The Military General Prosecution agreed on Thursday to release former Minister Michel Samaha on bail.

He will be released from detention on bail of 150 million Lebanese pounds.

Demonstrators and security forces scuffled outside the environment ministry in Beirut on Thursday after several civil society activists stormed the building to protest the authorities' failure to resolve the waste problem.

Anti-riot police pushed back “We Want Accountability” and “You Stink” protesters who called for more transparency on a plan to export Lebanon's garbage.

Speaker Nabih Berri seems to be a non-supporter of a plan to export Lebanon's waste as he stressed on Thursday that the trash should be dumped in the coastal area of Costa Brava and Srar in Akkar, al-Joumhouria daily reported.

Berri said that the trash generated from the southern suburbs of Beirut should be taken to the Costa Brava landfill and that of Beirut to Srar, the daily added.

The Lebanese army carried out raids early Thursday in the neighborhood of Sharawneh in the eastern city of Baalbek in search for outlaws.

The state-run National News Agency said the military clashed with gunmen during the raids.

The Free Patriotic Movement and Hizbullah boycotted on Thursday a cabinet session after officials failed to strike a deal to meet the request of the FPM on the appointment of top officers.

Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil told Prime Minister Tammam Salam that his party's two ministers will boycott the session and that Hizbullah's representatives in the cabinet will also not attend the meeting in solidarity with their allies.

Lebanon's foreign ministry announced Wednesday evening that the kidnap of two Lebanese men in Libya is not related to Hannibal Gadhafi's arrest in Lebanon but rather to a “financial dispute.”

“Lebanese citizens Mohammed Mustafa Nazha and Khaled Mustafa Nazha were abducted in Benghazi around a month ago over a financial dispute between them and their partners in the carpentry business,” the ministry quoted Lebanon's ambassador to Libya Mohammed Skaineh as saying.

General Security has arrested a Syrian who admitted to participating in the fighting between extremists and the Lebanese army in the northeastern border town of Arsal.

The general-directorate of General Security said A.A. was arrested for having ties with terrorist groups.

After taking in more than a million Syrian refugees, Lebanon has quietly changed course in recent months, forcing refugees to return to Syria — where they are at risk of persecution or death — or stay illegally, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, human rights groups say.

The situation is drawing attention at a time when Turkey and Jordan have also tightened their admission policies. A Human Rights Watch report published Tuesday warned that Lebanon's new regulations have "set the stage for a potentially explosive situation."

Agriculture Minister Akram Shehayyeb declared on Wednesday that the export of Lebanon's trash is not the only solution to the country's months-long problem, but said that it is the most feasible one at the moment.

He said after a meeting of parliament's environment committee: “Politicians should concern themselves with politics and keep their disputes away from this file.”

Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea denied that the LF was maneuvering on its possible backing for Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun for the presidency.

“We are not maneuvering on our choice to back Aoun as a candidate,” al-Joumhouria daily on Wednesday quoted Geagea as saying. “We have many reasons for taking such a decision.”