Several Ministers and the Economic Committees launched on Wednesday a training center to train workers on food safety measures during a conference at the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture in Beirut's Hamra area.

Industry Minister Hussein Hajj Hassan stressed during the conference that his ministry will oblige all factories to register their workers in free obligatory courses related to the food safety process.

Syria has freed after 21 years in jail an ex-horse rider known to have been an equestrian rival of one of President Bashar Assad's late brothers, reports said Sunday.

The release of Adnan Qassar is part of a wide-reaching amnesty that Assad decreed last week, and has seen some 1,500 people freed from the war-ravaged country's prisons, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The second Saudi deputy Prime Minister Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz al-Saud announced on Sunday that Saudi Arabia is keen on the presence of Lebanese citizens on its territories, denying claims that it intends to withdraw deposits from Lebanon's banks.

“KSA is keen on maintaining the best relations with Lebanon,” Prince Muqrem said after meeting with a delegation of heads of the country's economic committees in Riyadh, adding that Lebanese presence on its territories is appreciated by everyone in the kingdom, on top of them is King Abdullah.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati admitted on Thursday that the security forces had adopted a lax approach in controlling the situation on the ground on Lebanon.

He said: “We had presented ample time for a calm and positive approach in this matter, but everything has a limit.”

Speaker Nabih Berri has told his visitors that he is keen on solving the issue of false witnesses either through consensus or voting, the National News Agency reported.

Among Berri’s visitors on Friday, was State Minister Adnan Qassar who said he discussed with the speaker false witnesses and the international tribunal.