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.”

Special Tribunal for Lebanon Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare referred a new indictment to Pre-Trial Judge Daniel Fransen in the attacks on the three Lebanese officials that have been linked to ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s murder, al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Friday.

Sources close to the prosecutor’s office told the daily that Bellemare referred to Fransen in the past few days the new indictment in the assassination attempts of MP Marwan Hamadeh, ex-Defense Minister Elias Murr, and the murder of former Communist party leader George Hawi.

New York Times correspondent Anthony Shadid, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner who strove to capture untold stories in Middle East conflicts from Libya to Iraq, died Thursday in eastern Syria after slipping into the country to report on the uprising against its president.

Shadid, shot in the West Bank in 2002 and kidnapped for six days in Libya last year, apparently died of an asthma attack, the Times said. Times photographer Tyler Hicks was with him and carried his body to Turkey, the newspaper said.

A Cypriot foreign ministry official, tasked with following up the natural resources issue with Lebanese authorities, held talks with a number of senior officials during an undisclosed visit to Beirut.

According to As Safir newspaper published on Friday, the result of the visit was described as “positive.”

MPs Marwan Hamadeh and Nadim Gemayel, from the opposition March 14 forces, have proposed an urgent draft law to solve the high-voltage electricity lines crisis in the Metn towns of Mansourieh and Ain Saadeh.

Parliament is expected on Wednesday to discuss the draft law that suggests allocating 60 billion liras for the energy ministry to install underground lines to ease years of protests.