President Michel Suleiman has halted the decision to promote officers in all security institutions because of the objection over the promotion of the head of the Internal Security Forces Intelligence Bureau Wissam al-Hassan, reported the daily An Nahar on Saturday.

Prominent March 14 sources told the daily that Suleiman froze the promotions at the behest of Hizbullah and Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun over their opposition to Hassan’s promotion.

The residents of the town of Tarshish in the Zahleh region prevented on Friday members of Hizbullah from expanding the party’s telecommunications network in the area, reported the daily An Nahar on Saturday.

It explained that party members sought to expand the network as a team from the Telecommunications Ministry was installing fiber optic cables to improve internet services.

Hizbullah on Friday congratulated Libyan revolutionaries on the capture and death of Moammar Gadhafi a day earlier on the outskirts of his hometown Sirte.

"Hizbullah congratulates the people of Libya on turning the page on more than four decades of tyrannical rule," read a statement released by the group.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Friday voiced concerns over a possible Sunni-Alawite civil war in Syria that “might lead to displacing the Christians from the region, like in Iraq.”

At a press conference ahead of talks with U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon in New York, al-Rahi added: “We are not with the ruling regimes, we are with the reforms that are essential for the Arab peoples, but we are also with the democratic life.”

The head of the Loyalty to the Resistance bloc MP Mohammed Raad stated on Friday that the Resistance is keen on finding solutions to disputes in Lebanon through national dialogue, which it believes is the only way to end the current political divide in the country.

He said during a seminar from Moscow: “The Resistance is not deluded in believing that it can singlehandedly rule a country, even if it was in a position of power.”

The Secretary General of the Lebanese-Syrian Higher Council Nasri Khoury stressed on Friday the daily coordination between the Lebanese and Syrian armies, adding that they hold field meetings on a weekly basis to this end.

He said after holding talks with Prime Minister Najib Miqati: “The Syrian army did not infiltrate Lebanese territory as it had been claimed and the Lebanese army can vouch for this as it is responsible for controlling the situation on the border.”

Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun stressed on Friday that the cabinet is not one-sided but it contains parties that have different priorities.

Aoun lashed out at his critics who said that his ministers are moody, in a press conference before heading a meeting for the FPM bloc in Mar Elias Monastery in Baabda.

Relations between the French and Lebanese leaderships have been frozen over President Nicolas Sarkozy’s rejection to invite Premier Najib Miqati to Paris as long as his government hasn’t implement its international commitments yet, high-ranking sources in Paris said.

The sources told pan-Arab daily al-Hayat on Friday that Lebanon’s international commitments include the funding of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon that is set to try ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s suspected assassins.

Preparations underway for a possible visit by Pope Benedict XVI to Lebanon in 2012 in an attempt to preserve the Christians’ existence in the country and the East, As Safir newspaper reported on Friday.

“The Vatican and the Maronite Patriarchate have a priority at this stage to preserve the existence of Christians” in the East, church sources told the daily.

Public Works Minister Ghazi Aridi has criticized the Free Patriotic Movement for seeking to impose its point of view on the cabinet, warning that the government “isn’t in good shape.”

“We can’t spend our time discussing details,” the Progressive Socialist Party minister said about prolonged disputes on controversial issues. The government is holding sessions twice a week without being able to complete the discussion of its agenda, he added.