U.S. Charge d’Affaires Ambassador Richard Jones stressed on Thursday that holding the municipal elections in Lebanon is a “great way to preserve Lebanese democracy.”

He said after meeting Speaker Nabih Berri: “We agreed on the importance of holding them on schedule.”

The cabinet announced Thursday that it will return to a waste management plan based on "sanitary landfills" if the British firm negotiating with the state over trash export fails to submit the required documents by Friday.

“The prime minister explained the circumstances during which only one firm was chosen for the trash export plan,” Information Minister Ramzi Jreij told reporters after a cabinet session at the Grand Serail.

The Council for Development and Reconstruction snapped back at Kataeb Party leader MP Sami Gemayel on Thursday after he accused it of being responsible for the corruption in the waste file.

“It's been a while that the CDR has become the target of a series of accusations that it has been avoiding to respond,” the council said in a statement.

Former Minister Michel Samaha was transported to hospital on Thursday after suffering from a health problem while standing trial at the Military Tribunal.

The presiding judge originally adjourned the session for 15 minutes after it appeared that Samaha's problem was mild.

General Security announced on Thursday the arrest of a Syrian who has formed a four-member gang that specializes in illegal weapons trade.

The suspect was arrested for contacting terrorist groups, a communique issued by the agency's general-directorate said.

A delegation from al-Mustaqbal movement will visit on Thursday the three presidential candidates in a bid to urge them to attend the next parliamentary session slated on March 2 to elect a president, the pan-Arab Asharq al-Awsat reported on Thursday.

Unnamed sources from March 14 alliance said that a Mustaqbal delegation will visit the Change and Reform bloc leader, MP Michel Aoun, Marada chief MP Suleiman Franjieh and Democratic Gathering bloc MP Henri Helou.

Free Patriotic Movement officials have said that al-Mustaqbal Movement chief Saad Hariri's return to Beirut has brought things back to square one on the presidential deadlock.

“Rather than resolving the case, Hariri's return to Beirut returned things to square one,” the officials, who were not identified, told pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat published on Thursday.

Al-Mustaqbal movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri openly declared Wednesday that Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh is his presidential candidate while denying that he has demanded the prime minister post for himself.

“We stressed to Speaker Nabih Berri that we must stage the presidential election in a democratic manner,” said Hariri after talks with the speaker in Ain al-Tineh.

An explosion rocked an apartment in the southern Beirut suburb of Bourj al-Barajneh on Wednesday evening.

Conflicting reports have emerged on the cause of the blast, which according to al-Manar television resulted in the wounding of two Syrians.

The Lebanese Forces on Wednesday organized a sit-in at Ashrafieh's Sassine Square to protest the stabbing death a day earlier of the young man Marcelino Zamata in the same area.

“We gather today to cry over a new martyr and some have asked us why we have resorted to prayer and the lighting of candles. We are doing this because we are Christians and we believe in martyrdom,” LF's Beirut official Imad Wakim said at the sit-in.