Unidentified individuals on Friday deliberately set fire to used tires dumped in an area adjacent to the Bourj Hammoud landfill, causing an “environmental disaster” and sending plumes of smoke that filled the sky over Beirut and its suburbs.

According to MTV, the fire -- which was first reported as having taken place in Bourj Hammoud’s landfill – resulted from the burning of tires by “those who want to financially benefit from the copper (contained in tires), whose prices have soared lately.”

Pictures of a number of ministers and MPs have been posted along the walls of the Hamra area in Beirut, accusing them of “breaching public morality.”

Some posters also accused them of being “racist” and “sectarian.”

Prime Minister Najib Miqati stated on Thursday that Lebanon “cannot rise” without its local residents and expatriates, highlighting the Lebanese cabinet’s approval of a mechanism to allow expatriates to vote in the 2013 parliamentary elections.

He urged before Lebanese expatriates in Belgium “Lebanese all over the world to register at embassies and consulates in order to be able to vote in the elections.”

The head of the Tawhid movement Wiam Wahhab refused on Friday to accuse any side of being behind the bombing of his movement’s newly-established office in the early morning hours of Friday.

He said during a press conference: “Some sides are targeting me and Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat.”

An initiative launched by Speaker Nabih Berri on the adoption of proportional representation is likely to collapse after Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat reiterated that he rejects proportionality.

Berri’s initiative calls for the adoption of that type of representation by considering Lebanon a single district in the 2013 parliamentary elections.

The United States is intensifying its scrutiny of Lebanon's financial system over concerns that Syria, Iran and Hizbullah are using Lebanese banks to evade international sanctions and fund their activities, The Wall Street Journal reported.

“The Treasury Department and Drug Enforcement Administration are continuing an aggressive probe into an alleged Hizbullah-linked money-laundering operation,” the Journal quoted U.S. officials as saying.

Finance Minister Mohammed Safadi has appeased fears on the fate of salaries of civil servants, saying the employees in state institutions will receive their wages but all other spending would stop if the government doesn’t make additional appropriations.

In remarks to As Safir daily published Friday, Safadi said: “Pending the approval of the additional funds, all spending would stop except for the payment of salaries for employees, contractors and pensioners in the public sector.”

A deal struck with a Turkish company to provide power-generating vessels to Lebanon is under the threat of collapse over differences between members of a ministerial committee and the firm, As Safir daily reported Friday.

The negotiations with Karadeniz are ongoing but could lead to the end of the agreement that the ministerial committee led by Prime Minister Najib Miqati had struck with the firm, threatening the collapse of the entire process of leasing the vessels, As Safir quoted informed sources as saying.

President Michel Suleiman on Thursday stressed that “any solution must happen in coordination with Syria” instead of being imposed by outside forces, noting that Lebanon and Syria enjoy a state-to-state relation.

During talks with visiting Austrian President Heinz Fischer at the Baabda palace, Suleiman added: “We hope no foreign military intervention will occur in Syria.”

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat on Thursday firmly reiterated his rejection of an electoral law based on the proportional representation system.

“I don’t want any type of proportionality and that’s all,” Jumblat told al-Manar television, ahead of a meeting at his residence with Speaker Nabih Berri’s aide, Health Minister Ali Hassan Khalil, and Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s aide, Hussein Khalil.