A joint Australian-Lebanese commission has been set up to examine a controversial child abduction case in which several Australian nationals have been charged, Lebanon's Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil announced Wednesday.

Head of the Mustaqbal Movement MP Saad Hariri held talks on Wednesday with Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Awadh Asiri, who stressed the need for dialogue among the rival Lebanese factions.

He said: “We are counting on inter-Lebanese dialogue to reach constructive solutions given the difficult regional and international situation.”

The Finance Ministry said Wednesday that customs authorities at Beirut’s airport have thwarted one of the biggest drug smuggling operations in Lebanon after seizing 31 kilograms of cocaine.

The ministry said that customs officers found the cocaine hidden in the bags of a Lebanese man who had arrived to Rafik Hariri International Airport from Brazil via Abu Dhabi.

Lebanese newspapers published front-page appeals Wednesday for readers to "turn the page" on sectarian divisions that persist more than four decades after the outbreak of the country's civil war.

On April 13, 1975, clashes erupted in Beirut between Lebanese Christians and Palestinians, marking the beginning of the 15-year war that left more than 150,000 dead.

Back in Syria, the young women were told they would get well-paid jobs at restaurants and hotels in Lebanon. But when they arrived, their belongings and mobile phones were taken away, and the women were locked up in two hotels north of Beirut and forced into prostitution.

What followed was an ordeal of beatings, torture and abuse — until Lebanese security forces raided the hotels and dismantled the operation in late March.

Head of the joint Palestinian security force in Lebanon Munir al-Maqdah said on Wednesday that the assassination of Fathi Zaidan a day earlier aims to shake the city of Sidon's security and trigger conflict in the Mieh Mieh refugee camp.

“The assassination of Zaidan targets the safety of the (refugee) camps and the safety of the city of Sidon,” said al-Maqdah to the Voice of Lebanon radio (100.5).

A computer system malfunction at the Beirut Airport on Wednesday quickly restored normalcy without affecting the air traffic at the terminal.

The electronic system at the Rafik Hariri International Airport was down for almost twenty minutes before it restored normal functions without affecting the flights activity.

The Lebanese delegation to the Islamic conference taking place in Turkey this week is expected to confront attempts to label Hizbullah a terrorist group and recommendations to help Azerbaijan put the disputed Nagorny Karabakh region under its control.

The Lebanese delegation, led by Prime Minister Tammam Salam, will try to stop labeling Hizbullah a terrorist organization at the two-day Organization of Islamic Cooperation summit that takes place Thursday.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi is expected to discuss with the Ambassadors of the Gulf Cooperation Council the status of Lebanese expatriates in Gulf states, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Wednesday.

The newspaper quoted sources as saying that the Cardinal will invite the diplomats to Bkirki on Thursday as part of routine meetings that he holds with the representatives of regional and international powers.

Australian government was providing top-level consular support to an Australian television crew facing charges after being caught up in a mother's bungled child-snatching attempt in Lebanon, Australia's prime minister said on Wednesday.

An Australian mother, a four-member TV crew from Nine Network, two British agents from the Britain-based Child Abduction Recovery International company, known as CARI, and two Lebanese men have been in police custody since two Lebanese-Australian siblings Lahala, 6, and Noah, 4, were snatched from a South Beirut bus stop last week in a bid to smuggle them out of the country.