Spotlight
Saudi Arabia and Lebanon have agreed to hold talks on restoring a $3-billion military aid package that Riyadh froze last year, a Lebanese source told AFP on Tuesday.
"The blockage is lifted," said an official in the delegation of President Michel Aoun, who held talks in the Saudi capital with King Salman earlier in the day.

Lebanese citizen Ismail H., 37, was on Tuesday found dead from a gunshot wound to the head in the Wadi Hmeid region east of the Bekaa border town of Arsal, State-run National News agency reported.

UNIFIL Head of Mission and Force Commander Major General Michael Beary held talks Tuesday with Prime Minister Saad Hariri in Beirut, the U.N. force said in a statement.
“I was extremely encouraged by this first meeting with Prime Minister Hariri. I was pleased to have this opportunity just weeks after he assumed office to brief him on UNIFIL’s mission and related developments in south Lebanon,” Beary said after the meeting.
When Palestinian Fouad Abu Khaled fled Syria's war in 2013, he sought refuge among his own, looking for solidarity among Palestinian refugees based in Lebanon's Shatila camp.

The Obama administration said overnight Monday that it has added two senior members of Hizbullah to its “terrorism” sanctions list.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced Tuesday that the political forces in the country are seeking “consensus” over the electoral law, while noting that the concerns of minorities will be taken into consideration.

Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea emphasized on Tuesday that a parliamentary electoral law that does not meet the approval of the Progressive Socialist Party will not be accepted.
“We will not accept an electoral law that does not meet the approval of the PSP,” said Geagea in a tweet.

President Michel Aoun held on Tuesday the long anticipated meeting with Saudi King Salman bin Aziz in Riyadh, where talks focused on improving ties between the two countries.
An official welcoming ceremony was organized at al-Yamama Palace, greeting the President and the accompanying delegation.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat was up in arms recently protesting the cabinet's performance and what he believes is “marginalization” of the Druze community, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Tuesday.
The Druze leader's stance stance was evident in a series of tweets in which he protested, what sources close to him described as, “tendency to marginalize,” them.

A Western diplomat at the United Nations in New York stated that reports circulating in Lebanon recently on the possibility of extending the Lebanese army with weapons from Iran, are “inconsistent” with the decisions of the Security Council, the pan-Arab al-Hayat daily reported Tuesday.
The diplomat stressed that Iran cannot extend arms to any side unless the U.N. Security Council decides otherwise, added the daily.
