Prime Minister Tammam Salam is "not kidding" when it comes to his resignation on the backdrop of the governmental crisis, and he will not keep guard for attempts to obstruct cabinet, governmental sources told al-Mustaqbal daily on Sunday.

“Hizbullah and the Free Patriotic Movement have not offered any initiative what so ever on Salam to find a solution for the governmental crisis,” they said.

Residents of the Chouf area of Iqlim al-Kharroub southeast of Beirut blocked the vital Beirut-South highway early Sunday in protest at the environment ministry's decision to transfer the garbage that has been accumulating over the last week to their province, the state-run National News Agency reported.

The residents gathered on the coastal highway in the town of Jiyeh at the junction of Barja and blocked the road in both directions.

Tension was high in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain el-Hilweh on Saturday following news of the assassination of Fatah official Col. Talal al-Ordoni, a security official said.

"Al-Ordouni was shot dead by two unidentified men while he was walking in the southern part of Ain el-Hilweh," the Palestinian official told Agence France Presse.

A few municipalities in Mount Lebanon began on Friday collecting garbage as a temporary solution to a growing environmental crisis in the hot summer season that erupted after the closure of the Naameh landfill south of Beirut last week.

The number of municipalities, which met the demands of Environment Minister Mohammed al-Mashnouq, were however limited.

Preliminary investigations into the kidnapping of five Czech citizens in Lebanon last week suggest the case is criminal, Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq said on Wednesday.

"We've arrived at the beginning of the end of the thread (of investigations), and it relates to mafias, drug trafficking and weapons," the official National News Agency quoted him as saying.

Kataeb party leader MP Sami Gemayel stressed on Wednesday that the time has come for popular accountability against the dump collecting company Sukleen “which has been taking Lebanon hostage for over 20 years.”

“The contract of Sukleen was extended several times since the last tender in the 1990s until today. It is time for popular accountability for a company that has been taking Lebanon hostage for over 20 years,” said Gemayel in a press conference on the waste management crisis.

Residents of the southern town of al-Kfour held a sit-in on Wednesday blocking the road leading to the town's landfill and forbidding dump trucks from emptying their loads, the National News Agency said.

“Our sit-in is open until the landfill is closed completely. It has become a source of diseases and insects of various kinds. All the land surrounding the landfill has become barren and the poison accumulating affects all neighboring areas,” the residents of the town that lies in the Nabatieh district complained.

Progressive Socialist party chief Walid Jumblat stressed on Monday that Lebanon will not be able to confront the financial challenges if the waste of state funds is not controlled.

“Lebanon will not be able to confront the economic and financial challenges if it does not pull itself together and conduct radical and urgent reforms to stop the waste of money in various sectors mainly the energy sector, customs, ministries and several others,” he said in his weekly editorial in the PSP-affiliated al-Anbaa website.

Lebanese authorities are searching for five Czechs feared kidnapped in the eastern Bekaa Valley, a military source and the state-run National News Agency said Saturday.

The five, along with their Lebanese driver Munir Taan, a resident of Nabatiyeh, have been missing since Friday night, when their car was discovered in the Kefraya region in the western part of the Bekaa.

French ambassador to Lebanon Patrice Paoli stated on Tuesday that the international agreement to preserve Lebanon's stability can only be achieved through Lebanon's army and security forces, As Safir daily reported.

“There is no such thing as an international umbrella and we have never said that. In reality there is an international understanding U.N. Security Council to preserve Lebanon's stability,” said Paoli in an interview to the daily.