Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat on Monday urged the army and the security forces to be firm in drawing an end to the “abnormal situation” in the northern city of Tripoli, praising also civil society's efforts to restore stability in the North.

"The state and the security and military bodies' firmness is required now more than ever to draw an end to the abnormal situation in Tripoli, because of which many innocent people have been killed,” Jumblat said in his weekly editorial in the PSP-affiliated al-Anbaa website.

An explosion rocked on Monday the residence of Hussein Abou Bakr in the northern region of Akkar, reported the National News Agency.

It said that the explosion occurred in the town of Fnaidiq in the region of al-Qamoua in Akkar in the morning

Telecommunications Minister Butros Harb announced on Monday that the tariffs for landlines and mobile phones will be reduced starting April 1, “in order to better serve the people and their interests, especially those with limited income.”

He said during a press conference that the reduction will range between 30 and 50 percent of the current prices.

State Commissioner to the Military Court Judge Saqr Saqr issued around two hundred arrest and search and investigation warrants against suspects who had breached security across Lebanon.

According to the state-run National News Agency reported on Monday, Saqr issued 200 arrest and search and investigation warrants last week against 200 criminals from the northern city of Tripoli, the city of Bekaa and Beirut.

Young Syrian rebel commander Mohammed limps from an injury suffered in "insane" army shelling of his native Qalamun region as he tells of his perilous evacuation across the border into Lebanon.

Mohammed, who gave only one name, is being treated in the small border town of Arsal, which has turned into a refuge for more than 100,000 Syrians fleeing the war in their country and a makeshift rehabilitation center for scores of wounded fighters.

The Israeli army planted on Monday a surveillance device along the technical fence to spy on Lebanon, the state-run National News Agency reported.

The wireless device was installed near a post for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon on the Adaisseh road as Israeli warplanes overflew the area, NNA said.

Electricite du Liban contract workers warned on Monday that Lebanon will plunge in darkness if the parliament endorses an urgent draft-law proposed by Change and Reform bloc MP Ibrahim Kanaan, considering it a “conspiracy.”

The contract workers closed the gates of the company's headquarters in Mar Mikhael, burning tires in its premises to protest the draft-law, which they argue it contradicted the agreement they had reached with the government of ex-Prime Minister Najib Miqati when they lifted their 95-day sit-in last year.

The Israeli army has revamped a training program for army logistics cadets to prepare them for any future war in Lebanon or the Gaza Strip and to avoid a repeat of failures in the 2006 conflict with Hizbullah.

The Jerusalem Post said the two-week exercise placed around 180 cadets in simulated combat conditions, in a bid to avoid the same critical logistics failures experienced by the Israeli army in the July war of 2006 with Hizbullah.

A cabinet session set to be held on Monday at the Baabda Palace will discuss a heated agenda concerning the appointments of top civil servants, local newspapers reported.

According to al-Joumhouria newspaper, the cabinet will approve the appointment of Beirut Police Chief Brig. Deeb Tbayeli, who was recently promoted to the rank of Maj. Gen, as the successor of Internal Security Forces acting chief Brig. Gen. Ibrahim Basbous to grant him more years at the force ahead of his retirement on April 10.

President Michel Suleiman chaired on Monday a national dialogue session that stressed the importance of an agreement on a defense strategy given a rise in terrorist threats and amid a boycott by the majority of March 8 camp's representatives and Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea from the March 14 alliance.

Suleiman had invited the rival leaders for a new session of all-party talks at Baabda Palace to discuss the controversial issue of Hizbullah’s arsenal or the so-called national defense strategy.