Thousands of people rallied in central Damascus on Wednesday in a show of support for the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad which has been shaken by mass protests for nearly seven months.

An Agence France Presse journalist witnessing the demonstration said it had begun with a call on the Facebook page "My homeland, Syria" of Assad supporters urging them to rally to "reinforce unity and solidarity with the families of martyrs and thank Russia and China for their stand against the conspiracy" targeting Syria.

The west and central Africa region is facing one of the worst cholera epidemics in its history, with over 85,000 cases reported leading to 2,466 deaths this year, the U.N. children's agency warned Tuesday.

"The size and scale of the outbreaks means the region is facing one of the biggest epidemics in its history," said a UNICEF spokeswoman.

Kuwait's foreign minister told reporters Tuesday the Arab world's foreign ministers are to meet to discuss developments in Syria.

"There will be a meeting of Arab foreign ministers to study the events in Syria," Sheikh Mohammed al-Sabah told a news conference in Kuwait's capital, without specifying the date for the gathering.

Israeli forces on Tuesday demolished for the third time a mosque in a remote Bedouin village in the Jordan valley, Palestinian security forces said.

The demolition took place in the village of Khirbet Yarza, some five kilometers east of Tubas in the northeastern corner of the West Bank.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and French President Nicolas Sarkozy will meet in Paris in the coming days to discuss the Palestinian bid for U.N. recognition, Abbas' envoy said.

Palestinian foreign minister Ryad al-Maliki said Abbas would depart for France after meeting Tuesday with Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos on the request for U.N. Security Council recognition of a Palestinian state.

Syria on Monday warned Turkey against "inflaming" unrest in the country, where more than 3,000 people are estimated to have died in six months of protests against President Bashar Assad.

Buthaina Shaaban, media adviser to the Syrian president, who has repeatedly promised reforms, told reporters in Kuala Lumpur that "armed gangs" were responsible for the violence.

A Syrian army defector has called for military aid to help his armed opposition group topple the Damascus regime, in an interview published in Turkey on Monday.

Colonel Riad al-Asaad, who defected in July, appealed for weapons for an armed opposition group he set up called the "Syrian Free Army".

Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun stressed on Monday that his parliamentary bloc fully rejects the funding of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in a stance that he described as independent from the position of other parties.

“No to the funding of the court no matter what the stance of our political allies are,” Aoun told An Nahar daily in an interview published Monday.

Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived in the Japanese city of Fukushima on Sunday to observe the massive decontamination effort following the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

Local doctors also began a long-term survey of children for thyroid abnormalities, a problem associated with radiation exposure. Officials hope to test some 360,000 people who were under the age of 18 when the nuclear crisis began in March, and then provide follow-ups throughout their lifetimes.

The United Nations's new special envoy to Iraq Martin Kobler, a former ambassador to Baghdad for Germany, flew in on Saturday to take up his post, the U.N. mission said.

Kobler, 58, is a former top official at the German foreign ministry experienced in helping countries in conflict and served as Germany's ambassador to Iraq.