Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said Friday that U.S. attempts to forge an agreement on a framework for peace talks with Israel had so far failed but that the efforts are "extremely serious".

Speaking in Paris after talks this week with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Abbas told journalists: "So far the Americans have not been able to put these ideas into a framework, even if the efforts are extremely serious".

Customs authorities at the Rafik Hariri International Airport foiled two attempts to smuggle 7.5 kilograms of cocaine into the country on Friday.

“Two Turkish citizens were arrested for trying to smuggle the drugs from Venezuela into Lebanon,” NNA said, noting that one of the Turks arrived from France and the other from Abu Dhabi.

French authorities said Friday they had seized a record 1.4 tons of cocaine and four people had been arrested in a "severe blow" to an international drug trafficking ring.

The drugs arrived at the northern port of Le Havre on Tuesday in a cargo ship from Valparaiso in Chile, officials said.

France on Thursday said that it supports the new Lebanese government “in all the challenges that it is facing,” hoping the agreement over cabinet will also involve the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections.

In a congratulations letter he sent to his Lebanese counterpart Jebran Bassil, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius lauded “the spirit of national responsibility that led to the formation of the cabinet,” hoping it will also apply to “the upcoming constitutional junctures.”

Anti-government protesters were locked in a stand-off with riot police across burning barricades Wednesday after fierce clashes left at least 26 people dead in Ukraine's worst crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The crackdown by security forces triggered a storm of international condemnation, with the White House calling the violence "completely outrageous".

French industrialist Serge Dassault, the billionaire manufacturer of fighter jets, was in custody Wednesday for alleged vote buying, a judicial source said.

The move comes a week after Dassault's parliamentary immunity was lifted. The senator is suspected of buying votes in Corbeil-Essonnes, east of Paris, where he was formerly mayor.

Jacques Chirac, who has been in poor health for several years, was hospitalized Monday near Paris for a suspected flare of gout, sources close to the former French president said.

An Agence France Presse reporter saw an ambulance and police motorbikes in front of the 81-year-old former president's home at 8:00 pm (1900 GMT).

Troops from several EU countries will begin deploying in the strife-torn Central African Republic next month, a French official said Sunday.

"In March, in a few weeks, there will be in the Central African Republic several hundred troops coming from several countries of the European Union," the junior minister for European affairs, Thierry Repentin, told French media.

President Michel Suleiman urged on Sunday the International Support Group for Lebanon to meet its pledges during meetings expected to be held in France and Italy.

“The international cover should be provided to enable the Lebanese army to acquire its needs through Saudi Arabia's grant to the military to obtain French arms,” Suleiman said during a telephone conversation with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday that Germany wanted to bolster its military cooperation with France, particularly in war-torn areas of Africa, ahead of a joint cabinet meeting next week.

"I agreed with French President Francois Hollande that we wanted to use the Franco-German meeting to discuss new projects ... especially in the area of security and particularly in Africa," Merkel said in her weekly podcast.