By Lin Noueihed, BEIRUT, March 12 (Reuters) - Lebanese leaders will resume on Monday talks aimed at ending a deep political crisis, but sharp differences remain over the two key issues: disarming Hizbollah and the fate of the Lebanese president. The "national dialogue" conference, the first top-level political gathering since Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war, was adjourned abruptly on Tuesday after a row erupted over fiery comments made by an anti-Syrian leader on a visit to Washington.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who had called the talks, said they would resume on March 13 instead of continuing until Thursday, but the breathing space does not appear to have brought rival politicians much closer to consensus. "The conference may come up with resolutions on some issues such as Palestinian arms and the status of the Shebaa Farms but there are difficulties reaching agreement over the two key issues," said a Lebanese political source close to the talks.

By CNN’s Hala Gorani, Here in Beirut, apart from a pristine rebuilt center, bullet-riddled buildings and half-destroyed structures are still commonplace."Sometimes, it’s …

By Evelyn Leopold UNITED NATIONS, March 9 (Reuters) - Lebanon and the United Nations are close to completing plans for a tribunal to prosecute suspects in the 2005 murder of former prime minister Rafik Hariri and others, a Lebanese official said on Thursday.

The court was set to be located outside Lebanon and headed by a non-Lebanese judge, but would still have "a significant Lebanese presence," Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh told a news conference. Hamadeh spoke to U.N. officials on a trip to New York and Washington with Druze opposition leader Walid Jumblatt. Hamadeh narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in a car bombing in October 2004 and is the uncle of Gibran Tueni, an anti-Syrian journalist murdered by a bomb in December.

By Omar Halabi BEIRUT, March 9 (KUNA) -- Lebanese President Emile Lahoud considers planned resumption of the National Dialogue Conference on Monday as of paramount necessity and cautions that its deadlock may negatively affect general conditions in the country, sources close to the president said on Thursday.

The sources told KUNA that the president "believes that its is quite normal for the conference to last a long time for further consultations for reaching a speedy settlement may not constitute a viable understanding." Top leaders of the country's diverse political trends plan to resume talks at the Parliament Building in downtown Beirut on Monday, following a series of sessions to discuss prospect of reaching consensus on some of the top controversial issues, such as the arms of the Lebanese resistance and the Palestinian fighters as well as status of the frontier Shebaa farms.