Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun renewed on Tuesday his rejection of the funding of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, slamming any potential United Nations Security Council sanctions against Lebanon should it fail to fund it.

He said after the Change and Reform bloc’s weekly meeting: “Any sanctions against Lebanon over this matter are tantamount to a military invasion.”

Syrian security forces shot dead four soldiers trying to desert on Monday, as troops deployed in several villages and China voiced concern over events in Syria.

"Four soldiers in Maar Shamsa in (northwestern) Idlib were shot dead while trying to flee the Wadi Deif military camp," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, reporting gunfire, arrests and murders over the weekend and on Monday across the country.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe accused the Syrian regime Monday of "crimes against humanity" and slammed the U.N. Security Council for failing to take a strong stand on the unrest.

"Crimes against humanity are committed in Syria. The silence of the Security Council is unacceptable," Juppe told the Council on Foreign Relations, at a talk held on the sidelines of a week of U.N. summits.

The international Red Cross on Friday condemned attacks on medical services in Syria, saying that relief workers and ambulances have come under fire on several occasions in the country.

"It is completely unacceptable that volunteers who are helping to save other people's lives end up losing their own," said Beatrice Megevand-Roggo, the International Committee of the Red Cross' head of operations for the Near and Middle East.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, flanked by British Prime Minister David Cameron, dedicated Thursday the two leaders’ landmark visit to post-Gadhafi Libya to all those who want a “free Syria.”

The French president said toppled Libyan despot Moammar Gadhafi remained a "danger" and that there was a "job to finish" in eliminating the remaining strongholds of his forces.

Russia warned on Wednesday that "terrorist organizations" may arise in Syria should President Bashar al-Assad's regime fall under pressure from ongoing street protests.

"If the Syrian government is unable to hold on to power, there is a high probability that radicals and representatives of terrorist organizations will become entrenched," Interfax quoted a top foreign ministry official as saying.

The Gulf Cooperation Council on Sunday urged Syria to immediately stop its "killing machine" against anti-regime protesters, and reiterated its demand for serious reforms.

Ending a meeting in Jeddah, the six GCC foreign ministers issued a statement calling for "an immediate end to the killing machine" in Syria.

Syrian troops killed seven people on Friday as protests broke out across the country urging international protection from a deadly government crackdown on dissent, the Syrian Revolution General Commission said.

Opposition-affiliated Flash News Network identified the seven victims as Hassan al-Bakkour (Jabal al-Zawiyah), Mohammed Dakkak (Damascus), Abdul Razzaq al-Masri (Homs), Khaled Kharma (Homs), Ahmed al-Intabli (Homs), Ziad al-Hafian (Homs) and Ali al-Fayyad (Deir al-Zour).

The BRICS group of emerging powers are determined not to allow a Libyan-style solution to the crisis in Syria, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Sunday.

"If it's up to the BRICS, the Libyan scenario won't be repeated," Russian news agencies quoted Lavrov as saying in a joint press conference with his Brazilian counterpart Antonio Patriota.

The European Union reached an agreement in principle Monday to ban oil imports from Syria to punish the regime for its violent crackdown on protesters, diplomats said.

"There is a political consensus on a European embargo of imports of Syrian petroleum products," a diplomat told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity.