President Michel Suleiman said Wednesday that rival leaders should adopt an electoral vote law that is consistent with the Taef accord away from political confessionalism.

MPs should “find a law that is consistent with the Taef and does not take back (the country) to sectarian laws,” Suleiman told Lebanese expatriates in Senegal on the second day of his visit to the West African country before heading to the Ivory Coast on Thursday.

Argentina's Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected Pope Francis I on Wednesday, becoming the first Latin American pontiff in a surprise decision that signaled a desire for a more open Catholic Church.

The 76-year-old moderate emerged smiling on to the balcony of St Peter's Basilica to cries of "Long live the pope!" as tens of thousands of pilgrims cheered, cried and applauded.

Change and Reform parliamentary bloc leader MP Michel Aoun expressed on Tuesday that any delay in approving the Orthodox Gathering's draft electoral law is a "crime against the country", calling for the formation of a special court to investigate financial violations committed in Lebanon.

"Whoever delays the approval of the Orthodox Gathering law would be allowing vacuum to take place and committing a crime against the country,” Aoun stated after the bloc's weekly meeting, adding that constitutional deadlines must be respected.

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour denied on Monday reports that the Lebanese hostages, kidnapped in Nigeria in February, have been killed, in light of the emergence of a video allegedly showing the victims.

He told LBCI television that none of the individuals shown in the video are the Lebanese hostages.

Nigerian Islamist group Ansaru on Saturday claimed to have killed seven foreign hostages – including two Lebanese men -- abducted from a construction site last month in the country's restive north, SITE Intelligence Group said.

There was however no confirmation from Nigerian authorities or the countries where the hostages were said to come from. An official from the Lebanese-Nigerian construction company, Setraco, told Agence France Presse he was aware of the report but could not confirm it.

On a dusty field in Israel's southern desert, the military is gearing up for the next battle against a familiar foe: Hizbullah fighters in Lebanon.

As the Syrian civil war intensifies, military planners are growing increasingly jittery that the fighting could spill over into Israel, potentially dragging the party that is allied with President Bashar Assad into the fray. After battling Hizbullah to a stalemate in 2006, the Israeli military says it has learned key lessons and is prepared to inflict heavy damage on the group if fighting begins again.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun on Thursday slammed any hybrid electoral law that mixes proportional representation and the winner-takes-all system, criticizing the government for “distancing itself from everything.”

“The entire Lebanese entity is suffering and today you are demanding your rights (new wage scale), but our eye is on the country as a whole,” said Aoun during a ceremony held by FPM's teachers to commemorate Teacher's Day.

The trial of a Hizbullah member accused of preparing attacks on Israelis in Cyprus has concluded with final summations submitted to the court in writing.

The court then asked defense and prosecution lawyers to clarify specific parts of their summations, which weren't read out or made public Thursday. The court said it will render its verdict on March 21.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat said after meeting with Speaker Nabih Berri that “no elections will be held until consensus over an electoral law is reached”.

"Berri assured that no elections will take place if no agreement is reached,” Jumblat said after his talks with the speaker in Ain al-Tineh.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun announced on Tuesday his commitment to holding the parliamentary elections on time.

He added however that he opposes staging them according to the amended version of the 1960 law that was adopted during the last elections, held in 2009.