Justice Minister Salim Jreissati stressed Friday that he did not move the public prosecution against the comedian Hisham Haddad, the host of 'Lahonwbas', the National News Agency reported.

Attacks on Rohingya Muslims appear to be continuing in Myanmar and it is not yet safe for the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh to begin returning to their homes, a high-ranking United Nations official said.

Many Rohingya want to return eventually to their villages in Myanmar, said Justin Forsyth, UNICEF deputy executive director, during a Wednesday visit to the immense Kutupalong refugee camp. But they fear for their safety if they were to go back now.

Movies from Lebanon, Chile, Russia, Hungary and Sweden are competing in the Academy Awards race for best foreign-language film.

Five nominees announced Tuesday include Lebanese filmmaker Ziad Doueiri's forceful "The Insult"; Chilean director Sebastian Lelio's drama with a transgender heroine, "A Fantastic Woman"; and Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev's stark divorce story "Loveless."

Under the supervision of the High Relief Committee and at PM Saad Hariri's orders, trucks have started Tuesday removing the trash that accumulated on the Keserewan shore after rough waves broke down a faulty retaining wall around a coastal dump just east of Beirut, spilling the trash into the sea.

Maj. Gen Mohammed Kheir, the head of the High Relief Committee stressed that the cleaning process "will continue despite bad weather conditions and in commitment to Hariri's directions."

Lebanon's festering trash crisis came crashing ashore this week, after residents woke up to find a powerful winter storm had laid a mantle of waste at a beach just a minutes' drive north of the capital, Beirut.

The scenes were a national embarrassment for a country that once prided itself on its sparkling Mediterranean coastline but appears unable to wean itself off the convenience of throwing its trash into the sea.

An Oklahoma man facing first-degree murder and hate crime charges in the fatal shooting of his Lebanese neighbor is set for trial this week.

Stanley Vernon Majors is accused in the killing of 37-year-old Khalid Jabara in August 2016. Prosecutors say Majors, who is now 63, killed Jabara after bombarding him with racial insults in a feud with Jabara's family that lasted several years.

Vice President Mike Pence has kicked off a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

Pence placed his right hand over his heart as an honor guard greeted him with the American national anthem.

Lebanon is campaigning to get at least five times more women elected to parliament this spring in its first vote in nearly 10 years, the country's first women's affairs minister says.

Germany said Friday it is making progress in talks with Lebanon on facilitating deportations to the Middle Eastern country.

A spokesman for the German Interior Ministry said negotiations between the two countries began last March and had already "led to a greatly increased willingness to cooperate by the other side."

Vice President Mike Pence is making his fifth visit to Israel, returning to a region he's visited "a million times" in his heart.

An evangelical Christian with strong ties to the Holy Land, Pence this time comes packing two key policy decisions in his bags that have long been top priorities for him: designating Jerusalem as Israel's capital and curtailing aid for Palestinians.