Prime Minister Tammam Salam on Monday stressed that the Constitution is “clear” and “indisputable” regarding the powers of the government during a presidential vacuum, noting that “the PM is the one who asks cabinet to convene and prepares the session agenda.”

“I will not cease my efforts to secure the election of a new president,” Salam said during an interview with MTV.

The U.N. Security Council expressed "disappointment and concern" Thursday that an election of a new Lebanese president has not occurred and demanded that polls be held without delay.

In a unanimous declaration, the Council's 15 member states urged the country's parliament "to uphold Lebanon's long standing democratic tradition and to work to ensure that presidential elections take place as soon as possible and without external interference."

The Maronite Patriarch vowed Wednesday to help the displaced Christians of a village in northern Israel, as he pushed forward with a controversial trip to the Jewish state.

In 1948, six months after Israel was established, the army asked Iqrit and Kufr Bir'im's residents to leave their homes for two weeks because of military operations in the area.

Syrian expats streamed to their embassy in Yarze on Wednesday to vote in a controversial presidential election, contrary to Lebanese elections held usually on weekends, which triggered suffocating traffic congestion, jamming work bound Lebanese citizens in their cars.

By midday, all the entrances to Beirut were blocked, causing long tailbacks, as thousands of Syrians descended on the embassy, mostly by foot.

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Sunday his party does not want a president who would “stab the resistance in the back,” accusing the March 14 camp of seeking an extension of President Michel Suleiman's term through fielding a “confrontational candidate” to block the election of a “serious nominee.”

“We are before a very important and critical period that has started today,” said Nasrallah, a day after Suleiman left the Baabda Palace upon the end of his six-year tenure, which witnessed a war of words with Hizbullah in recent months over the so-called army-people-resistance equation.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi traveled Friday to the Holy Land via Amman on a religious visit that has angered Hizbullah, a sworn enemy of Israel.

The state-run National News Agency said al-Rahi was accompanied by Bishop Boulos Sayyah and Bkirki spokesman Walid Ghayyad.

Iran is recruiting Afghan refugees to fight in Syria to reduce casualties among Iranian Guards personnel and Hizbullah, a Western official said late Thursday.

Tehran strongly denies its forces are directly involved in the Syrian conflict but Hizbullah publicly acknowledged in April last year that it has been fighting alongside President Bashar Assad's troops.

On May 24, Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi will travel to Jerusalem to welcome Pope Francis during his brief visit to the occupied Palestinian territories.

He would be the first patriarch to visit the Holy Land since the creation of Israel in 1948, with which Lebanon is technically at war.

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said Lebanon was still denying entry to Palestinians fleeing the war in neighboring Syria Wednesday, despite its insistence there was "no decision" to keep them out.

"UNRWA has been monitoring the situation at the crossing point at Masnaa between Lebanon and Syria and can report that no Palestine refugees from Syria have been allowed into Lebanon today and that some families trying to cross have been refused entry," said UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness.

The Central Security Council on Tuesday asked the General Directorate of General Security to devise a mechanism that would organize the entry of Syrian and Palestinian refugees from Syria into Lebanon, amid criticism by the U.N. and a rights watchdog over a recent incident.

“The council discussed the access of Syrian citizens and Syria-based Palestinian refugees into Lebanon by land and air, stressing that there is no resolution that totally prevents their entry and that the borders are not closed in their face,” state-run National News Agency said.