Employees of the Beirut Port held a sit-in on Thursday protesting an alleged government decision to use a nearby real estate as a dump site.

MTV said that more than 100 employees staged the sit-in and prevented trucks transporting goods from entering the port causing long queues at the Port entrance.

Sources close to Prime Minister Tammam Salam have said that Jordanian authorities expressed readiness to facilitate the export of Lebanese products through the Port of Aqaba.

The sources told al-Mustaqbal daily published on Thursday that the pledge was made during Salam's one-day visit to Jordan a day earlier.

Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi emphasized on Thursday that the Free Patriotic Movement led by MP Michel Aoun will not succeed in widening the gap between the Christians and Muslims, al-Mustaqbal daily reported.

“Aoun will not be succeed to drag us against our convictions of Muslim-Christian partnership,” said Rifi in an interview to the daily.

Sources close to Hizbullah have stressed that the party backs all of the moves taken by its ally Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun inside and outside the cabinet.

Hizbullah “supports all of Aoun's moves inside the government and even on the streets,” the sources told pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat published on Thursday.

A Lebanese fugitive was arrested Wednesday as he was trying to smuggle “chemical substances that could be used in bomb-making” to the outskirts of the northeastern border town of Arsal.

“Today, army forces in the Arsal region arrested the fugitive Ahmed Khaled al-Hujeiri as he was trying to smuggle chemical substances that could be used in bomb-making to the town's outskirts,” the Army Command said in a statement.

Free Patriotic Movement supporters staged motorized protests on Wednesday and organized a central rally at Beirut's Martyrs Square, following a call by MP Michel Aoun to demonstrate against the extension of the mandate of top military officers in an attempt to put pressure on the government of Prime Minister Tammam Salam.

“More than 200 cars from the FPM's youth department took off in a convoy from the Mirna Chalouhi highway (in Sin el-Fil) towards Martyrs Square in central Beirut,” state-run National News Agency reported Wednesday evening.

A Syrian girl died on Wednesday after a fire engulfed an apartment in the area of al-Nabaa in the Metn district, the state-run National News Agency reported.

NNA said Civil Defense firefighters doused the blaze and rescued five other Syrians.

Speaker Nabih Berri postponed on Wednesday the presidential elections to next month following a lack of quorum at parliament, a sign that politicians were far from filling the prolonged vacuum in the country's top Christian post.

Berri postponed the session to September 2 after only 34 MPs from the March 14 alliance and his Development and Liberation bloc attended.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif highlighted on Wednesday the importance of dialogue in overcoming crises, stressing that Tehran is prepared for “all forms of cooperation” with Lebanon to help it achieve growth.

He declared during the second day of his trip to Beirut: “We do not meddle in internal Lebanese affairs and neither should other countries.”

Prime Minister Tammam Salam was in Jordan on Wednesday on a one-day official visit at a head of a large delegation that will attend the meetings of the joint Lebanese-Jordanian Higher Committee.

Jordan's Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour and Salam jointly chaired the meetings.