The bodies of 47 women and children, some with their throats slit, were found in the flashpoint Syrian city of Homs prompting the opposition to call Monday for foreign military intervention.

The Syrian authorities accused "terrorist gangs" of carrying out the killings in a bid to intensify pressure on President Bashar al-Assad's regime at a meeting at the United Nations on Monday of foreign ministers of the major powers.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe implicitly slammed Russia's stance on a draft U.N. resolution on Syria on Saturday, saying there were no grounds to demand a simultaneous halt to violence.

"Currently any possibility of reaching an agreement over a Security Council accord is blocked," Juppe, who will be in New York on Monday to discuss the draft, said at the close of EU foreign ministers' talks in the Danish capital.

Syrian activists voiced growing fears on Friday of a major assault like the one that devastated the Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr, on the eve of a first visit by new international envoy Kofi Annan.

Troop reinforcements backed by tanks were massing in the northwestern province of Idlib, close to the Turkish border, in a bid to root out rebel fighters of the Free Syrian Army, activists and a human rights watchdog said.

Russia said Friday it opposed an "unbalanced" U.S.-backed U.N. draft resolution on the Syria crisis because it did not contain a call for a simultaneous halt in violence by the government and rebels.

"We cannot agree with the draft resolution in the form it is being presented in today. The text of the resolution under discussion is unbalanced," Interfax quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov as saying.

United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Derek Plumbly lamented on Thursday the poor number of women in official state positions in Lebanon.

He said after holding talks with Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour: “Let us hope that the 2013 parliamentary elections will result in a stronger participation and bigger representation of women in the political field here in the future.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday called on China to show in "concrete ways" that its rise is in the world's interest, saying that Beijing needs to take greater responsibility.

In a wide-ranging speech on relations between the Pacific powers, Clinton renewed U.S. calls on China to protect the rights of foreign businesses, adjust the "unfair" value of its currency and improve its human rights record.

The U.N. atomic agency's board Wednesday adjourned talks until Thursday while world powers haggle over a joint statement on the possible resumption of negotiations with Iran, diplomats said.

The third day of a regular quarterly talks among the 35 nations currently on the International Atomic Energy Agency's steering committee at its Vienna headquarters were abandoned around an hour after they started.

A Chinese envoy sent to discuss ways to end the crisis gripping Syria was to discuss a six-point peace plan with Foreign Minister Walid Muallem and opposition figures on Wednesday, a newspaper reported.

Li Huaxin, quoted in al-Watan daily, said he already met on Tuesday with Deputy Foreign Minister Ahmad Arnus to discuss "the six-point vision of China" on the year-old bloodshed in Syria.

Israel welcomes the possible resumption of international talks on Iran's nuclear program, but it must prepare for the chance they will fail, Israel's national Security Council chief said Wednesday.

"I am very happy about the resumption of talks between Iran and the big powers, particularly if it results in Iran abandoning its nuclear program. But we must prepare for their failure," Yaakov Amidror told Israeli public radio.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on neighboring Syria on Tuesday to allow the immediate opening of humanitarian aid corridors.

"Humanitarian aid corridors must immediately be opened," Erdogan told a parliamentary meeting of his AKP party, urging the international community to put pressure on Damascus to allow the delivery of relief supplies to civilians.