Two young men who hail from the northern region of Bsharri have been killed in the Qornet al-Sawda area, which is disputed by residents of Bsharri and Dinniyeh, triggering sectarian tensions and an intervention by the army.

The Foreign Ministry condemned Thursday as "violent" and "provocative" the burning of a copy of the Koran by an Iraqi living in Sweden during a protest authorized by the police.

Under a heavy police presence, Salwan Momika, a 37-year-old who fled to Sweden several years ago, on Wednesday stomped on the Koran before setting several pages alight in front of Stockholm's largest mosque.

The Finance Ministry on Tuesday denied accusations that it has “hidden” a report submitted by the Alvarez & Marsal international auditing firm.

Caretaker Minister of the Displaced Issam Sharafeddine has expressed optimism on the possibility of launching practical steps for the repatriation of Syrian refugees to their country, following a visit that he made to Damascus in the weekend at the request of caretaker PM Najib Mikati.

The Internal Security Forces on Tuesday announced thwarting an attempt to smuggle around 450,000 captagon pills from Beirut’s port to Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Free Patriotic Movement on Tuesday denied that its chief Jebran Bassil has requested meetings with Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“Some media outlets are continuing to publish totally baseless reports aimed at distorting the image of the FPM and its chief Jebran Bassil, including what a newspaper mentioned about the FPM leader requesting a meeting that was rejected by Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,” the FPM said in a statement.

U.S. Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission Richard Michaels has celebrated the successful implementation of the “Business Innovation and Enhance Exports in Lebanon (BIEEL)” at a closing event in the presence of Fair Trade Lebanon President Sami Abdel Malak, Director General of the Ministry of Agriculture, Louis Lahoud representatives from the industrialist association, chambers of commerce and the U.S.-Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) team, MEPI Coordinator David Lewis and MEPI Program Manager Maya Barhouche, SMEs and local enterprises.

"MEPI, through the $2.5 million BIEEL project implemented by Fair Trade Lebanon, helped 100 Lebanese small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and cooperatives produce and promote Fair Trade Certified products, and provide access to international export markets," the U.S. Embassy in Beirut said in a statement.

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil is still keen on the FPM's understanding with Hezbollah despite many disagreements.

During a late Sunday meeting in Baabda, Bassil claimed that his party has made sacrifices because of its understanding with Hezbollah and has paid the price "in order to preserve the unity of Lebanon," as he accused Hezbollah of imposing a president on the Christians.

The French President's Personal Envoy to Lebanon, Jean-Yves Le Drian, has said that he “will work to facilitate a constructive and inclusive dialogue among the Lebanese in order to reach a solution that is at the same time consensual and effective to get out of the institutional vacuum.”

Outgoing Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat is "disgusted" from the presidential impasse, a media report published Friday in al-Liwaa newspaper said.

The report said that Jubmlat has told his visitors that he is pessimistic and is not seeing any light at the end of the presidential tunnel.