Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn on Tuesday said the army has “clear information” about the presence of al-Qaida members in the Bekaa border town of Arsal, noting that “the army raided Arsal in search of Hamza Qarqouz,” who is believed to be an al-Qaida militant who had fled from Syria to Lebanon.

In an interview on OTV, Ghosn added: “It is our duty as politicians and officials to announce that there is an infiltration by some extremists, including al-Qaida members, through the borders, and it is our duty not to conceal things.”

Energy and Water Minister Jebran Bassil on Tuesday said he visited Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi in Bkirki to “inform him of the deliberate obstruction” of the plans proposed by the ministers of the Free Patriotic Movement in cabinet.

“The seat of the patriarchate is the place that gathers everyone and preserves the principles, that’s why we have to inform His Eminence of all the vital information and the fears and concerns we live daily with as ministers, whether concerning the administration or the appointments,” Bassil told reporters after the meeting.

Israel is considering walling off part of its border with Lebanon, fearing sniper fire at newly-built apartment blocks in the frontier town of Metulla, Israeli military sources said on Tuesday.

They said Israel was liaising with Lebanese and U.N. officials with a view to erecting an anti-sniper wall along a kilometer-long section of the frontier between Metulla and Kfarkila, a Lebanese village which at one point had a high-rise casino adjacent to the existing border fence.

The Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc renewed on Tuesday its support for the wage hike deal that was reached between the General Labor Confederation and the Economic Committees.

It warned in a statement after its weekly meeting “the government against taking financial and economic adventures that would negatively affect Lebanon.”

Change and Reform bloc MP Michel al-Helou revealed on Tuesday that the bloc has decided to form a committee to study the Shura Council’s rejection of the government’s wage hike decree.

He said after the bloc’s weekly meeting: “Our initial assessment has determined that the Shura Council’s decision has legal flaws.”

The Free Patriotic Movement on Tuesday slammed “what Premier Najib Miqati has been saying about an infringement of the premiership’s powers,” stressing that the prime minister has been “acting in excess of his jurisdiction and in fact infringing on the powers of others.”

“Every now and then, Prime Minister Najib Miqati voices stances in the media that carry a lot of fallacies and overbidding, through which he attacks who he claims are parties ‘infringing on the powers’ of the premiership, which represents an infringement of the Sunni sect’s rights -- as he claims,” the FPM’s press office said in a statement.

Lebanon will host this month a U.N. conference on democracy in the Arab world, with a slew of high-level dignitaries, including U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon, due to attend, organizers and Lebanese officials said Tuesday.

The two-day conference entitled "Reform and Transitions to Democracy" will be held January 15 and 16. It is organized by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA).

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat stated on Tuesday that history has proven that popular movements cannot slow down, but they only gain momentum.

He said citing late Czechoslovakian President Vaclav Havel: “If only Russia and Iran would consider the ‘power of the powerless’ in their approach towards the Syrian crisis.”

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon will visit Lebanon next week to meet with officials as well as members of the U.N. peacekeeping force deployed in the south of the country, a government official told Agence France Presse.

The official said Ban's three-day trip would start on January 13.

The Shura Council rejected on Tuesday the last cabinet decision on the wage hike after holding a meeting with Labor Minister Charbel Nahhas, who had proposed the salary boost.

The meeting was held between Nahhas and members of the Council, including its head Judge Shukri Sader.