Prime Minister Tammam Salam has said the region's conditions compel the Lebanese to elect a centrist president and stressed that the cabinet sessions would remain suspended pending an agreement on a productive work mechanism

Salam told two local dailies in interviews published on Monday that the international community had given up on its mission to resolve Lebanon's president crisis.

The term of Maj. Gen. Mohamed Khair, the secretary general of the Higher Defense Council has been extended as he reaches the retirement age, media reports said on Monday.

Defense Minister Samir Moqbel has signed a decree to extend the term of Khair, who reaches the retirement age by the end of February, according to al-Joumhouria daily.

Greek Orthodox leader Youhanna X Yazigi has hoped that talks among the country's rivals would lead to stability, stressing that only dialogue is in Lebanon's favor.

In remarks to As Safir daily published on Monday, Yazigi, who is the Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, encouraged dialogue among all of Lebanon's factions.

Progressive Socialist Party chief MP Walid Jumblat has said it was important for Hizbullah and al-Mustaqbal movement to stick to their dialogue to resolve several issues.

“What's important is for the dialogue between al-Mustaqbal and Hizbullah to continue,” said Jumblat in remarks published in As Safir daily on Monday.

Police have thwarted a plot to kill former pro-Syrian Information Minister Michel Samaha who has been indicted in a series of terrorist plots, security sources said Monday.

The sources told al-Joumhouria newspaper that the military prosecutor had recently granted Samaha the right to be transferred to hospital for medical reasons.

Inspectors from the health department of the Tripoli municipality raided on Sunday a meat shop in the northern city where it seized a quantity of product that does not meet health standards, reported the National News Agency.

It said that the department patrol ordered the owner of the shop to adhere to health standards and rehabilitate his store within 15 days.

Sheikh Mustafa al-Hujeiri revealed that he has sensed “for the first time” that negotiations to release the servicemen kidnapped from the northeastern border town of Arsal are being conducted seriously, reported the Kuwaiti daily al-Rai on Sunday.

He told the daily: “The negotiations are heading on a good path and we hope to reach a conclusion that would please the families of the captives.”

Head of the Mustaqbal Movement MP Saad Hariri who had arrived in Lebanon overnight on Friday is expected to remain in the country until the middle of next week, reported the Kuwaiti daily al-Anba on Sunday.

It did not specify which day he is set to depart Beirut.

Security forces have so far failed to arrest any major fugitives, three days into the adoption of a state-approved security plan in the eastern Bekaa region, reported the Saudi daily Okaz on Sunday.

It revealed that Hizbullah has prevented the security forces from entering the outskirts of some towns in the area because the party has “transformed them into military zones.”

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday stressed that “impunity will not be tolerated” in the case of the 2005 assassination of former premier Rafik Hariri.

“On the tenth anniversary of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 21 others who lost their lives on that day, the Secretary-General renews his condolences to the families of the victims of this terrorist attack,” Ban's spokesman said.