The Lebanese army foiled an infiltration attempt overnight when some gunmen tried to infiltrate the outskirts of Ras Baalbek and Wadi Rafek near of al-Qaa, the state-run National News Agency reported on Monday.

Lebanese troops engaged in heavy armed clashes with the infiltrators, NNA added.

Miss South Africa, 22-year-old Rolene Strauss, was crowned Miss World 2014 at the pageant's final in London on Sunday, with an estimated billion viewers watching on television around the globe.

Miss Hungary, Edina Kulcsar, was the runner-up and Miss United States, Elizabeth Safrit, came third in the 64th annual competition, contested by women from 121 countries.

The controversial and outspoken Druze leader Walid Jumblat called in a "joint statement" on Twitter Saturday for the cultivation of marijuana to be legalized.

"It's time to allow hash to be grown and to overturn arrest warrants against people sought for doing so," the veteran politician wrote in Arabic on his Twitter account.

Security measures throughout Lebanon will be intensified during the Christmas and New Year holiday period, reported As Safir newspaper on Saturday.

A widely-informed source told the daily: “This is a critical stage and security measures will be bolstered in all Lebanese regions without exception.”

Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations Jan Eliasson is scheduled to arrive in Lebanon on Sunday on a three-day visit aimed at discussing the case of Syrian refugees, reported the daily An Nahar on Saturday.

Eliasson will arrive on Sunday for talks with Speaker Nabih Berri, Prime Minister Tammam Salam, Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi, and a number of high-ranking officials.

Swiss authorities have charged a fugitive banking analyst with data theft and their transfer to several institutions abroad, including Lebanese banks, in what is considered to be one of the biggest security breaches in the country's often-secretive banking sector.

The case of Herve Falciani, a former employee of global banking group HSBC, has been making headlines in Europe since he fled Switzerland in 2008. He has been accused of stealing information between 2006 and 2007 relating to 24,000 customers of the Swiss division of HSBC.

Israel doesn't expect a Syrian or Lebanese response to an airstrike in Syria attributed to Israel earlier this week since they are too tied up with that country's bloody civil war and can't afford to open another front, a senior Israeli military officer said Wednesday.

The officer said Hizbullah fighters had the capability, but not the motivation, at this time to harm Israel and there was no "logic" to picking a fight with Israel while it was knee-deep in battling a Sunni insurgency.

The relatives of abducted soldiers and policemen were informed by an international side that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group is ready to release a hostage before the holidays as a goodwill gesture.

According to Ad Diyar newspaper published on Thursday, the relatives said that ISIL's initiative is to press the Lebanese state to change its maneuvers and its techniques in dealing with the abduction ordeal.

A senior Palestinian official died Wednesday after he was struck by Israeli forces during a protest march in the West Bank, prompting international calls for an investigation into the incident.

The Palestinian leadership vowed to respond to what President Mahmoud Abbas called the "brutal assault" on Ziad Abu Ein, who was in charge of the issue of Israeli settlements for the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Speaker Nabih Berri has denied that the much anticipated dialogue between Hizbullah and al-Mustaqbal movement would be postponed over differences on the agenda of the talks.

In remarks published in local dailies on Wednesday, Berri said: “I am 100 percent reassured and hope the first session would be held by the end of the year.”