Unknown assailants kidnapped on Wednesday Dr. Mona Kanj from her house in the Chouf village of Meshref, media reports said.

According to Voice of Lebanon radio (100.5), three gunmen broke into the house of Ali Sharafeddine, Kanj's husband, and forced him along with his wife and their building janitor to head to the town of Bchamoun.

Israeli troops on Wednesday crossed the barbed wire in al-Wazzani hills and entered into an area that the Lebanese Army has expressed reservations over, the National News Agency reported.

NNA said the 11-member Israeli unit crossed the technical fence and marched 10 to 15 meters into the disputed area at around 8:00 am.

The Syndicate Coordination Committee staged on Wednesday sit-ins for the second day in a row to protest the cabinet's failure to refer the new wage scale for public employees to the parliament.

Protesters gathered near the Value Added Tax headquarters in Beirut, holding banners demanding the government to meet its demands.

The ambassadors of major powers stressed to Prime Minister Najib Miqati the importance of swiftly resolving the political crisis in Lebanon, al-Joumhouria newspaper reported on Wednesday.

According to the newspaper, the ambassadors reiterated to Miqati before his visit to France the importance of “pressing forward the cabinet change.”

A Progressive Socialist Party delegation held talks on Wednesday with Hizbullah deputy chief Sheikh Naim Qassem as part of an initiative to achieve a breakthrough in the lingering political crisis in the country.

“We agreed on the importance of the resumption of dialogue among the political powers to reach common grounds,” Transportation and Public Works Minister Ghazi Aridi told reporters.

Speaker Nabih Berri said Wednesday that parliament is an authority by itself and can decide on the extension of its term if the need arises the same way the president has the right to use his authorities.

Berri made the remark to As Safir newspaper, a day after President Michel Suleiman said he would not sign any decree that calls for the extension of parliament's mandate unless a new draft-law is being prepared.

President Michel Suleiman postponed a national dialogue session that was set to be held on Thursday to January 2013 after the March 14 alliance most likely informed him of the opposition's final stance on boycotting the all-party talks.

The new date for the session was set for January 7, said a Baabda palace statement.

Defense lawyers at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon expressed their concerns on Tuesday over the high number of witnesses to testify in next March's trials, requesting data and documents “to understand the grounds on which the court is basing its judgments”.

“We were not informed by the Prosecutor when and why the suspects became part if these investigations,” said one of the suspects' lawyers during a status conference at the Tribunal's headquarter in the Hague.

Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rahi said on Tuesday that he prefers that the 2013 parliamentary elections be held on time, even if no agreement was reached on a new electoral law.

“If they can't agree on a new electoral law, the 1960 law is still in place,” said al-Rahi upon his arrival to Rafik Hariri International Airport from the Vatican.

Dozens of protesters gathered on Tuesday outside the French embassy in Beirut demanding the release of militant Georges Ibrahim Abdallah who has spent 28 years in French jails.

The demonstration was held after French prosecutors appealed a Paris court's decision to grant parole to the pro-Palestinian militant, effectively keeping the 61-year-old behind bars.