The government of the Marshall Islands on Tuesday defeated a motion of no confidence brought after it nominated Lebanon's former General Security chief Maj. Gen. Jamil al-Sayyed as its ambassador to UNESCO.

The motion from opposition leaders in the Pacific nation's parliament was defeated by 17 votes to 13 after more than four hours of acrimonious debate.

U.S. agents have said they arrested a Detroit-area man before he could fly to the Middle East to fight Syrian rebels.

Twenty-two-year-old Mohammad Hamdan is charged with breaking a law that prohibits support for terrorist organizations, they said.

The Syrian army and Hizbullah seized full control of the rebel bastion Yabrud on Sunday, dealing the opposition a heavy symbolic and strategic blow in the Qalamoun region adjoining the Lebanese border.

An Agence France Presse reporter entered the town and said the Syrian army took total control of it after a fierce 48-hour-battle with rebels.

Israeli soldiers opened fire Saturday at "suspects" who approached the border with Lebanon, a military spokeswoman said.

"A certain number of suspects approached the Israel-Lebanon border. Soldiers fired in the air to warn them away, and they moved off," she said.

The cabinet on Friday endorsed its policy statement during a session that was delayed for more than three hours for strenuous consultations, as the three ministers of the Phalange Party and Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi voiced reservations over the clause related to resistance against Israel.

“The cabinet has endorsed the policy statement amid the reservations of the ministers of the Phalange Party Sejaan Qazzi (Labor), Ramzi Jreij (Information) and Alain Hakim (Economy), in addition to Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi,” state-run National News Agency reported.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, who led the regime's negotiating team at failed peace talks this year, underwent a successful heart operation in Lebanon on Friday, Syrian television reported.

Muallem, the chief diplomat of President Bashar Assad's regime throughout the three-year civil war, had undergone tests for a suspected blocked coronary artery, a medical source in the Lebanese capital told Agence France Presse.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea stressed during a rally marking the ninth anniversary of the March 14 “Independence Uprising” on Friday that “any resistance outside state's authority” is “illegitimate,” calling on his coalition to endorse a “strong” March 14 presidential nominee even if there are “several candidates.”

“The previous and current experiences of the Lebanese with Hizbullah and its allies have proven that they do not have any consideration for the Lebanese state and the future of the Lebanese and their security, neither for their own commitments and pledges,” Geagea said via video link from Maarab, addressing the rally that was held at the BIEL exhibition center in Beirut.

U.N. experts have said that arms trafficking out of Libya is fueling conflict, insecurity and terrorism on several continents as they investigate the alleged transfer of weapons to 14 countries, including Lebanon.

Since civil war ousted longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011, the experts said "Libya has become a primary source of illicit weapons."

A major explosion caused by a gas leak reduced two residential buildings in Manhattan to rubble on Wednesday, killing two women and injuring 22 people, with a number of others missing.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio described the incident as "a tragedy of the worst kind," saying a number of people were still unaccounted for as firefighters battled to extinguish the blaze in East Harlem.

Lebanon has come at the bottom of a ranking of women in the lower house or single house of parliament in The Women in Politics Map 2014, launched by the Inter-Parliamentary Union and U.N. Women.

The research, which was released on Tuesday, gave Lebanon a 3.1 percent of female representation, putting it 139th in the rankings.