United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon spokesman Neeraj Singh revealed on Tuesday that Israel will perform maintenance operations along the technical border fence in the Aitaroun region in Bint Jbeil, reported the National News Agency.

He added that Israel informed UNIFIL of its measures and that the international troops had in turn relayed the message to the Lebanese army.

An unusual bad smell that has engulfed the northern district of Akkar, causing some cases of breathing problems among the residents, originates from Syria, MP Moeen al-Merehbi said Tuesday.

“The source of the odor is Syria,” al-Merehbi told Voice of Lebanon radio station (100.5).

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour confirmed on Tuesday that Lebanon will boycott “Friends of Syria” international conference that will be held in Tunis this week.

“In harmony with our decision to disassociate Lebanon from developments in Syria, we will not join the conference in Tunis,” Mansour told OTV.

A group of Lebanese and Palestinians have set on fire a vehicle and a health clinic of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East – UNRWA at a camp in the southern Tyre district.

The National News Agency said the attack took place at al-Shabriha camp on Tuesday morning to protest the death of a Lebanese patient married to a Palestinian man after UNRWA rejected to give her a hospital transfer permit three days ago.

Six people were injured on Tuesday when a passenger bus collided with a truck and caught fire on the Dbayeh-Zouk Mosbeh highway, north of Beirut.

The National News Agency said that the front of the bus went on fire when it hit the back of the truck.

Labor Minister Charbel Nahhas informed Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun about his intention to resign after refusing to sign the transportation allowance decree, media reports said on Tuesday.

Nahhas informed Aoun about his decision to allow the FPM chief to study his options and discuss the issue during the Change and Reform parliamentary bloc meeting on Tuesday afternoon, OTV, mouthpiece of the Free Patriotic Movement, reported.

Cabinet sessions, which were suspended on Feb. 1, are likely to resume this week after President Michel Suleiman and Premier Najib Miqati reportedly agreed to call on the government to convene immediately after Labor Minister Charbel Nahhas signs a controversial transportation allowance decree.

Suleiman and Miqati, who met at Baabda palace on Monday, held onto their stance on the necessity for Nahhas to sign the decree “before anything else,” An Nahar daily reported.

Special Tribunal for Lebanon Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare has named a fifth civilian suspect in ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s Feb. 2005 assassination, informed diplomatic sources said on Tuesday.

The sources told al-Liwaa daily that the suspect is a politician and not a party militant or a member of a secret security service.

Special Tribunal for Lebanon Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare on Monday addressed a farewell letter to the Lebanese people on the occasion of the end of his tenure, stressing that he did his job “objectively” and noting that “historic days lie ahead for justice and the People of Lebanon.”

Bellemare will leave office at the end of this month. In November 2007 he was assigned by U.N. chief Ban Ki-Moon as the commissioner for the United Nations International Independent Investigation Commission (UNIIIC) into the 2005 assassination of ex-PM Rafik Hariri, replacing Serge Brammertz of Belgium.

The judges of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon have approved some amendments to the tribunal's Rules of Procedure and Evidence, said the STL in a statement on Monday.

There were a limited number of changes, which clarified the existing rules especially in relation to victims, it added.