The parliament ended on Wednesday a prolonged debate on the transportation allowance by approving a draft-law based on the two proposals made by MPs Ibrahim Kanaan and Nabil de Freij.

The two lawmakers proposed separate draft-laws set to legalize the transportation allowance.

A parliamentary approval to reduce the prison year to nine months on Wednesday was accompanied by protests by inmates in Roumieh prison, who held 17 Internal Security Forces members hostage.

The controversial issue of reducing the prison year to nine months was submitted to voting and 51 lawmakers approved the decision.

Audit Bureau chief Judge Aouni Ramadan said the paperwork of the funding for the Higher Relief Council would be approved on Wednesday after Social Affairs Minister Wael Abu Faour warned that the body would stop helping Syrians displaced by their country’s unrest on Thursday.

The announcement of the approval of the $2 million funds will be made at 10:00 am Wednesday, Ramadan told An Nahar daily.

The cabinet is set to tackle during its session at the Grand Serail on Wednesday the right of the Lebanese mother, who is married to a foreigner, to give the citizenship to her children.

According to As Safir newspaper, the cabinet will discuss the possibility of amending the fourth article of the citizenship law that was issued in 1925 in a way that would allow the Lebanese woman to pass her citizenship to her kids.

A bomb was found near the home of Palestinian Armed Struggle chief Mahmoud Issa, who goes by the nom de guerre of al-Lino, at the refugee camp of Ain el-Hilweh, the National News Agency reported Wednesday.

NNA said that TNT explosives attached to three grenades were found at 6:30 am inside a bucket of paint near the house of al-Lino, whose group is dominated by Fatah.

A Lebanese man arrested two months ago in Thailand on Wednesday pleaded not guilty to charges of breaking weapons control laws, his lawyer said.

Atris Hussein was arrested in Bangkok in January and police later found a large amount of chemicals that can be used to make a bomb at an address he rented.

The cabinet is expected on Wednesday to tackle the appointment of the six members of the authority tasked with administrating the oil sector, An Nahar newspaper reported.

“It is unacceptable to waste our oil and gas natural resources while Israel is exerting efforts to benefit from it… If the cabinet remained at a standstill I will then take the necessary measure,” Speaker Nabih Berri told the daily.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati lashed out at Energy Minister Jebran Bassil concerning the leasing of the power-generating vessels, wondering how Bassil didn’t “understand what the premier wants.”

“They usually read behind the lines. How didn’t they understand something that is really clear,” Miqati told An Nahar newspaper on Wednesday about the Free Patriotic Movement or the Change and Reform bloc of MP Michel Aoun.

U.S. Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen said he warned Lebanese officials against allowing Syria or Iran to use their country to evade international sanctions.

In remarks published in An Nahar daily on Wednesday, Cohen said the essential message that he delivered to the officials is that they should take the utmost precaution and be sure that Lebanon would not slide towards permitting Syria or Iran to use it in an attempt to evade the sanctions.

Lebanon has a moral obligation to support the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and should use upcoming elections to "reject the apologists of Assad's butchery," Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman has said.

In strongly worded remarks, Feltman paid tribute to the Lebanese who took to the streets after ex-prime minister Rafik Hariri's assassination in 2005.