Al-Mustaqbal Movement MP Ahmed Fatfat held talks with Lebanese Forces Chief Samir Geagea in an attempt to rectify ties between the two parties after the formation of Prime Minister Tammam Salam's cabinet.

Fatfat stressed after a two-hour meeting in Maarab that the two parties are “allies,” pointing out that “it's is a necessity to reconsider the current political stage after the formation of the new government, which we hoped that the LF would have been part of.”

The death toll in the double suicide bombing that rocked Beirut's southern suburbs earlier this week rose to 11 as an Ethiopian woman succumbed to her injuries on Friday.

The Ethiopian domestic worker was transported to Rafik Hariri state hospital on Wednesday after two powerful blasts targeted an Iranian cultural center in the neighborhood of Bir Hassan.

The Arab Summit that will be held in Kuwait on March 25 and 26 is expected to tackle the latest developments in Lebanon and will be preceded by a meeting for the International Support Group for Lebanon that is set to be held in Paris in early March.

A diplomatic source said in comments published in As Safir newspaper that the Arab Summit will address the situation in Lebanon and stress its keenness to safeguard the country's stability, security and reiterate its support to the state's dissociation policy.

Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun is highly likely to reach the presidency after a U.S. and Saudi rapprochement with him, al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Friday.

The daily said Washington believes that Lebanon needs a strong president, who is capable of discussing with Hizbullah about its arms or the defense strategy rather than provoking it.

Army chief Gen. Jean Qahwaji is scheduled to visit Italy in the coming days to consolidate military ties with the European country and discuss the preparations for the conference aimed at shoring up support for the Lebanese army.

Qahwaji will seek to brief Italian military officials on the needs of the Lebanese army, al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Friday.

The Lebanon First parliamentary bloc is planning to send a petition to U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon to ask him to refer all assassinations committed in Lebanon after Dec.12, 2005 to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

The petition has been drafted and is awaiting the signature of the bloc's members, An Nahar newspaper reported on Friday.

A petition demanding the referral of the deadly double car bombing that targeted the northern city of Tripoli in August to the the Judicial Council will be handed over next week to Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi, local newspaper reported on Friday.

A delegation from Tripoli and the North's lawyer's syndicate will hold a meeting with Rifi on Wednesday to hand him the petition, which was signed by around 70 thousand resident in Tripoli.

The ministerial panel tasked with drafting the policy statement of the new cabinet agreed Thursday on the need to find a solution to the Syrian refugee crisis in the country, as the ministers of the Hizbullah-led March 8 camp insisted on the so-called "army-people-resistance equation."

"Consensus was reached over the issue of Syrian refugees," al-Jadeed television reported, following the committee's second meeting at the Grand Serail.

A resident to the Bekaa city of Baalbek was held captive in Syria's Qalamoun region, the state-run National News Agency reported on Thursday.

The family of Samir Hlayhel received a phone call from a Syrian number informing them that their son has been taken to the town of Yabrud in Qalamoun.

The army on Thursday arrested a man on charges of killing a Palestinian national and wounding a Hizbullah official during a personal dispute in Khalde.

“The army arrested the young man Raydan al-Jurdi for shooting and wounding Hizbullah official Haidar Noureddine and Ali Ghamloush on the western lane of the Khalde-South highway near the Chamsine Bakery and the Kabsa Restaurant,” state-run National News Agency reported.