Syrian troops battled army defectors Sunday in clashes that left several military vehicles in flames. The fighting and other violence around the nation killed at least 20 people, the Local Coordination Committees said.

Six people were killed in the central province of Hama, another six in the central province of Homs, three in the northwestern province of Idlib, three in the Damascus suburbs of al-Mleiha and Douma, and two in the southern province of Daraa, the Committees said.

With passion, determination and a big smile on his face Edward Maalouf greeted the students, faculty and administration of Jbeil’s public secondary school and Modern St. Anthony private school. The Lebanese Paralympic champion addressed the students about his disability and how sports has inspired him. This talk was part of the British Embassy’s activities in the run-up to the Olympic and Paralympic games that London will be hosting in 2012.

Edward was received by the students with eagerness and enthusiasm. They prepared a power-point presentation marking his sports milestones, from joining the basketball team to becoming a hand-cycling champion. In return Edward talked about his life as an athlete and his accomplishments in the run-up to the 2012 games. He also tackled the subject of his disability and how important it is to have ambition, strong will and determination. His latest dream – one of many –is aiming for gold at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games.

An Iranian daily said Wednesday that Tehran may transfer to Syria and Hizbullah intelligence from a U.S. drone that was allegedly downed by Iranian armed forces.

The report came in the conservative Mellat newspaper as state radio said that the unmanned spy plane was deep inside Iran's airspace, flying over an eastern town famous for Persian carpets and saffron when it was downed.

Two bodyguards of a current minister assaulted a man and his sister on the Nahr al-Mot-Zalka road on Tuesday.

Witnesses told Naharnet that the assault took place when the bodyguards believed that the man had attempted to block the minister’s car with his vehicle.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman has said Washington has evidence that Tehran and its Lebanese ally Hizbullah are bolstering Syria’s Assad regime.

Speaking in Amman, Feltman told reporters that Syrian President Bashar Assad is pegging his ruling Alawite minority against other sects and implementing his "own prophesy, which is moving Syria into more chaos and a civil war."

One rocket was fired from southern Lebanon into northern Israel overnight, prompting the Jewish state’s army to warn Beirut early Tuesday to work to prevent similar attacks in the future.

The Lebanese army released a statement saying that one rocket was fired from southern Lebanon from the area between the town of Haneen and Rmaish into Israel.

Pilots at Lebanon's national carrier, Middle East Airlines (MEA), on Monday overwhelmingly voted in favor of a 48-hour strike in protest at the dismissal of a colleague undergoing cancer treatment.

The pilots' union said in a statement that the employee was fired while he was on sick leave and therefore his sacking “violates the labor law.”

Tens of thousands of supporters of the opposition gathered Sunday in the northern city of Tripoli to denounce the Syrian regime and its Lebanese ally Hizbullah, under the slogan “The Fall of Weapons, The Spring of Independence.”

The rally organized by the Mustaqbal Movement, the main opposition party headed by ex-premier Saad Hariri, came amid mounting tension over the financing of the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon and the revolt in neighboring Syria.

French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero on Thursday denied a media report claiming that French intelligence operatives had arrived to the borders of Lebanon and Turkey to train members of the rebel Free Syrian Army, dismissing the report as “baseless.”

“You know that the (French) magazine Le Canard enchainé, (which published the report Wednesday), is a satirical weekly. This report is inaccurate and baseless,” Valero said in an interview with Lebanon’s OTV.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on Wednesday held a workshop under the Lebanon Business Linkages Initiative (LBLI) with the Syndicate of Lebanese Food Industries (SLFI) to increase knowledge about accessing international food markets.

Farmers, food industrialists, governmental officials, and academics attended this workshop. The project supports SLFI in developing a strategy to access the U.S. specialty food market.