Naharnet Exclusive Report - Paris

High-ranking French officials have complained that the Lebanese leaderships have not devised a clear way to deal with the repercussions the Iranian and Syrian developments may have on the internal Lebanese scene.

A senior U.S. official will on Monday launch a three-country campaign to firm up sanctions against Syria and to tackle transnational organized crime, the U.S. Treasury Department said.

Assistant Secretary Daniel Glaser will travel to Beirut, Moscow and Amman for a week-long visit.

Syria has sent the Arab League a letter asking for support against what it called U.S. involvement in "bloody events" in the country, the 22-member pan-Arab group said in a statement on Monday.

The statement said the letter from Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem accused Washington "of actual involvement in bloody events in Syria" and asked the League to "condemn the involvement and to do what is necessary to end it."

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri's press office informed his followers on Monday that his twitter account is @HaririSaad.

"Hariri would like to point out that the only twitter account that PM Saad Hariri uses to tweet, personally and directly, with his Followers is: @HaririSaad," his press office said.

Miss Venezuela, Ivian Sarcos, was crowned the 2011 winner of the Miss World beauty pageant on Sunday at a glittering final ceremony in London.

Wearing a pink dress with diamante studs that had giant frills slashed below the waist, the 22-year-old threw her hands to her face as she was announced the winner.

The fourth trailer of Mission Impossible- Ghost Protocol will give movie lovers some action during the holiday season. With Tom Cruise as main star, the movie will take viewers into a new dimension.

Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions, along with Director Brad Bird have poured around a $140,000,000 budget for the movie, which was filmed in the United Arab Emirates, India, Czech Republic, and Canada.

Hizbullah has congratulated the Palestinians on winning UNESCO membership, slamming the United States as "racist" over its decision to vote against the move.

"Hizbullah congratulates the Palestinian people on gaining full UNESCO membership, which is their natural right," the Shiite group said.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said he believes the Syrian opposition will be successful in their “glorious resistance” to the ongoing government crackdown, Turkey’s English-language daily Today’s Zaman reported Tuesday.

Speaking during his Justice and Development Party's parliamentary bloc meeting on Tuesday, Erdogan warned that Turkey cannot remain silent in the face of the events in Syria.

A new Egyptian-brokered truce between Israel and the armed Palestinian groups in Gaza has been reached, a Palestinian source announced, after an Israeli air strike killed a Gaza militant on Sunday just hours after Islamic Jihad vowed to observe an earlier ceasefire.

“The Palestinian factions have been informed that the truce with Israel will be maintained though a new ceasefire effective 10:00 pm,” the source said, requesting anonymity.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun slammed Thursday the so-called “neutral” and “independent” politicians in the country, in an indirect attack against the ministers named by President Michel Suleiman, Premier Najib Miqati and Druze leader MP Walid Jumblat.

“Nowadays, nearly everyone is confronting us because we are changing the bad pattern into a good pattern. We are confronting the corrupts and we’re not afraid of them, as we’re ethically immunized and no one can accuse us of anything,” Aoun added at a student ceremony organized by the FPM in Dbaye.