U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Derek Plumbly welcomed on Friday the resumption of active discussions on the electoral law, praising Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi's support for this political process.

He hoped after holding talks at Bkirki with the patriarch that the discussions would be a success, while highlighting “the importance of holding the elections on time in line with Lebanon’s constitutional requirements.”

A Belgian-born French journalist, Yves Debay, has died from sniper fire in north Syria's Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday.

"He was killed on one of Aleppo's fronts" on Thursday, said the Aleppo Media Center, adding that he was "shot by a regime sniper."

Rebels bogged down in Syria's former commercial hub of Aleppo are waging an assault on regime forces defending its international airport, seeing it as the key to seizing the whole city.

"If the airport falls, all of Aleppo will fall," said Colonel Abu Kosai, one of the rebel commanders of the multi-pronged operation against the regime base on the airport's periphery.

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat announced on Friday that Russia has promised to provide financial and political aid to resolve the crisis of refugees escaping the violence in Syria to Lebanon.

In remarks to LBCI TV following talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Jumblat said: “Moscow will make a financial and political contribution to resolve the crisis of Syrian refugees in Lebanon.”

A new video game based on Syria's civil war challenges players to make the hard choices facing the country's rebels. Is it better to negotiate peace with the regime of President Bashar Assad, for example, or dispatch jihadist fighters to kill pro-government thugs?

The British designer of "Endgame: Syria" says he hopes the game will inform people who might otherwise remain ignorant about the conflict.

Fierce clashes raged on Friday in the majority Kurdish northern Syrian city of Ras al-Ain on the Turkish border, a day after a sniper killed a French journalist in embattled Aleppo.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed Yves Debay's death on Friday, after Aleppo-based activists accused regime troops of the shooting, and distributed photographs of his body and press card.

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.

Eight men from the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain el-Hilweh have been killed in fighting alongside rebels in Syria, al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Friday.

The daily said that the announcement of the deaths was made recently in the camp that lies in the southern city of Sidon.

The Free Syrian Army announced on Thursday that it has several suggestions for the kidnappers of Lebanese pilgrims in Syria's Aazaz and these will be discussed during their talks in the coming few hours.

“We have decided to resume our mediation in the pilgrims' case after (former Prime Minister) Saad Hariri insisted we do so,” the FSA's Political and Media Coordinator Louay Meqdad said, adding that a delegation of FSA officers will meet with the abductors in Aazaz soon.

Iraq will re-open two border points to Jordan and Syria, more than a week after they were shut due to rallies blocking the main route linking Baghdad to the two countries, an official said Thursday.

The Trebil crossing, the only checkpoint linking Iraq to Jordan, and the al-Walid crossing, Iraq's southernmost checkpoint along its border with Syria, will open from 6:00 am (0300 GMT) on Friday, according to Mohammed Fathi, a spokesman for the provincial government of the western Iraqi province of Anbar.