UNIFIL spokesman Neeraj Singh denied media reports about a friction between a UNIFIL patrol and the residents of the southern town of Houla on March 26, the National News Agency reported Monday.

“The reports are untrue,” NNA quoted Singh as saying. “UNIFIL stresses that such a friction between any of its patrols and the Houla residents hasn’t taken place.”

President Michel Suleiman has urged Bahrain to safeguard the interests of Lebanese expatriates in the Kingdom in line with strong Lebanese-Bahraini relations, a statement released by Baabda palace said.

Suleiman followed up on the situation of Lebanese in Bahrain during a phone conversation Sunday with Bahrain’s King Hamad.

Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet said Monday that Lebanese officials informed him that Beirut authorities were making every effort to find seven Estonian tourists kidnapped in the Bekaa valley last week.

Paet met with President Michel Suleiman, Speaker Nabih Berri, Premier-designate Najib Miqati and Caretaker Interior Minister Ziad Baroud.

Prime Minister-designate Najib Miqati has reportedly said that he can’t ignore the latest stance of Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi who threw his support behind Caretaker Interior Minister Ziad Baroud.

Ad-Diyar daily on Monday quoted Miqati as saying that he “can’t ignore Patriarch al-Rahi’s stance about giving a portfolio to Baroud in the government.”

Around 200 Syrian expats rallied in front of the Syrian embassy in Beirut on Sunday, shouting slogans in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is facing unprecedented domestic pressure as protests and clashes erupt across Syria, Agence France Presse reported.

Demonstrators in front of the embassy in the Beirut area of Hamra held pictures of Assad, chanting "With our souls, with our blood, we will sacrifice for you, Bashar" as Lebanese security forces and army troops cordoned off the area and started checking IDs.

A delegation from Syrian intelligence services was recently dispatched to Tripoli to scrub the Libyan intelligence archives clean of all the records detailing past projects that the two countries had collaborated on, the ‘Weekly Standard’ U.S. magazine reported.

It said one Arabic-language website claimed that former Syrian vice president Abdel-Halim Khaddam was involved in the disappearance of Imam Moussa al-Sadr, the Iranian-born Lebanese cleric who went missing in Libya in 1978.

Saudi Arabia has decided to contribute 10 million dollars to the budget of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, western diplomatic sources said.

The sources told the Central News Agency and several other agencies that Riyadh informed tribunal officials about its decision.

Caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri has reportedly told March 14 officials not to target Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat who has fallen out of the alliance.

“I don’t want anyone to target Walid Jumblat ever,” Hariri has said, according to the Kuwaiti daily al-Anbaa.

March 14 lawmakers Ammar Houri and Oqab Saqr warned that Syrian meddling in the Lebanese government formation process would take back the country to the era of hegemony.

Al-Mustaqbal bloc MP Houri told pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat in remarks published Sunday that he rejects interfering in the internal affairs of any country just as he is against the meddling of any side in Lebanon’s affairs.

Premier-designate Najib Miqati’s sources remained mum over the weekend on the consultations between him and Michel Aoun’s Change and Reform Bloc over the controversial interior ministry portfolio.

Bloc member MP Farid al-Khazen said however that the cabinet would not be formed soon and the size of the government hasn’t been settled yet.