Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea noted on Monday that Lebanon's constitution and National Pact make no reference to resistance movements.

He declared during a press conference: “The lack of reference renders Hizbullah an unconstitutional and illegitimate armed group and we will never recognize its legitimacy.”

More than 16,000 Syrian refugees have crossed to Lebanon in the past two days fleeing a high-stakes battle, Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) reported Sunday.

The Syrians are walking across valleys and ridges to reach safety in Lebanon. They are packing into wedding halls and waiting for makeshift tents, said Bassel Hujeiri, former mayor of the border town of Arsal where most of the refugees have headed.

Hizbullah Chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah assured on Wednesday that the resistance will emerge stronger in case a deal was struck between Iran and international powers currently negotiating over Tehran's nuclear program.

Nasrallah surprised his supporters on Wednesday evening when he made a rare public appearance in the Beirut neighborhood of Rweiss, on the tenth night of Ashura.

A 25-year-old Venezuelan television presenter, Gabriela Isler, on Saturday was crowned Miss Universe in Moscow in a glittering ceremony.

Judges, including rock star Steven Tyler from Aerosmith, picked the winner from a total of 86 contestants at the show, watched by millions of viewers around the world.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat assured on Tuesday that he is not going to Damascus, stressing also that he “is still a centrist.”

“I am never going to Damascus,” Jumblat said in an interview on LBCI television, denying reports that claimed he was reaching out to President Bashar Assad's regime.

The Judicial police detained on Saturday two German citizens after they were freed from their kidnappers in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa over drug trafficking accusations, the state-run National News Agency reported.

The news agency reported that the two Germans were kidnapped after financial disputes with their abductors.

The Internal Security Forces on Friday responded to remarks voiced by Arab Democratic Party leader Ali Eid after he was summoned for interrogation by the ISF Intelligence Bureau, stressing that the request was authorized by the relevant judicial authorities.

“In response to remarks reported by some media outlets about Ali Eid rejecting to appear before the Intelligence Bureau and his willingness to appear before any other legal authority, and his claims that a person called Bassam al-Halabi who allegedly serves at the office of the bureau's chief had advised Khodor Shaddoud and his relatives to leave their neighborhood to avoid being arrested … the ISF Directorate General clarifies that the Intelligence Bureau does not have and did not have any officer, non-commissioned officer or agent with the name Bassam al-Halabi,” a statement said.

U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said Friday that Lebanese top officials were “in favor of being invited” to a peace conference on Syria in Geneva later this month.

Following separate talks with President Michel Suleiman, Speaker Nabih Berri and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati, Brahimi said: “The three leaders are in favor of being invited to it.”

Israeli warplanes have struck a military base near the Syrian city of Latakia, targeting missiles that might have been destined for Hizbullah, CNN quoted an Obama administration official as saying on Thursday.

An explosion at a missile storage site in the area was widely reported in the Israeli press, but an attack has not been confirmed by the Israeli government.

Islamic Alawite Council head Sheikh Assad Assi on Thursday stressed that the council will not tolerate the summoning of top Alawite leader Ali Eid for interrogation in the case of the deadly twin bombings that rocked Tripoli in August.

“The Alawite sect totally disavows the perpetrators of the two massacres that happened outside the al-Taqwa and al-Salam mosques in Tripoli and it is awaiting a legal and national investigation, not a politicized investigation linked to a foreign scheme,” Assi said at a press conference.