Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun on Tuesday lashed out at Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam, accusing him of “violating the constitution and the parliamentary tradition” and seeking to form a cabinet without consulting with the parliamentary blocs.

“It seems that the PM-designate is seeking to stir a clash with us, as if he has the right to form the cabinet without consulting with the parliamentary blocs. Let him form it with al-Nusra Front if he wants,” Aoun said after the weekly meeting of the Change and Reform bloc in Rabieh.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday called on states to stop sending weapons to the Syria conflict as the United States and Russia wrangled over destroying Syria's chemical weapons.

"I appeal to all states to stop fueling the bloodshed and to end the arms flows to all parties," Ban said as he opened the annual U.N. General Assembly.

A deadly blast rocked south Damascus on Tuesday, state television reported, with a monitoring group putting the death toll from what it said was a car bombing at seven.

State television said in a breaking news alert that there had been dead and wounded in the "terrorist explosion" in the Tadamun neighborhood, without immediately giving any further details.

The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East urged on Tuesday the Syrian Red Crescent, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the governmental and non-governmental organizations NGOs to aid the ancient Syrian Christian village of Maaloula.

“Humanitarian organizations should send aid convoys to the historic Saint Takla convent and those who are trapped in it,” an appeal issued by the Patriarchate said.

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Monday stressed that state authorities must be responsible for security across Lebanon, denying accusations that his party has received chemical weapons from Syria.

“The joint task force has taken over all the security checkpoints in Dahieh. We welcome this step and greatly appreciate this national decision taken by state officials," Nasrallah said in a televised speech.

The Phalange Party on Monday described the security plan that got underway in Beirut's southern suburbs as "an encouraging first step" to put an end to “all forms of autonomous security.”

“The Phalange Party sees in the security plan devised for Dahieh an encouraging first step to put an end to all forms of autonomous security across Lebanon, regardless of any concerns” that some parties might have over the move, the party said in a statement issued after the weekly meeting of its political bureau.

An Egyptian court on Monday banned the Muslim Brotherhood from operating and ordered its assets seized, in the latest blow to the Islamist movement of deposed president Mohammed Morsi.

The court also banned "any institution branching out from or belonging to the Brotherhood," the official MENA news agency reported, possibly restricting the movement's political arm the Freedom and Justice Party.

U.S. prosecutors have dropped human trafficking charges against a Saudi princess accused of holding a Kenyan housekeeper against her will, officials said Friday.

Meshael Alayban, one of six wives of Saudi Prince Abdulrahman bin Nasser bin Abdulaziz al Saud, had been due to enter a plea in court to the felony charges, filed against her in July.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun stated on Tuesday that Hizbullah's expansion of its telecommunications network can be attributed to the failure to address this issue back in 2008 when this case first arose.

He said after the Change and Reform bloc's weekly meeting: “Whoever allowed Hizbullah to expand its telecommunications network in the Bekaa town of Zahle must resolve this issue to prevent unrest similar to that of May 7, 2008.”

Careful not to blame either side for a deadly chemical weapon attack, U.N. inspectors reported Monday that rockets loaded with the nerve agent sarin had been fired from an area where Syria's military has bases, but said the evidence could have been manipulated in the rebel-controlled stricken neighborhoods.

The U.S., Britain and France jumped on evidence in the report — especially the type of rockets, the composition of the sarin agent, and trajectory of the missiles — to declare that President Bashar Assad's government was responsible.