EU foreign ministers strengthened sanctions against Iran on Monday for "serious human rights violations,” adding new names to a list of Iranians targeted by a visa ban and asset freeze.

The ministers renewed existing European Union sanctions for another 12 months while adding nine new names to the blacklist, bringing to 87 the total number of people subject to an EU travel ban and asset freeze.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea stated that his party is “playing a complicated political game” over the parliamentary electoral law, reported the Kuwaiti al-Anba daily Saturday.

He said: “Some of our allies did not understand our stance, but I will soon hold a press conference to discuss at length the details of the discussions over the new law.”

The White House said Friday it was looking forward to Iran helping to locate retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, who went missing six years ago while on a trip to the Islamic Republic.

The anniversary of Levinson's disappearance falls on Saturday, and White House spokesman Jay Carney said Washington still placed a high priority on finding Levinson and bringing him home.

The Israeli National Security Council’s counterterrorism bureau has warned that Iran's Quds Force operatives and Hizbullah are plotting attacks ahead of the Passover vacation season.

Twenty-seven countries have been designated by the bureau as being under a travel alert of varying severity, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri condemned on Wednesday Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour's request that Syria's seat at the Arab League be restored, saying that the regime has “found a spokesman to speak at the League.”

He said in a statement: “The Lebanese government is requesting all Lebanese to participate in covering up the crimes of Syrian President Bashar Assad.”

After nine fruitless meetings with Iran over its alleged nuclear weapons research, the U.N. atomic agency may have to change approach, the U.S. envoy to the IAEA said on Wednesday.

"Dialogue for the sake of dialogue is by its nature unproductive," Joseph Macmanus told reporters on the sidelines of an International Atomic Energy Agency meeting in Vienna.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden stressed on Monday that Washington is “urging every nation in the world,” mainly European countries, to consider Hizbullah a terrorist organization.

Iran is “using terrorist proxies to spread violence in the region and beyond the region, putting Israelis, Americans, citizens of every continent in danger,” Biden told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the largest pro-Israel lobby in the United States.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned Iran on Sunday that Israel would never allow Iranian leaders to develop a nuclear weapon, as he addressed a powerful U.S.-Israel lobby.

"It is Iran's pursuit of a nuclear capability which is the greatest challenge facing Israel, the region and the world today," Barak told thousands of delegates at the opening of the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Iran has freed 14 journalist working for reformist papers who were arrested in January and accused of cooperating with a "Western-linked network", the reformist Shargh newspaper reported on Sunday.

The newspaper said the journalists were released from jail after posting bail, while four others were still behind bars.

Close Damascus ally Iran expects Bashar Assad to remain Syria's president until elections next year, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Saturday.

"The official position of Iran is that... Assad will remain legitimate president until the next... election" in 2014, Salehi said at a news conference with his visiting Syrian counterpart, Walid al-Muallem.