Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani presented on Tuesday Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi with a draft-project on a Christian-Muslim pact aimed at bolstering ties between the two religions in the Middle East.

The pact was devised after the waves of violence that targeted the two religions in recent years.

An initial hearing for Lebanese journalists and their media organizations on charges of contempt was held Tuesday at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon headquarters in The Hague, amid the absence of al-Akhbar's editor-in-chief Ibrahim al-Amin who said he won't go to the court “unless measures are taken” to prove that it is seeking justice.

The STL said via twitter that the purpose of the initial appearance is for the judge to ensure that the rights of the accused and the right to be represented by counsel are respected.

Military Examining Magistrate Judge Fadi Sawan asked on Tuesday for the death penalty against two Lebanese detainees for belonging to a terrorist organization, the state-run National News Agency reported.

According to NNA, Sawan said in his indictment that Qawsi Moussa and Hussein Berri should be executed for belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Kataeb Party leader Amin Gemayel held talks on Tuesday with outgoing President Michel Suleiman at the Baabda Palace.

He left the Baabda Palace without making any statement.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat is expected to host this week outgoing President Michel Suleiman and Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi in the Shouf, al-Joumhouria newspaper reported.

According to the daily, Suleiman will chair on Friday a cabinet session and visit later on the Shouf town of Moukhtara to attend a banquet hosted by Jumblat to head the final reconciliation meeting in the village of Brih.

The International Support Group for Lebanon has urged Lebanon to hold the presidential elections on time and free of foreign meddling, the U.N. announced on Monday.

Speaking to the press after meeting with Speaker Nabih Berri on Monday, U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Derek Plumbly said that “the presidential election process is now entering a crucial phase, with less than two weeks remaining until May 25” when President Michel Suleiman's six-year term expires.

The controversial debate over extending the term of President Michel Suleiman created further rift among the political arch-foes as Bkirki denied that Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi proposed the matter.

“The Patriarch merely proposed an idea to avert any vacuum” at the helm of the country's top Christian post, Bkirki spokesperson Walid Ghayad said in comments published in al-Mustaqbal newspaper on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam has expressed surprise at warnings against a vacuum in the presidency, saying there would be only a vacant seat at Baabda Palace if parliament failed to elect a new head of state.

In remarks to As Safir daily published on Tuesday, Salam said: “There is no such thing called vacuum … There is a vacancy in a certain post.”

Outgoing President Michel Suleiman condemned on Monday a new Israeli breach along Lebanon's southern border, considering it violates United Nations Security Council resolution 1701.

He called on the international community to take the necessary decision to prevent the Jewish state from further violating the Lebanese sovereignty and to press it to end its aggression.

Sports and Youth Minister Abdul Muttaleb Hennawi, who is close to President Michel Suleiman, on Monday stressed the need to find a constitutional solution that would allow the president to stay in office “until the election of a new president” should MPs fail to elect a head of state before May 25.

In an interview with the Central News Agency, Hennawi said a “mistake” was committed in 2007 upon the end of then president Emile Lahoud's term, “when the country was left to face a seven-month presidential vacuum.”