Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat said Saturday that Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah should have announced his backing for the Syrian people rather than defending the Assad regime.

“I would have hoped that for Syria’s sake he would directly address (President) Bashar Assad and tell him that Syria is more important” than anything else, Jumblat told As Safir daily.

The renewal of the protocol signed between the Lebanese government and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon will likely take effect soon after Beirut failed to make its observations, al-Liwaa daily reported Saturday.

The newspaper said that a document calling on the U.N. Security Council to renew the tribunal’s mandate became part of the official U.N. documents on Friday at around 5:00 pm New York time and will likely be approved soon if the Council expresses no reservations on it.

The Permanent Military Tribunal headed by Brig. Gen. Nizar Khalil on Friday sentenced to death Haitham al-Sahmarani, a retired Internal Security Forces first sergeant, on charges of collaboration with Israel.

Upon his arrest in 2009 Sahmarani confessed to collaborating, along with his wife, with the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency.

Civil Defense teams evacuated on Friday a building in the Sidon district in southern Lebanon.

The building, Jana Omari, was evacuated after some parts of it collapsed, reported MTV.

U.S. State Department special coordinator on Middle East affairs Frederick Hof’s brief visit to Lebanon focused on Lebanon’s oil and gas wealth and its attempts to drill for them in the Mediterranean, political sources told the Central News Agency on Friday.

They added that he was impressed by Lebanon’s thorough evaluation of the file, especially the army’s assessment of the issue, which it supported with all the necessary documents.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat stressed the need for exerting political and humanitarian efforts to end the crisis in Syria, announced the PSP in a statement on Thursday.

He said after holding talks with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Turkey: “The political solution alone will end the Syrian regime’s violence” against protesters.

Speaker Nabih Berri held talks with Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun in Ain el-Tineh on Friday, two days after meeting with Premier Najib Miqati who is at loggerheads with the FPM chief.

The National News Agency said that Berri and Aoun discussed the latest developments.

Iran and Hizbullah are planning to carry out new anti-Israeli attacks around the world, a senior Israeli security official warned on Friday.

"Iran and Hizbullah are planning more attacks overseas," he told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity and without giving further details.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea slammed on Friday Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s accusations that the March 14 camp is placing conditions on resuming the national dialogue.

He said during the launch of the LF charter: “We do not set conditions on the talks and you have never even seriously approached the national dialogue.”

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi urged Lebanese authorities in his first lent message on Friday to serve the public and help the poor.

Under the slogan of “Lent in the Age of Change” in the church, the community and the state, al-Rahi said: “The political leadership is invited to invest public properties, ports, taxes, fees and the national economy in the public good.”