The European Union announced on Friday an additional €17 million assistance to help Lebanon confront the Syrian refugee crisis, amid growing concerns over the worsening humanitarian situation.

“This additional aid will enable the Lebanese secondary health service to treat more refugees. The high cost of health services in Lebanon, which are largely privatized, has made it difficult for refugees to seek the treatment they need,” the EU delegation in Beirut said in a press release.

Environment Minister Mohammed al-Mashnouq revealed on Friday that a number of tenders have been made by companies to handle Lebanon's waste disposal crisis.

He declared during a press conference: “We will announce our decision over which company will tackle the disposal in the upcoming days.”

The State Commissioner to the Military Court charged on Friday scores of prisoners and guards in two riots carried out by inmates in Roumieh in June.

Judge Saqr Saqr charged 56 prisoners with forming a gang in one of the prison's blocks, smuggling mobile phones and drug trafficking.

The General Security Department said Friday that its officers have arrested a Lebanese and a Syrian suspected of belonging to terrorist groups.

General Security has apprehended a Lebanese who belongs to the groups of terrorists Osama Mansour and Shadi al-Mawlawi, said a communique.

The Lebanese army said Friday that it arrested in the eastern district of Baalbek a Lebanese man wanted on kidnapping and terrorism charges as troops searched for an abducted university student.

Farhat Ali Farhan Ismail, who was arrested in the town of Brital, has been involved in the detention of several people last year and has participated in terrorist activities, robberies and shootings, said an army communique.

Confronted with a combustible waste crisis that mainly affected Beirut and Mount Lebanon, AUB faculty members took the lead by forming a taskforce whose aim is to share scientific knowledge among municipalities and NGOs in the hopes that they would be empowered to find optimal solutions to the ongoing crisis.

In response to a call launched last week by Dr. Najat Saliba, chemistry professor, AUB professors from all faculties quickly mobilized and met on a regular basis, creating working groups that could address the problem, from its public health, environmental health, and waste management aspects.

Several top diplomats have advised Lebanese officials to avoid moves that would hit the country's stability over a dispute on the appointment of top military and security officials, local newspapers reported on Friday.

Al-Joumhouria daily said that the diplomats, mainly U.S. Ambassador David Hale and Russia's Ambassador Alexander Zasypkin, delivered messages to several Lebanese officials on “the importance of respecting the current stability and not to involve the country in any adventure whose repercussions are not known.”

The Free Patriotic Movement of MP Michel Aoun was on Friday holding intense consultations to come up with a strategy to confront a decision by Defense Minister Samir Moqbel to extend the terms of top military officials.

Aoun's Change and Reform bloc is expected to announce its official stance following an extraordinary meeting in Rabieh on Saturday.

The young man cowered behind a barrel on the barely lit stage, as his companion pointed a fake weapon towards a roaring audience in a Beirut theater.

The amateur actors were re-enacting a familiar scene from their native Tripoli, one of Lebanon's most volatile cities.

Hizbullah's Loyalty to Resistance parliamentary bloc noted Thursday that “the current priority is for ending the presidential vacuum,” as it called on al-Mustaqbal movement to “facilitate the proposed solutions.”

“The current priority is for ending the presidential vacuum and we support any initiative aimed at reviving the parliament's legislative role,” said the bloc in a statement issued after its weekly meeting.