Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat on Thursday criticized the March 14 forces over the clashes that followed the funeral of slain Intelligence Bureau chief Maj. Gen. Wissam al-Hasan, noting that he will remain in the centrist camp together with President Michel Suleiman and that he would accept any solution that spares the country political vacuum.

“Wissam al-Hasan was the good guardian of the Lebanese state, but it was a major mistake to give Wissam al-Hasan a sectarian color after his assassination. Unfortunately, instead of organizing a decent farewell, the funeral ended with chaos,” said Jumblat in an interview on LBCI television.

The Appeals Chamber of the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon probing ex-PM Rafik Hariri's murder has unanimously dismissed Defense challenges to the Tribunal’s legality, the STL said in a statement on Wednesday.

Defense counsel for the four accused had challenged, before the Trial Chamber, the legality of the Tribunal, arguing that it violates Lebanese sovereignty and that it has selective jurisdiction and no authority to try the accused.

Pope Benedict XVI appointed Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi as a new cardinal at the Church.

The ceremony marking his promotion and others will take place on November 24, 2012.

After this tragic event, we would like to gather on this page tributes to the martyrs who lost their lives, hoping that this would not be vainly.

Please post your comments and feelings. We would urge you not to use this forum to vent anger at each other or cursing the “other”. We want this page to be kept clean and full of dignity.

The cabinet on Wednesday again failed to reach a final agreement on the sources of funding for the new wage scale adopted in early September, postponing discussions to an October 31 session, as the Syndicate Coordination Committee declared that it will press on with its general strike scheduled for Thursday.

In line with Finance Minister Mohammed Safadi's proposal on funding the new scale, cabinet members agreed in principle to raise the VAT on imported vehicles from 10% to 15% and to increase taxes on alcohol, tobacco, bank interests, stamps and construction licenses. However, the decision was not officially adopted due to lack of consensus on all the sources of funding.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun on Tuesday held Internal Security Forces chief Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi and ISF Intelligence Bureau chief Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hasan responsible for the escape of three Fatah al-Islam inmates from the Roumieh prison, voicing rejection of the 50 districts electoral law proposed by his Christian rivals.

“It is unreasonable to be able to arrest Israeli spies without being able to arrest inmates or seize cellphones and knives. The main responsibility falls on the Intelligence Bureau, Wissam al-Hassan and his boss Ashraf Rifi, and the officers are the last to blame,” said Aoun after the weekly meeting of the Change and Reform parliamentary bloc in Rabiyeh.

The Phalange Party criticized on Monday Hizbullah's launching of an Iranian drone that crossed into Israeli airspace on October 6, calling on the Lebanese government to take a serious stand against this incident.

In a statement released after its political bureau's weekly meeting, the party considered that Hizbullah is jeopardizing the country's stability and overthrowing the state's sovereignty to serve foreign interests.

The Free Patriotic Movement commemorated on Saturday the ouster of its leader MP Michel Aoun on October 13, 1990.

“Today the FPM is working on surmounting the difficulties that occurred in the past to uphold the nation,” Aoun told gatherers during a mass at Deir el-Qalaa in Beit Mery.

The army took a pounding at the hands of rebels in northern Syria, a watchdog said on Friday, as tensions between Damascus and Ankara escalated over cargo seized from a Syrian passenger plane.

A rebel offensive killed more than 130 soldiers in two days, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday acknowledged that his group sent a sophisticated unmanned drone over Israel last week, saying the device was built by the Jewish state's arch-foe Iran, while denying reports that Hizbullah was fighting alongside the Syrian regime.

Nasrallah's acknowledgment of the drone which Israel shot down on October 6 came shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed at Hizbullah and vowed to defend his country against further "threats."