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.

Al-Mustaqbal bloc MP Nabil de Freij has sought to find a way out for the cabinet dispute over the controversial transportation and education allowances by proposing an urgent draft law to be discussed by the parliament next Wednesday.

According to al-Liwaa newspaper published on Friday, de Freij’s proposal to set the amount of the transportation and education allowances might force the cabinet to endorse the draft law, ending the three-week crisis.

Around five high-ranking employees at the oil refineries and the consumer protection authority have been accused of involvement in the red diesel scandal, al-Liwaa newspaper reported on Friday.

The daily quoted a judicial official as saying that the Audit Bureau’s general prosecutor, Bassam Wehbe, issued his investigation report last Saturday and referred the five officials for prosecution.

March 14 general-secretariat coordinator Fares Soaid has said that Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah didn’t clarify in his speech on Thursday whether his party would heed the demand of the March 14 opposition to integrate its arms in the state.

“We waited for an answer from him on the March 14’s proposal for Hizbullah to abide by the conditions of the state, i.e. the cooperation with the international tribunal to hand over the suspects and the handing over of the arms so that they could be placed under the state’s care,” Soaid said in remarks published Friday.

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday hit back at the rival March 14 camp over the speeches delivered by its leaders on the seventh anniversary of ex-PM Rafik Hariri’s assassination.

“Two days ago Lebanon marked an occasion that is dear to all the Lebanese: the anniversary of ex-PM Hariri’s martyrdom and we extend our condolences to his admirers and voice our condemnation of such assassinations,” Nasrallah said in a televised speech commemorating Hizbullah’s “martyr leaders.”

The Mustaqbal bloc praised on Thursday U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s decision to extend the Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s mission for three years, saying that it spared Lebanon heated political disputes.

It accused the March 8 camp of seeking to destabilize the country, blaming it of stirring the clashes that erupted between the rival neighborhoods of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen in Tripoli on Friday.

Speaker Nabih Berri stressed on Thursday that Lebanon is committed to the drilling of oil within all of its maritime borders.

He said that “Lebanon is determined to invest in its petroleum and gas wealth.”