The country's political parties agreed during a national dialogue session on Tuesday to “activate the work of state institutions, especially the cabinet,” as reports said that they also decided to export the accumulating garbage as a solution to the waste disposal crisis.
“The conferees stressed the need to activate the work of state institutions, especially the cabinet, in order to address the pressing issues,” said an official statement issued after the talks in Ain al-Tineh.

The army arrested several Syrian nationals in raids on the border town of Wadi Khaled and the northern district of Minieh, the state-run National News Agency reported on Tuesday.
The army carried out raids on the Bqayaa neighborhood in Wadi Khaled and some residential compounds of Syrians where it arrested several, NNA added.

Speaker Nabih Berri has called on the Parliament Bureau on Wednesday to form the committee charged with drafting a new electoral law within a two-month period, the March 14 alliance was informed according to al Joumhouria daily on Tuesday.
The committee will be charged with drafting the law and to find common factors within the existing laws within a two-month period.

Commander of the U.S. Air Forces Central Command, Lieutenant General Charles Brown, arrived in Lebanon on Monday for talks with officials on means to combat terrorism, reported al-Joumhouria newspaper on Tuesday.
Discussions will focus on coordinating efforts to confront terrorism and to properly equip the army, through weapons and the necessary training.

Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil is scheduled to travel to Russia later on Tuesday on an official two-day visit, reported An Nahar daily.
He is set to hold talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on combating terrorism, as well as the resolving presidential deadlock in Lebanon, revealed a diplomatic source to the daily.

Al-Qaida's Syria branch al-Nusra Front has demanded control over two regime-held Syrian towns near Lebanon and the release of five women from Lebanese jails in return for freeing the captive Lebanese servicemen, a spokesman for the hostages' families said on Monday.
“Al-Nusra's emir in Syria's Qalamoun, Abou Malek al-Talli, has sent a new demand with the families who visit their sons every now and then in the vicinity of (the Lebanese border town of) Arsal,” Hussein Youssef, the father of captive soldier Mohammed Youssef, told Turkey's state news agency Anatolia.

The Kataeb Party on Monday hoped Hizbullah's recent call for a "comprehensive political settlement" will lead to “Lebanonizing the political conflict” in the country.
“The party discussed Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's call for a comprehensive political settlement and hoped it is an indication of an intention to give the priority to the domestic situation and Lebanonize the conflict regardless of what is happening in the region,” said Kataeb in a statement issued after the weekly meeting of its politburo.
The army arrested four Syrians and seized a cache of arms and ammunition overnight in the Beirut area of Wata el-Msaitbeh, amid a security crackdown in the country following the deadly Bourj al-Barajneh blasts.
“An army force raided overnight a building in the Wata el-Msaitbeh area containing a number of suspicious individuals where it arrested the Syrians Omar Hamad al-Hussein, Hussein Saray al-Hussein, Abboud Hamad al-Mohammed al-Abed and Hammoud Hamad al-Mohammed al-Abed,” the army said in a statement issued Monday.

A Lebanese journalist working for Hizbullah was killed while covering clashes in northern Syria, Syria's official news agency said Monday.
"The war correspondent of the Lebanese resistance (Hizbullah), Mohammad Mahmud Nazar, was killed yesterday while covering military operations" in Aleppo province, SANA reported.

In a tent in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, Sanaa al-Absi extracts a condom from its wrapper in front of a group of giggling Syrian refugee women and begins explaining its use.
It is the first time some of the women have seen the contraceptive, which they are learning about as part of a rare program teaching Syrian refugees family planning in Lebanon.
