Vice-President of the Higher Islamic Shiite Council Sheikh Abdul Amir Qabalan on Thursday called on the leaders of religious communities in Lebanon to form a committee to discuss the adoption of civil marriage in the country.

"An extensive study of civil marriage must be undertaken,” Qabalan stated during a meeting with a delegation of Lebanese student and youth organizations.

The Syrian army said that an Israeli air strike at dawn on Wednesday targeted a military research center in Jamraya, near Damascus, after several media reports said Israeli warplanes bombed a weapons convoy near the border with Lebanon.

Residents who spoke to Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity, however, said the strike targeted a non-conventional weapons research center some 15 kilometers (10 miles) northwest of the Syrian capital.

A U.S. congresswoman on Monday urged France not to release Lebanese militant Georges Abdallah, despite his being granted parole after nearly three decades behind bars.

U.S. Representative Grace Meng said she would draw up a bipartisan letter with other members of Congress calling on France to scrap Abdallah's possible release.

Lebanon's parliamentary elections loom, and for a democratic country similar to Lebanon it has its arms wide open to candidates of various backgrounds even for models.

Myriam Klink, a Lebanese model declared on Sunday on her facebook page Sunday her intention to run for the elections.

President Mohamed Morsi Sunday declared a state of emergency in three provinces hit by rioting which has left dozens dead, warning he was ready to take further steps to confront threats to Egypt's security.

Emergency measures would come into effect in the provinces of Port Said, Suez and Ismailia "for 30 days starting at midnight (2200 GMT Sunday)," Morsi said in an address on state television.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun renewed on Tuesday his support for the Orthodox Gathering parliamentary electoral law.

He said after the Change and Reform bloc's weekly meeting: “I will reject any electoral draft law besides the Orthodox proposal that does not offer fair representation among the sects.”

The Russian government said on Monday that it will send two planes to Lebanon to evacuate Russian citizen from war-torn Syria, the first such effort since the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad began in March 2011.

The Emergency Situations Ministry said two of its planes will fly to Beirut on Tuesday to carry more than 100 Russians from Syria.

President Michel Suleiman on Sunday expressed support for a law allowing civil marriages, currently illegal in Lebanon, saying it will help build unity in the multi-faith country.

"We should work on drafting a civil marriage law. It is a very important step in eradicating sectarianism and solidifying national unity," Suleiman wrote in Arabic and English on his Facebook page.

A sniper killed an Al-Jazeera reporter in southern Syria on Friday, the pan-Arab television network said, in the second such shooting of a journalist in two days in the conflict-swept country.

The killings take the death toll of reporters who have died in Syria's 22-month conflict to at least 20, according to a count by Agence France Presse and Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, or RSF.

Tired of failed forecasts about their country's bitter conflict that has left more than 60,000 people dead, some Syrians have turned to Lebanese fortune tellers and astrology to try to predict what lies ahead.

Nearly two years into the fighting, many have lost faith in political analysts and claims by parties on both sides of the conflict, who frequently promise that victory is near.