MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia will reject a call by the United States for international mediators to take a bigger role in defusing a row with Georgia, Interfax news agency quoted a Russian diplomatic source as saying on Friday.

PARIS (Reuters) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Lebanese counterpart Michel Suleiman will meet in Paris on Saturday ahead of a summit of EU and Mediterranean leaders, the French president’s office said on Friday.

(Reuters) – Lebanese leaders agreed on a unity government on Friday that gave Hezbollah and its allies a blocking minority as agreed under a deal that ended a paralyzing political conflict in the country. Here is a chronology of Lebanon in the last 20 months.