A demonstration was held on Friday by a number of Syrian refugees and Lebanese nationals in the northern city of Tripoli in support of the Syrian revolution, reported the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat on Saturday.

It added that they launched a weekly campaign to expel the Syrian Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdul Karim Ali in protest against “the massacres being committed in Syria.”

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun said Friday that “the alternatives in Syria do not believe in democracy,” pointing out that the Syrian opposition will not fulfill its promises once it rises to power.

After his talks with Zahle and Bekaa Greek Catholic Archbishop Issam Darwish, Aoun said that the meeting was important in the light of the events witnessed in Syria and the Middle East region, mainly because the number of Christians is decreasing in Palestine, Iraq, Syria and probably Lebanon.”

A youth managed to escape his kidnappers a day after being abducted in the Bekaa region of Baalbek, reported the National News Agency on Friday.

It said that Mohammed Tareq Makkiyeh returned home at around 1:30 p.m. on Friday after succeeding in escaping his abductors.

The son of Herbal expert Zein al-Atat was kidnapped by four masked gunmen in the Mdeirej-Sofar road that links Beirut to the eastern Bekaa valley, the National News Agency reported on Friday.

NNA said that Ibrahim al-Atat was driving his Hummer along with his cousin Mahmoud al-Atat and his friend Wael Abdul Khaleq at around 8:30 pm Thursday when four gunmen riding a black Mercedes four-wheeler with tined widows and no license plate blocked his way and whisked him out of his vehicle.

Justice Minister Shakib Qortbawi stressed on Friday that the parliament is the only authority capable of collapsing the cabinet.

“The current cabinet has the majority of the parliament and it will not collapse unless it took this decision,” Qortbawi told Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3).

The army denied that there is a decision to boost its presence in Ain el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp though it witnessed security unrest recently, As Safir newspaper reported on Friday.

“The army will boost its security measures near Ain el-Hilweh only during extraordinary situations and maximum necessity,” a military source told the daily.

The Saudi Embassy in Lebanon denied on Friday that it asked its nationals that are currently present in the country to leave by the end of June.

"The report, which was published in a Lebanese newspaper, is completely false,” the embassy said in a statement.

Premier Najib Miqati stressed on Thursday Lebanon’s commitment to sustainable development and made several recommendations at the Rio+20 summit that included the formation of an international environment tribunal.

“Lebanon is committed to this basic cause that should be at the priority of states and peoples,” Miqati told the 190-nation summit, the first large-scale conference on sustainable development in a decade held in Rio de Janeiro.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat stressed on Friday that he is still part of the cabinet “until further notice,” confirming his centrist stance.

He slammed some of the March 14-led opposition members for continuously calling on the cabinet to resign.

The misunderstanding between some March 14 Christian officials and Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi has ended and talks between the two sides will continue, a delegation that visited the head of the church in Bkirki announced on Friday.

“If there has been any summer cloud with Bkirki, then it has dissipated,” Phalange leader Amin Gemayel said after holding talks with al-Rahi along with the delegation that included MPs Butros Harb, Strida Geagea and Dori Shamoun, and former lawmakers Nayla Moawad, Fares Soaid, who is also the March 14 general-secretariat coordinator, and Camile Ziade.