Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel on Monday said the remarks voiced by Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi in his Christmas sermon were “in line with the principles Bkirki has endorsed since the year 2000 concerning the need to accomplish national sovereignty.”

Sovereignty “can only be achieved if power is in the hand of the state,” Gemayel said in an interview on MTV.

Heavy gunfire killed more than 30 people in Syria's besieged city of Homs on Monday as newly arriving Arab League observers were urged to head immediately to one of the country's most serious hot spots.

Media reports said an initial group of 50 observers arrived in Syria Monday evening to oversee a deal aimed at ending a bloody crackdown on anti-regime dissent, while other reports said the monitors' arrival was yet to be confirmed.

The Arab League must bring the U.N. into the effort to stop Syria's bloody crackdown on protesters, the top opposition leader said Sunday, as security forces pressed ahead with raids and arrests around the country.

Burhan Ghalioun, the Paris-based leader of the Syrian National Council, made the plea as Arab League officials were setting up observer teams, part of their plan to end nine months of turmoil that has killed more than 5,000 people, according to the U.N.

At least 25 people were killed on Saturday several Syrian cities where the protests against President Bashar Assad's regime erupted in March, a rights group said.

Local Coordination Committees said that Syrian security forces shot dead 25 civilians in Homs, Daraa, Aleppo, Reef Damascus, and Idlib.

Syrian security forces on Friday killed at least 14 civilians, a human rights group said, as protesters took to the streets across the country under the slogan "Protocol of death, a license to kill," in reference to the protocol recently signed between Syria and the Arab League on sending observers to the country.

Three people were killed in Daraa province, south of the capital, cradle of the protest movement against President Bashar al-Assad's regime, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement received by Agence France Presse.

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri noted on Friday that some members of the Lebanese government are seeking to drag Lebanon onto a path of terrorism through covering up the Syrian regime’s crimes.

He made his statements in light of the twin bomb attacks that took place in Damascus earlier on Friday and the Syrian Foreign Ministry’s statements that Lebanon had warned earlier this week that members of al-Qaida had infiltrated the country.

Former PM Saad Hariri said Thursday that the wage hike decision made by the government is “shameful and a political bill that the Lebanese will pay from their economic future and their livelihood.”

On Wednesday, the Free Patriotic Movement, Hizbullah and Amal dealt a blow to Miqati after they voted in favor of a wage boost decree proposed by Nahhas hours after the Economic Committees and the General Labor Confederation agreed with minor changes on a previous proposal made by the PM.

The Lebanese Army Intelligence Thursday arrested a man (M. D.) on suspicion of launching the latest rockets from the South.

According to Al-Manar television “this arrest was made on the international road in Shtoura after the suspect was being followed by the army.”

More than 2,000 members of Syria's security forces have been killed in nine months since anti-regime protests broke out, state news agency SANA said on Thursday.

"In response to a fallacious U.N. report on the situation in Syria, we have informed the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights that the number of martyrs has surpassed 2,000 members of the security forces and the army," according to a letter SANA says was sent.

The Economic Committees condemned on Thursday the government’s approval of Labor Minister Charbel Nahhas’ proposals over the wage hike in Lebanon, deeming it “a major blow to the economy.”

The head of the authorities Adnan Kassar said: “We hope the Shura Council will reject the decision.”