Syria slammed United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s recent report on the implementation of U.N. Security Council resolution 1559, saying that it has not meddled in Lebanese affairs or infiltrated Lebanese territory, reported the daily An Nahar on Friday.

Syria’s permanent ambassador to the U.N. Bashar al-Jaafari informed Ban in a letter: “The majority of the information on Syria mentioned in the report is based on misleading and fabricated media sources.”

Envoys of the Middle East Quartet are to hold separate talks on Wednesday with Palestinian and Israeli negotiators in a bid to find a way to bring the two sides back to the negotiating table.

But the chances a breakthrough in the deadlock which has gripped the negotiations for more than a year look extremely remote with both sides taking very different positions on the conditions for restarting talks.

The Syrian government has detained more than 30,000 people since launching a deadly crackdown on opposition protests in March, a leading Syrian rights activist said Monday.

President Bashar Assad's government has turned all the country's main football stadiums into prisons, Radwan Ziadeh, co-founder of the Damascus Center for Human Rights and scholar at George Washington University in Washington, told a press conference at the U.N. headquarters.

A High-ranking Lebanese official attempted to extend the timeframe of the funding of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon probing the assassination of ex-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, whereby the cabinet has until the end of November to pay its dues.

United Nations sources told the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat on Tuesday that the official attempted to extend the timeframe until Hizbullah and its allies agree on the funding, but the STL didn’t approve the request.

Yemeni tribes backing a nine-month protest movement against President Ali Abdullah Saleh clashed with his loyalists on Monday in Sanaa, witnesses said, after weekend gun fights left more than 20 dead.

The firefight in north Sanaa began after midnight and continued into the morning in al-Hassaba neighborhood, the base of tribesmen led by Sheikh Sadeq al-Ahmar, a fierce foe of Saleh, residents said.

Libya's former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi, wanted by the International Criminal Court, has been spotted in northern Niger, a government source in the capital Niamey said Saturday.

"The presence of Abdullah al Senussi has been indicated in the far north of Niger" near the border with Libya, the source told AFP.

Fierce clashes erupted in the Yemeni capital between troops loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh and rival forces on Saturday, a day after the U.N. urged the embattled leader to hand over power.

Witnesses and AFP correspondents in Sanaa said explosions were heard throughout Sanaa from early hours and massive plumes of smoke and fire seen rising from several neighborhoods where opposition forces are stationed.

The U.N. Security Council will vote Friday on a resolution calling on Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh to immediately stand down and condemning the killings blamed on his government.

The proposed resolution, which has the backing of all five permanent members of the Security Council, "strongly condemns" government violence against demonstrators and backs a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) peace plan under which Saleh must hand over power.

The Yemeni opposition called on the United Nations on Thursday to force President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down unconditionally, rejecting his request for international guarantees.

The opposition Common Forum dismissed as a sham Saleh's announcement on Wednesday that he was ready to sign a Gulf-brokered deal for him to quit office in return for a promise of immunity from prosecution if it was backed up by European and U.S. guarantees.

Russian ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Zasypkin stressed on Thursday that his country’s stance on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon probing the assassination of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri “hasn’t changed.”

“We participated in funding it, but we are against politicizing (the tribunal),” he told An Nahar newspaper.