Russia Wednesday welcomed Syrian President Bashar Assad's decree calling for a referendum on a new constitution ending single-party rule for the violence-wracked country.

"We certainly believe a new constitution to end one-party rule in Syria is a step forward. It is a welcome idea and we hope the constitution will be adopted," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in The Hague.

Iran announced new strides in its nuclear program on Wednesday, in a defiant blow to U.S. and EU pressure to rein in its atomic activities and amid signs of an increasingly vicious covert war with Israel over the issue.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveiled on state television what was described as Iran's first domestically produced, 20-percent enriched nuclear fuel for Tehran's research reactor.

China will not protect the regime of Syria's President Bashar Assad, Premier Wen Jiabao said Tuesday, after Beijing drew international ire for vetoing a UN resolution on the country.

Wen's comments, during an EU-China summit, came after the United Nations' top human rights representative said the world body's inaction had "emboldened" the Syrian government to use overwhelming force against its own civilians.

The head of Russia's army said Tuesday he expected a "decision" on Iran to be taken by Western powers this summer in response to Tehran's disputed nuclear program.

"Iran, of course, is a sore spot. Some sort of decision on it should be taken soon. It will probably be taken closer to the summer," Chief of Staff General Nikolai Makarov was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency.

Russia said on Monday that a ceasefire needed to be established in Syria before a joint U.N.-Arab peacekeeping mission could be deployed in the violence-wracked nation.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia was studying a new Arab League initiative for the body to form a joint peacekeeping force with the United Nations, adding that Moscow had questions about certain points.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday vowed to reverse Russia's demographic decline and boost its population to 154 million, as he ramped up his re-election campaign in the face of protests.

In a new campaign article addressing his core constituency including employees of state companies and blue-collar workers, Putin also promised salary hikes to teachers and doctors and pledged to create a more just state.

The Syrian community in Lebanon on Sunday staged a demonstration outside the Chinese embassy in the Beirut district of Bir Hassan to hail Beijing's veto at the Security Council that blocked U.N. action against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Carrying Syrian flags and portraits of Assad, the demonstrators shouted slogans in support of the Syrian leader and denounced a number of Western and Arab countries critical of the Assad government.

Jordan's powerful Muslim Brotherhood on Sunday called for "jihad" against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime and support for a rebel army, saying it is "an Islamic duty."

"This duty requires all Muslims to support the (rebel) Free Syrian Army against the aggression of the regime's criminal and brutal forces," Brotherhood leader Hammam Saeed was quoted as saying in a statement on the group's website.

Arab and western states are to launch a new bid at the United Nations this week to put pressure on Syria's President Bashar Assad, setting off new diplomatic hostilities between Assad's friends and foes.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar have drawn up a resolution backing an Arab League plan to end the 11-month-old crackdown on protests which could be voted in the U.N. General Assembly this week.

Top Russian psychiatrists on Friday called for urgent measures to battle the soaring teenage suicide rate, one of the world's highest.

The number of 15 to 19-year-olds taking their own lives is almost three times higher than the world average at 19 to 20 per 100,000, the health ministry's chief psychiatrist Zurab Kekelidze told a round table in Moscow.