The Council of Maronite Bishops announced on Wednesday that the Synod of Maronite bishops will meet starting March 9 at 6:00 pm to elect a new patriarch.

Last week, Pope Benedict XVI accepted the resignation of Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir who is holding the post since 1986. The 90-year-old cardinal cited his old age in comments to the Lebanese media when he handed in his resignation.

Four caretaker ministers have turned down requests from the Special Tribunal for Lebanon prosecutor to provide information and documents, in breach of the cooperation protocol signed with the U.N., sources close to the STL told the English-language The Daily Star.

The requests made by Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare were sent last month from his office in Beirut to caretaker Premier Saad Hariri, who passed them on to Ministers Ghazi Aridi, Jebran Bassil, Ziad Baroud and Charbel Nahhas on February 24, the newspaper said Tuesday.

The crumbling of Moammar Gadhafi's regime could shed light on one of the most enduring mysteries in Lebanon: the fate of Moussa al-Sadr, a popular Shiite cleric who vanished 33 years ago during a trip to Libya.

Since the uprising began, members of Libya's opposition have broken a three-decade silence on the issue, with some saying the 82-year-old cleric is languishing in a Libyan prison.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that Syria’s relations with Iran and Hizbullah are not in the interest of Damascus in the long-run.

That’s why Washington sent a new ambassador to Damascus, Clinton said during a testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

A cabinet formula was proposed by Premier-designate Najib Miqati during a meeting between Caretaker Energy Minister Jebran Bassil and the advisors of Speaker Nabih Berri and Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, An Nahar daily said Wednesday.

The newspaper said the proposed 30 seats in the new cabinet are divided as follows:

The Lebanese-Canadian Bank will be sold soon following U.S. accusations that LCB was laundering hundreds of millions of dollars in drug profits for a cocaine smuggling organization with ties to Hizbullah, An Nahar daily reported Wednesday.

The newspaper said that the Central Bank’s assurance of finding a solution to the crisis will be interpreted in the sale of the bank for 500-600 million dollars.

House Speaker Nabih Berri stated on Wednesday that there are no problems in the government formation process.

He said after his weekly meeting with President Michel Suleiman: “The problem lies in the media, but this does not mean that there are no obstacles and I believe that Prime Minister-designate still has time to tackle these hardships.”

The Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc on Tuesday stressed that Hizbullah’s arsenal of weapons “has proved, on more than one occasion, to be illegitimate and pointed at the chests of the Lebanese.”

In a statement issued after its weekly meeting in Qureitem under ex-PM Fouad Saniora, the bloc added that the Shiite party’s arms have become a means to “influence citizens’ political opinions.”

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun stated on Tuesday that the constitution does not grant the president a certain stake in the distribution of government portfolios.

He said after the movement’s weekly meeting: “When the president takes sides in a dispute, then he no longer retains the characteristics of the president as stipulated in the constitution.”

Hizbullah sources refused on Tuesday to comment on Caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s statements on Monday on the party’s possession of arms.

“Hariri’s statements are completely rejected because they are based on discrepancies aimed at misleading the public,” they told Akhbar al-Yawm news agency.