The Telecommunications Ministry announced on Wednesday the production of a stamp in honor of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Lebanon.

The endeavor, launched in cooperation with LibanPost, will kick off on Saturday.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi and Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat agreed on Sunday to exert efforts to complete the reconciliation in the Mountains that the former head of the church started in 2001.

“I am committed with you to complete this reconciliation with a spirit of partnership and love,” al-Rahi told Jumblat during a meeting at the Druze chief's mansion in Mukhtara.

Syrian government forces bombarded a central neighborhood of Aleppo on Sunday after a day of fierce clashes with rebels who tried to take the regime-controlled district, a watchdog said.

Several houses were destroyed in the shelling of the northern city's Midan district, which is under regime control, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague on Friday urged the European Union to place the military branch of Hizbullah on its list of "terrorist" organizations.

"I would like to see the EU designate and sanction the military wing of Hizbullah," Hague said in response to a question on arriving for talks with his EU counterparts.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun demanded on Tuesday a detailed account of the developments along the Lebanese-Syrian border “because developments have started to take a dangerous turn.”

He said after the Change and Reform bloc’s weekly meeting: “An official government report over the border situation should be made for us to take a position from Syria.”

Special Tribunal for Lebanon Pre-Trial Judge Daniel Fransen has granted nine additional persons the status of victims participating in the Ayyash et al proceedings, the STL said Tuesday in a statement.

The nine victims will form part of the existing group of 58 victims whose status as victims participating in the proceedings was recognized by Fransen in May 2012.

Hizbullah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Monday denied that his group possesses chemical weapons and stressed that the abduction of “innocent people” in Syria cannot force his party to change its stances on the Syrian crisis.

“If the Israelis cross the limits in their aggression, we will not abide by any limits … but the use of chemical weapons is haram (forbidden in Islam). We don't have chemical weapons and we don't need chemical weapons,” said Nasrallah in an interview on the Beirut-based, pan-Arab al-Mayadeen television.

At least 117 people were killed in countrywide on Saturday as Syrian helicopter gunships deployed from a nearby airbase kept rebel fighters pinned down in the town of Taftanaz of Idlib province on the border with Turkey.

According to the Syrian Coordination Committees among the killed were women and children. 44 were reported in Damascus and its Suburbs, among them 4 discovered in Daraya and 6 in Jobar; 19 in Deir al-Zour; 15 in Homs; 14 in Aleppo; 10 in Idlib; 9 in Daraa, 1 in Damascus Suburbs; 5 in Hama; and 1 in Lattakia.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea called on the Lebanese people to get rid of the effects of the Syrian regime on the Lebanese-Syrian ties, slamming the performance of the government and the security chaos in the country.

Geagea pointed out during the annual “Memorial Mass for the Martyrs of the Lebanese Resistance” that the Lebanese should differentiate between the regime of Syrian president Bashar Assad and the Syrian people.

The U.N. Security Council on Thursday warned against attempts to destabilize Lebanon as it renewed the mandate of the U.N. peacekeeping force in the country for another year.

The renewal of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon came amid mounting concerns about the impact of the 17-month-old war in Syria on its neighbor.