the release of TV owner Sami Fehri, detained in August in a move NGOs denounced as an attempt by the authorities to silence their critics, his lawyer said.

"He will be freed in the coming hours. The judgment has just been given and we are waiting for the information to be relayed to the civil prison in Mornaguia," near Tunis, Sonia Dahmani told Agence France Presse.

A Cairo court on Wednesday sentenced seven Egyptian Christians and a controversial U.S. pastor to death in absentia for involvement in a movie that ridiculed the Prophet Mohammed, state media said.

The Christian Egyptians, including the film's maker, are all located in the United States and were tried in their absence. The American pastor, Terry Jones, heads a small congregation in Florida.

The text of Egypt's new constitution was set to be completed on Wednesday and voted on the following morning, with the controversial document the focus of of a legal and ideological battle.

"The discussions over the draft of the constitution will be finished today, to be followed by voting," Ahmed Darrag, the secretary general of the constituent assembly said in remarks carried by the official MENA news agency.

Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal is to make his first-ever visit to the Gaza Strip at the end of next week, accompanied by top officials, a senior Hamas source said on Wednesday.

"Meshaal will arrive in the Gaza Strip accompanied by a number of members of the Hamas politburo-in-exile a day before the Hamas anniversary, to participate in the celebrations," the source said, referring to the start of festivities on December 8 to mark the Islamist movement's 25th birthday.

Saudi King Abdullah appeared on state television on Wednesday for the first time since he underwent a back operation on November 18.

The 89-year-old monarch was shown seated and receiving well-wishers at the King Abdul Aziz Medical City for the National Guard in the capital Riyadh.

Officials in Gaza said Israeli troops shot and wounded five Palestinians along the border Wednesday and arrested nine fisherman at sea, a week after the two sides agreed a truce.

Medical officials said that army fire injured four Palestinians east of El-Bureij refugee camp in the center of the strip and a fifth in the north, near the Erez crossing to Israel.