The State Department does not intend to cancel Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi’s entry visa to the U.S. over his controversial statements on Hizbullah’s weapons and Syria, As Safir daily reported Monday.
The report came after Ad-Diyar newspaper said Sunday that the Department might cancel the visa to snub al-Rahi for linking the fate of Hizbullah’s arms to the liberation of the remaining occupied Lebanese territories and for saying that Syrian President Bashar Assad should be given the chance to introduce reform.

Saudi Arabia remains committed to Lebanon’s “security, unity, Arab identity and stability,” Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud stressed Sunday.
“Our tours and visits to some Arab capitals last year were aimed at bridging differences … and the kingdom’s efforts were focused on preserving civil peace in Lebanon, which we still support its security, unity, Arab identity and stability,” the king said in a statement addressed to the Saudi Shoura Council, which also tackled other domestic and Arab affairs.

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel on Sunday said “Hizbullah’s arms won’t be a problem anymore if we lay out a (national) defense strategy.”
In an interview with Radio Orient, Charbel added that Lebanon could benefit from these weapons within the framework of such a strategy.

The Obama administration is considering a military trial in the United States for a Hizbullah commander now detained in Iraq, U.S. counterterrorism officials said, previewing a potential prosecution strategy that has failed before but may offer a solution to a difficult legal problem for the government.
While the U.S. hasn't made a decision, officials said a tribunal at a U.S. military base may be the best way to deal with Ali Mussa Daqduq, who was captured in Iraq in 2007. He has been linked to the Iranian government and a brazen raid in which four American soldiers were abducted and killed in the Iraqi holy city of Karbala in 2007.

Three unknown assailants have assaulted a groom and briefly kidnapped his bride in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, the National News Agency reported Sunday.
NNA said that around 3:00 am three men riding a Mercedes assaulted the newlyweds, who were heading in their Kia to Monte Alberto Hotel in Dhour Zahle to spend their honeymoon there.

Lebanon’s interest lies in “respecting U.N. resolutions and avoiding selectivity in their implementation,” Premier Najib Miqati said in New York, where he arrived Sunday for a several-day visit during which he would chair Security Council meetings and hold talks with top U.N. officials, including Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
“We must regard Lebanon’s interest as a priority and I don’t believe that any faithful Lebanese can be against their country’s interest,” Miqati added, when asked by reporters about the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara, who is on a three-day tour to the South, said Sunday that Lebanon cannot overstep the U.N. and the Security Council, in reference to resolutions issued by the world body.
In his sermon at the Sayyida church in Hasbaya, al-Rahi said: “Lebanon is going through a difficult and sensitive stage.”

The Buqayaa smugglers' market on Lebanon's border with Syria, once a hive of shoppers, has become a ghost street since the uprising there, with most shops closed and not a customer in sight.
The once flourishing smuggling operations that supplied the souk have all but halted as Syria boosts security at the border as part of its crackdown on more than six months of anti-regime protests, in which thousands of Syrians have fled violence at home to seek refuge in Lebanon.

March 14 General Secretariat Coordinator Fares Soaid has hinted that the meetings of Maronite political leaders in Bkirki consolidate “the confederation of confessions.”
In remarks to al-Mustaqbal daily published Sunday, Soaid said the meetings held at the seat of the Maronite church have no interest in showing sects as political spheres that inform other confessions about their decisions.

The trip of Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi to the U.S. will be limited to a visit to the Lebanese community there after the prelate held onto his stances made in France, Ad-Diyar daily reported Sunday.
The newspaper said that al-Rahi will not meet with top U.S. officials in Washington after he told U.S. Ambassador Maura Connelly that he held onto his remarks on Hizbullah’s arms and the situation in Syria.
