New York Times correspondent Anthony Shadid, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner who strove to capture untold stories in Middle East conflicts from Libya to Iraq, died Thursday in eastern Syria after slipping into the country to report on the uprising against its president.

Shadid, shot in the West Bank in 2002 and kidnapped for six days in Libya last year, apparently died of an asthma attack, the Times said. Times photographer Tyler Hicks was with him and carried his body to Turkey, the newspaper said.

March 14 general-secretariat coordinator Fares Soaid has said that Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah didn’t clarify in his speech on Thursday whether his party would heed the demand of the March 14 opposition to integrate its arms in the state.

“We waited for an answer from him on the March 14’s proposal for Hizbullah to abide by the conditions of the state, i.e. the cooperation with the international tribunal to hand over the suspects and the handing over of the arms so that they could be placed under the state’s care,” Soaid said in remarks published Friday.

The U.N. General Assembly voted 137 to 12 on Thursday to approve a resolution calling for an immediate halt to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's violent crackdown on dissent.

China, Russia and Iran were among the nations that opposed the text.

Speaker Nabih Berri stressed on Thursday that Lebanon is committed to the drilling of oil within all of its maritime borders.

He said that “Lebanon is determined to invest in its petroleum and gas wealth.”

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has said the U.S. is closely monitoring the activities of Hizbullah after a failed bomb plot in Bangkok and attacks on Israeli embassy staff in India and Georgia.

Napolitano told lawmakers Wednesday that the Homeland Security Department has contacted Jewish organizations around the country and is working with the FBI and other law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat on Wednesday declared the death of the Taef Agreement which ended the 1975-1990 civil war in Lebanon, calling on Syria’s ruling Baath Party to leave power.

At a seminar organized by the Friends of Kamal Jumblat Association on the topic of “The Rise of Islamists and Fundamentalism to Power in the Arab Countries”, Jumblat reassured that “the revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya -- which were liberated from the chains of the regime -- are not in danger.”

The eight lawyers assigned by the Defense Office of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon to the accused in the Ayyash et al. case have been sworn in, the U.N.-backed court said Wednesday in a statement.

The Defense Office appointed the lawyers on February 2 to represent four Hizbullah members -- Salim Ayyash, Mustafa Badreddine, Hussein Anaissi and Assad Sabra -- due to be tried in absentia for the 2005 murder of ex-premier Rafik Hariri.

Hizbullah deputy chief Sheikh Naim Qassem on Wednesday called on the March 14 forces to “stop betting on regional developments to alter the balance of power in Lebanon,” stressing that Lebanon will remain “the Lebanon of resistance for tens of years.”

Qassem’s remarks come a day after the March 14 forces held a rally at the BIEL hall in Beirut to commemorate the seventh anniversary of ex-PM Rafik Hariri’s assassination.

President Michel Suleiman on Wednesday said that Lebanon “took notice” about U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s letter regarding the Special Tribunal for Lebanon cooperation protocol.

He briefed ministers of foreign affairs and justice, Adnan Mansour and Shakib Qortbawi, on the content of the letter he received from Ban through the foreign ministry.

A light and sound performance presented by Vladimir Kurumilian and Alaa Minawi will be held on March 10 at Monot Theater.

“A Piano in My Pillow”, is a performance based on the concept of dreams and their influence in portraying human reality.