President Michel Suleiman stressed that the national dialogue will be held at Baabda palace but did not give any timeframe “because the two sides of dialogue haven’t yet reached consensus.”

In an interview with el-Shark daily published on Tuesday, Suleiman said that the only item on the dialogue’s agenda is the national defense strategy.

The government is expected to discuss the appointment of the head of the Lebanese University on Wednesday along with 150 items on the agenda and 8 additional topics distributed to ministers on Monday.

The cabinet session at Baabda palace is expected to last for several hours or the discussion of several items could be postponed for another session over the packed agenda, An Nahar daily expected on Tuesday.

Gunmen attacked a bus carrying Shiite Muslims in Pakistan's insurgency-torn southwest on Tuesday, killing 13 people in the second major sectarian attack to hit the area in two weeks, police said.

Pakistani has faced mounting criticism from its minority Shiite community and human rights groups for failing to prevent thousands of sectarian murders, which further destabilize the fragile U.S. ally in the war on al-Qaida.

The U.S. Supreme Court will let a Lebanese Muslim woman sue Southern California jailers for making her take off her headscarf in a courthouse holding cell.

The court refused to hear an appeal on Monday from Orange County, California, officials, who were sued in 2007 by Souhair Khatib.

Egyptian security authorities on Monday detained a man suspected of spying for Hizbullah after he escaped detention during the January uprising, the official MENA agency said.

Hassan al-Manakhly, one of the 22-member Hizbullah cell, was arrested after making an appearance on a live talk show Sunday night in Cairo, MENA said.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday said that it would be "very difficult" over the next two years for Al-Qaeda to stage a spectacular terror attack on the scale of the September 11 strikes in 2001.

Obama said that given America's open society, it would always be vulnerable, but argued that as a result of a stepped-up U.S. campaign which had "decimated" Al-Qaeda's leadership, the country was safer.

The U.S. Treasury Department on Monday moved to block the sale of telecommunications equipment to Syria, the latest in a series of sanctions aimed at isolating Bashar al-Assad's regime.

According to a Treasury document signed on Monday, U.S. firms will now be barred from selling the Syrian government, or anyone in the country, telecoms equipment or technology, "including satellite or terrestrial network connectivity."

It is "a matter of time" before the Syrian regime headed by President Bashar al-Assad is ousted from power by a popular uprising, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Monday.

Speaking in Tel Aviv after meeting his Israeli counterpart, Panetta said Washington and other foreign capitals had "made clear Assad should step down."

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Monday urged Israel and the Palestinians to take "bold action" to end the Middle East conflict while also scolding U.S. lawmakers for blocking aid to the Palestinians.

"There is a need and an opportunity for bold action on both sides to move towards a negotiated two-state solution," Panetta told a joint news conference with his Israeli counterpart, Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

Moammar Gadhafi's birthplace Qasr Abu Hadi has been overrun by fighters loyal to Libya's new rulers, according to medics who visited the village Monday on the edge of the Mediterranean city of Sirte.

"Abu Hadi is completely free (of Gadhafi fighters)," said Dr. Taha Sultan at a field hospital on the eastern outskirts of Sirte.