Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil has said that the Syria Donors Conference which will be held in London on Thursday will be a test for world leaders on their intention to help Lebanon.

The conference “is a test for the international community and its intention in assisting Lebanon, its government, people and economy,” Bassil told al-Akhbar daily published on Wednesday.

Differences between the parties represented in the cabinet on the posts of high-ranking officers have not been resolved despite the government's appointment of three members in the Military Council, An Nahar daily reported on Wednesday.

According to the newspaper, a new clash is expected to emerge in March between the different factions on the post of the head of Military Intelligence.

Speaker Nabih Berri has said he would head a parliamentary session on Feb. 8 if the required quorum was met but hinted that no president would be elected, mocking the parties gearing up for the session.

“I have confirmed information that some parties are relying on a tally sheet for the upcoming session” set for the election of a new president, Berri, whose remarks were published in newspapers on Wednesday, told his visitors.

Kataeb Party chief MP Sami Gemayel announced Tuesday that his party is not seeking a so-called "paper of understanding" with Hizbullah, downplaying recent media reports about the ties between the two parties.

"We're not seeking an understanding paper with Hizbullah," Gemayel said during a meeting with a group of reporters that he invited to Kataeb's headquarters in Saifi.

Al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc on Tuesday deplored Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's latest stance on the presidential issue, blasting it as part of an Iranian “regional agenda.”

In a statement issued after its weekly meeting, the bloc said Nasrallah's remarks indicate that “Hizbullah wants to continue usurping the Lebanese parliament's will through preventing it from electing a president.”

The Change and Reform parliamentary bloc warned Tuesday that it might resort to popular protests to address perceived discrimination against Christians in state institutions and in the implementation of developmental projects.

“The injustice in development and administration has reached an extent that no citizen can tolerate and this is a malicious approach,” said the bloc in a statement issued after its weekly meeting.

The government approved on Tuesday the funding of the upcoming municipal elections, announced Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq.

This decision also includes the staging of the parliamentary by-elections in the southern region of Jezzine, he said in a statement.

In the refugee camp in eastern Lebanon's Qab Elias where Fatima Khaled lives with her two daughters, only three children found a spot in the local school.

So when parents found out that Khaled was an educator, they begged her to teach their children. An unemployed teacher who fled Damascus three years ago, Khaled could not find work in Lebanon. "I came here and tried to find a job, but no one would hire me," she said. "Parents here suggested the idea. They told me I could teach and help the children."

Politicians have asserted the need to hold the municipal elections which are slated for later this year on time over concerns that they would face the same fate as the parliamentary elections.

Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq had therefore assured that the elections will be held on time and that the term of the current councils will not be extended.

Russia has assured Israel that it has not transferred arms to Hizbullah as part of its military operations in Syria, Israel’s ambassador to Moscow said.

According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, Ambassador Zvi Heifetz told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday that Moscow’s claim was sparked by an international media report asserting that Russia was supplying arms to Hizbullah.