Sheikh Abbas Zgheib, who has been tasked by the Higher Islamic Shiite Council to follow up the case of the abducted Lebanese pilgrims in Syria in May, denied on Friday reports that they will be released soon.

“We have no information on the matter, other than the reports we hear in the media,” Zgheib said in comments published in Kuwait's As-Siyasah newspaper.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi will on Saturday become the fourth patriarch from Lebanon to be appointed as cardinal in the Catholic church during a ceremony at the Vatican.

Pope Benedict XVI will appoint al-Rahi and five other non-European prelates at St. Peter's Basilica where they are given red hats and gold rings.

Supporters of a pro-Palestinian Lebanese militant who has spent 28 years in French jails on Wednesday welcomed a Paris court decision that granted him parole.

But the group denounced in a statement an appeal by French prosecutors that effectively keeps Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, a former guerrilla in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), behind bars.

Thousands of Syrian refugees in Lebanon are urgently seeking temporary shelter similar to the camps set up in Turkey and Jordan, but with its troubled history of refugees, Beirut and the U.N. reject the idea.

"If no camp or emergency solution is provided, families will end up sleeping on the streets, or returning to Syria," said Ayman al-Hariri, a Syrian activist in Lebanon's northern province of Akkar, where tens of thousands of refugees are currently based.

Google celebrated the 69th anniversary of Independence Day of Lebanon on Thursday, with a homepage doodle featuring the temple of Jupiter in Baalbeck.

Lebanon celebrated Independence Day on November 22 marking 69 years of independence with an official ceremony staged in downtown Beirut.

The Lebanese army said it dismantled on Thursday another rocket in southern Lebanon after two similar rockets were fired towards Israel the day before but fell short.

The army command said in a communique that following the attack on Wednesday, the military and U.N. peacekeepers heavily patrolled the Marjayoun area where the rockets were launched from and found a new rocket on its launcher.

Four of the remaining nine Lebanese pilgrims, who were kidnapped in Syria in May, will be released by the end of November, media reports said on Thursday.

Al-Joumhouria newspaper said a mediator, identified as Abou Mohammed, hinted that one of the men will be released on Saturday.

Lebanon celebrated Independence Day on Thursday with several challenges facing the country, including fears that conflict in neighboring Syria would further heighten deep rivalries, and efforts to keep the southern border with Israel calm despite an Israeli offensive on Gaza that ended with a ceasefire on Wednesday.

The country marked 69 years of independence with an official ceremony staged in downtown Beirut.

Al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc MP Ahmed Fatfat lashed out at Speaker Nabih Berri, considering him the reason behind the country's political crisis.

“He (Berri) is the problem, especially regarding his provocative approach with us (the March 14 alliance) in the parliament,” Fatfat said in comments published in al-Liwaa newspaper.

Hizbullah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Wednesday that the Palestinian resistance's experience in the most recent conflict with Israel should be studied and evaluated for its “greatness”.

"The U.S., the West, Arabs and Muslims, Lebanese, Palestinians and Gaza should all learn lessons from this experience,” said Nasrallah in a speech he gave on the seventh day of Ashoura, adding that the fighters' performance has reinforced the strength and the power that will lead to “this nation's victory”.