Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat on Monday noted that the latest “fear-inciting remarks on the rise of Salafist or fundamentalist (Islamist) movements … are being used as a ‘scarecrow’.”

“These remarks remind us of the old-new approach that calls for an alliance of minorities” in the region, Jumblat said, adding that such an approach “has destroyed Lebanon.”

The amount of Syrian assets frozen by Switzerland has now reached 45 million francs (37.3 million euros, $51 million), Bern said Monday.

"This is a total for all sanctions against Syria, whether they be individuals or companies" and is up from 27 million francs in mid-August, a spokeswoman for the economy ministry told Agence France Presse.

The U.N. atomic agency said Monday Syria is ready to meet inspectors in Damascus next month to discuss a desert site bombed by Israel in 2007 and thought to have been a secret nuclear facility.

Syria in a letter "stated its readiness to have a meeting with agency safeguards staff in Damascus in October," International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Yukiya Amano told a regular meeting of its board in Vienna.

French Ambassador to Lebanon Denis Pietton questioned on Monday the uproar created in Lebanon over Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi’s statements from France, saying that it is unfortunate that it caused division among the Lebanese political class.

He said after holding talks with Prime Minister Najib Miqati that the patriarch’s visit was a success and it granted him an opportunity to express himself.

Some 1,400 people, including 700 army and security officials, have been killed in the violence in Syria, a top aide to President Bashar Assad said Monday.

"There are 700 casualties among the army and the police, and 700 among the rebels," Assad's media adviser Bouthaina Shaaban said on a visit to Moscow, dismissing a toll of 2,600 people reported earlier by the U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay.

At least 2,600 people have been killed in the unrest in Syria since popular protests first broke out in mid-March, the U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay said

"With regard to Syria, let me note that, according to reliable sources on the ground, the number of those killed since the onset of the unrest in mid-March 2011 in that country, has now reached at least 2,600," Pillay told the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat expressed fear that the political disputes between the cabinet members might occur at every crossroads, especially with the imminent discussions of the administrative appointments.

He told As Safir newspaper on Monday that his position on the electricity project was merely technical and administrative, and not political.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi asserted on Sunday that the statements he made in France “were taken out of context and therefore they were misinterpreted,” reported the daily An Nahar on Monday.

He announced upon his return to Lebanon from his visit to France that his talks with French officials focused on reform in the Arab world.

A woman was shot dead in eastern Syria on Sunday and a teenager died of wounds suffered at a funeral in the capital Damascus on Saturday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"A 40-year-old woman was killed at noon on Sunday by a stray bullet as security forces were tracking wanted people in the town of Bukamal," the Britain-based rights group cited an activist in Deir al-Zour province as saying.

Internal Security forces intelligence division pursued one of the suspects in the kidnapping of the seven Estonians, the National News Agency reported on Sunday.

An ISF patrol tracked down overnight one of the main abductors linked to the kidnapping of the seven Estonian cyclists who were captured at gunpoint on March 23 in Bekaa valley.