Cabinet agreed on Monday to form of a committee to study the development of areas in the northern Bekaa without approving any compensation to cannabis farmers.

The ministers also agreed to postpone discussions on the parliamentary electoral law to a cabinet session on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati held on to his stance of deporting Syrian criminals to preserve Lebanese security despite severe criticism by Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat who reiterated that Lebanese authorities should refrain from sending back any Syrian in the current circumstances.

“Do they want security deterioration in the country?” Miqati asked about the officials who criticized him for supporting the decision of the General Security to deport 14 Syrians after they served their sentences in Lebanon in accordance with a judicial agreement signed between the two countries in 1951.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati snapped back at his critics on Monday, saying the government has made several achievements unlike what his opponents are publicizing.

In remarks to As Safir daily, Miqati said: “The violent campaign against it (the government) and with all means, gives the impression that the cabinet is not working.”

Abu Ibrahim, the head of the armed group that abducted the 11 Lebanese Shiite pilgrims in Syria, refuses to negotiate with Lebanon’s General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim over their release, LBCI television reported on Sunday.

Ali Aqil Khalil, the ambassador of the International Organization for Human Rights to Lebanon, told LBCI that he telephoned Abu Ibrahim who said that he rejects General Ibrahim as a possible negotiator due to the General Security’s latest deportation of 14 Syrians to their strife-torn country.

Former prime minister Saad Hariri on Sunday held talks in Doha with Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani.

Talks tackled “the latest developments in the Arab world,” his office said.

Some 600 Palestinian families have arrived in Lebanon from Syria, most of them fleeing violence at the Yarmuk refugee camp in Damascus, a Palestinian official in Lebanon said on Sunday.

"Some 600 Palestinian families have arrived in Lebanon's Palestinian refugee camps in the past three days," said Marwan Abdel Aal of the Lebanese branch of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel on Sunday announced that the government would provide compensations to the Bekaa’s cannabis farmers whose crops were and will be destroyed.

Speaking from the Bekaa town of al-Yammouneh, whose residents have staged a sit-in in protest at the destruction of cannabis crops, Charbel said he will raise the issue during a cabinet session on Monday and that he will suggest three proposals, one of which would be paying compensations to the farmers.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi reiterated on Sunday the Maronite bishops council’s warning earlier this week of an economic collapse in Lebanon should the current situation in the country persist.

He said during his Sunday sermon: “Lebanon is in need of revitalizing its people, leadership, and structure in order to allow it to keep up with modernity and globalization.”

President Michel Suleiman is continuing his consultations to resume the national dialogue on August 16 as he is seeking to ensure that all participants are present at the all-party talks, reported the daily al-Mustaqbal on Sunday.

Sources close to the president highlighted the need to resume the talks amid the critical local and regional situation.

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel is seeking to develop a security plan for the southern city of Sidon given the ongoing tensions since the end of Salafist cleric Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir’s sit-in on Wednesday, reported the daily al-Mustaqbal on Sunday.

The minister tasked on Saturday the heads of various security agencies in the city to propose suggestions over the security plan, security sources told the daily.