Former Premier Fouad Saniora has reiterated that Nasrallah had links to the four suspects indicted by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon and was contributing to their protection.

During a press conference he held in the southern city of Sidon on Saturday, the Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc leader said Hizbullah’s rejection to cooperate with the STL, which is probing ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s Feb. 2005 assassination, is “strange” and “illegal.”

Security forces were on Saturday searching for two Syrian nationals who were kidnapped by three armed men a day earlier after crossing the Syrian border into the Bekaa Valley.

The gunmen in a Hyundai four-wheeler with tinted glass windows intercepted a Jaguar in Bar Elias in the central Bekaa and kidnapped Mohammad Ayman Ammar, 49 and Nour Jamil Qadoura, 30.

Energy Minister Jebran Bassil has signed contracts with 40 people to assist him in the administration of his ministry, sidelining civil servants working in the institution, al-Liwaa daily reported Saturday.

The newspaper said that the 40 advisors have received large-scale authorities. They have assumed full control of all aspects of the ministry’s administration and limited the role of officials in several departments.

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah noted Friday that his party is “counting on the public opinion’s support for the Resistance” to overcome “the conspiracy of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon and its threat.”

“Day after day we are discovering how much the tribunal is politicized and why it was established … When I or some of my brothers (in Hizbullah) make explanations and clarifications (on the STL), we are not trying to convince the U.S. administration, (STL Prosecutor Danielle) Bellemare, (STL President Antonio) Cassese or some figure in Lebanon … we are rather trying to appeal to the public opinion,” said Nasrallah.

President Michel Suleiman said Friday that political stability backed by security stability contributes to a large extent to economic growth in the country.

In a statement issued by his press office, Suleiman expressed his confidence in the ability of the Lebanese economy to rise and adjust to the developments due to the investments that Lebanese expatriates make in the country.

Occupants of two vehicles robbed $254,000 and 60,000 euros from two men in Beirut’s southern suburbs as they were transporting the money in their car, the National News Agency reported Friday.

NNA said that Hussein Mohammed Srour and Ali Mustafa Srour filed a complaint to police claiming that two vehicles with tinted windows – a Murano and a BMW X5 without license plates – intercepted them at around 2:00 am in Haret Hreik and snatched from their car a red bag that contained the money.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati will probably meet with Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz during his visit to the country to perform the Omra.

Sources told al-Liwaa newspaper on Friday that the Lebanese officials are observing how the official Saudi reception of the PM will be.

The Progressive Socialist Party will not become a follower and refuses to allow Energy Minister Jebran Bassil to spend $1.2 billion to build power plants without the control of a technical committee, PSP sources said.

The sources of PSP leader Walid Jumblat told the Saudi al-Riyadh daily in remarks published Friday that all it is asking from Bassil is to form a committee to supervise under the leadership of the minister the spending of the money.

A Trans Mediterranean Airlines plane carrying 35 tons of food and medical aid headed to the Somali capital of Mogadishu to help the country’s famine victims, the National News Agency reported Friday.

NNA said the TMA flight took off from Rafik Hariri international airport at 7:00 am. The plane is carrying 33 tons of food and 2 tons of medicine and medical equipment.

Special Tribunal for Lebanon Registrar Herman von Hebel stressed on Friday that the trials in the case of the assassination of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri will begin in mid-2012 whether they were in the presence of the suspects or in absentia, As Safir newspaper reported.

“The final decision in setting the timing goes back to the judges,” Von Hebel said.