Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat expressed on Monday the need for a new approach to be adopted after the latest security incidents on the Lebanese scene, citing “a new governmental format” as one possible solution to avoid tensions and conflicts in the country.

"A new cabinet could play a stabilizing and assuring role during this period of transition until the doomed regime of Bashar Assad collapses,” Jumblat said in his weekly editorial in PSP-affiliated al-Anbaa newspaper .

Iran stressed on Monday that any decision to hold direct talks with the United States on Tehran's disputed nuclear program would have to be taken by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The two arch-foes have previously held indirect discussions within regional forums on subjects such as the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq but holding direct bilateral talks would be "different," Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told reporters.

U.S. President Barack Obama told Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday that his administration opposes a Palestinian bid for non-state membership of the U.N., the Palestinian leader's spokesman said.

"There was a long telephone conversation between president Mahmoud Abbas and Barack Obama," Nabil Abu Rudeina told Agence France Presse.

President Barack Obama has won Florida's 29 electoral votes in the presidential election, further fattening his substantial margin of victory in what had been predicted to be a close race.

The state was the last to report its tally from the election last Tuesday, in which Obama beat Republican Mitt Romney.

In the most candid and emotional scene ever captured of Barack Obama on camera, the normally composed U.S. president teared up as he told young campaign workers of his pride in them.

Obama's campaign team distributed on Thursday a YouTube video of the president's emotional tribute to his team at his Chicago headquarters the day before, hours after he won re-election to a second term.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday labeled elections in the U.S. as a "battleground for the capitalists" following Barack Obama's re-election as president.

An estimated $6 billion was spent in U.S. federal races, making the 2012 general election the most expensive poll in American history, experts said.

U.S. President Barack Obama returned to the White House on Wednesday emboldened by his stunning reelection and challenging his Republican opponents to work with him to avert a looming fiscal crisis.

The liberal euphoria that greeted Obama's landmark election defeat of Mitt Romney was short-lived as he immediately set about the daunting task of ending the partisan gridlock of a bitterly divided U.S. Congress.

Taliban insurgents told re-elected President Barack Obama Wednesday to admit that the United States has lost the war in Afghanistan and pull its troops out now.

"Obama must by now know that they have lost the war in Afghanistan," spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement posted on the Islamists' website.

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon urged President Barack Obama Wednesday to act quickly on ending the war in Syria and reviving the Middle East peace process as he congratulated the U.S. leader on his re-election.

The United Nations "will continue to count on the active engagement of the United States" on key global issues "as it strives to meet the hopes and expectations of people around the world," Ban said through a spokesman.

President Michel Suleiman, Speaker Nabih Berri, and Prime Minister Najib Miqati congratulated on Wednesday Barack Obama on his reelection as U.S. president for a second term.

Suleiman said in his cable of congratulations: “I would like to take this opportunity to express my desire to bolster cooperation between our two countries and advance our bilateral ties in all fields.”