President Michel Suleiman is scheduled on Friday to visit the Shouf Cedar nature reserve and later make a family visit to Mukhtara and stay for dinner at Druze leader Walid Jumblat's residence.

Jumblat, in return, would visit Suleiman at this summer presidential palace in Beiteddine on Saturday. An Nahar daily said that the Progressive Socialist Party leader asked current and former MPs in the Mountains to accompany him.

Sources close to Prime Minister Saad Hariri have denied media reports that the Mustaqbal movement leader would visit Damascus on Monday and meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad during an Iftar.

The sources told al-Liwaa newspaper in remarks published Friday that Hariri's visit to Damascus would take place soon but no date has been set yet for the trip.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy reiterated support for Lebanon's independence and sovereignty and said it was "unacceptable for Lebanon to drown again in the cycle of violence."

In his opening of the 18th conference of French ambassadors at the Elysee palace on Wednesday, Sarkozy also reiterated support for President Michel Suleiman and Premier Saad Hariri.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat noted Thursday that, regardless if the Borj Abi Haidar clash was an individual incident or not, "the state remains the final shelter for protecting national unity and the Resistance … based on the equation of the people, army, and Resistance."

He said in a statement a commitment should be made towards this equation as a general principle, "which means carrying out a serious investigation in the recent unrest on the basis of affirming peace and stability and preventing security disorder."

Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Thursday inspected the neighborhoods that witnessed clashes between Hizbullah and al-Ahbash gunmen in Borj Abi Haidar, Mazraa and Basta.

Hariri was accompanied by Secretary-General of the Higher Defense Council Brig. Gen. Adnan Merheb.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea said on Wednesday that authorities would be giving up their role for armed parties if they don't arrest the suspects involved in clashes between Hizbullah and al-Ahbash earlier in the week.

"Judicial and security authorities should take necessary measures to arrest the gunmen who took part in the incidents no matter to which side they belong to," Geagea said. "Or else these authorities would be giving up their role for armed groups that appeared on Beirut streets."

President Michel Suleiman and Interior Minister Ziad Baroud held talks on Thursday on the progress of the investigation in the recent clashes at Borj Abi Haidar and the Interior Ministry's measures to prevent similar incidents from erupting once again.

The President also held separate talks with Minister of State Adnan al-Kassar on local political and economic developments and later with former MPs Mosbah al-Ahdab and Farid al-Khazen on current internal affairs.

North Korea has opened an account with the global video-sharing website YouTube, uploading clips praising the isolated communist state and denying allegations that it sank a South Korean warship.

Eleven clips were found Tuesday under the name of uriminzokkiri, a North Korean government website.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat wondered on Monday "what would be wrong in political powers reviewing their rhetoric, experiences, and positions during a certain period?"

He urged in his weekly editorial in the PSP-affiliated Anbaa magazine political powers to "exercise some humility so this necessary revision would take place to organize the political and national life."

Houthi rebels took control of a strategic army post in north Yemen on Monday and captured some 70 soldiers, in the latest clash to endanger an increasingly fragile truce, army and tribal sources said.

"Houthi (rebels) took control of a military position in al-Zaala and captured all remaining soldiers," a tribal source told Agence France Presse. "Violent clashes erupted since the early morning hours."