The Kataeb Party said Monday that the renewed waste collection crisis “exposes anew the corruption mafia that is controlling the country,” calling for the creation of waste sorting and treatment plants and the temporary storage of the accumulating garbage in non-residential areas.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon on Monday fined the editor of al-Akhbar newspaper 20,000 euros for publishing secret information about witnesses in the case against the alleged killers of former premier Rafik Hariri.

The parliamentary Finance and Budget Committee kicked off a meeting on Monday to address the trash crisis in the presence of related ministers and representatives of the Council for Development and Reconstruction.

“The solution that the government came out with is not a perfect one. There is a need to implement administrative decentralization in this file,” said Head of the Committee MP Ibrahim Kanaan after the meeting.

Speaker Nabih Berri stressed on Monday that he has no initiative other than the one he launched in June as he urged the political forces to shoulder their responsibility and help Lebanon overcome the political impasse it is witnessing, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Monday.

“Am I an initiative prolific to launch a new initiative each day...I already suggested what I have and the political forces must shoulder the responsibility,” stated Berri answering a question on whether he will launch a new suggestion in a speech he will deliver on August 31 marking the anniversary of the disappearance of Imam Moussa al-Sadr and his two companions.

A plan to collect the trash that has been accumulating on the streets in the northern districts of Metn and Keserewan lately will be put into implementation either today or on Tuesday, An Nahar daily reported on Monday.

The trash management plan, which saw a setback after protesters closed a location in the area of Bourj Hammoud used to store the waste, will resume and the trash will be collected in relatively remote areas, added the daily.

An army intelligence patrol on Sunday arrested two Syrians in the southern town of Kfar Rumman, state-run National News Agency reported.

Supporters of the Free Patriotic Movement hoisted an FPM flag outside the house of Minister of the Displaced Alice Shabitini in Jbeil overnight before vandalizing a statue carrying the name of ex-president Michel Suleiman in the city, state-run National News Agency said.

Senior Hizbullah official Sheikh Nabil Qaouq charged Sunday that “the Lebanese are paying hefty prices as a result of the Saudi interference that is putting a veto on MP Michel Aoun's presidential nomination.”

MP Nawwaf al-Moussawi, an outspoken member of Hizbullah's Loyalty to Resistance bloc, has urged al-Mustaqbal Movement to end what he called the “policy of deprivation” against the Free Patriotic Movement, warning that the “persecution of the FPM is equivalent to the persecution of all Christians.”

The Free Patriotic Movement's latest political escalation has not concealed the magnitude of “the confusion it has got itself into,” a media report said on Sunday.