Prime Minister Najib Miqati promised on Wednesday his government’s approval of a $1.6 billion four-year plan to improve the capabilities of the Lebanese army.

“The cabinet, which is working on meeting the needs of the military, is on the verge of approving a $1.6 billion plan divided to four years to improve its capabilities,” Miqati said in a statement he issued on the occasion of Army Day.

Large quantities of spoiled and expired fish were dumped in several trash containers in al-Bass town in the southern coastal city of Tyre, the National News Agency reported on Wednesday.

The Tyre municipality police arrived swiftly at the scene to inspect the goods.

President Michel Suleiman on Wednesday threw his weight behind the Lebanese army’s decision to bring to trial those who target the military and rejected arms spread randomly across the country.

In his Army Day speech at the Shukri Ghanem barracks in Fayyadiyeh, a suburb of Beirut, Suleiman said: “The judiciary should issue verdicts against those who targeted the army without any fear.”

The women’s quota for the parliamentary elections was among several issues that cabinet ministers didn’t agree on during a session held at Baabda Palace on Tuesday, media reports said.

The government approved around 55 articles out of 123 of the electoral draft-law proposed by Interior Minister Marwan Charbel and discussions on the remaining controversial issues were referred to a session that is set to be held at Beiteddine palace next Monday.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati will preside on Wednesday a meeting for the ministerial committee tasked with studying the new wages scale for the public sector at the Grand Serail to resolve the demands of the Syndicate Coordination Committee.

According to An Nahar newspaper, the meeting will settle the wages hike for the public sector before the cabinet convenes on Thursday at the Grand Serail to approve the SCC demands.

Iran is the "pre-eminent" state sponsor of terrorism and together with Hizbullah are pursuing increasingly destabilizing activities around the world since the 1990s, the U.S. State Department's counterterrorism coordinator, Daniel Benjamin, said Tuesday.

“Iran is and remains the preeminent state sponsor of terrorism in the world … and also, together with Hizbullah, as they pursue destabilizing activities around the globe, we are firmly committed to working with partners and allies to counter and disrupt Iranian activities,” Benjamin told journalists after a briefing on the annual "Country Reports on Terrorism."

The Army Command on Tuesday announced that it has “launched measures aimed at prosecuting MP Moein al-Merehbi” after he “insisted on attacking the military institution and insulting its leadership,” noting that from now on it “will not comment on the remarks of the aforementioned MP.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Merehbi slammed Army Commander General Jean Qahwaji as an “unsuccessful person,” accusing him of being “responsible for all the mistakes and seditions.”

Al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc on Tuesday stressed that the situation in Lebanon can only improve through the resignation of the government and the formation of a “salvation government.”

“The state of chaos, dismay and disorder is rampant in several sectors to an extent that threatens the country’s stability and security and the living conditions of the citizens who are the ones suffering the negative repercussions,” the bloc warned in a statement issued after its weekly meeting.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun stated on Tuesday that telecom data is a legal need in solving crimes, criticizing however how the complete data was handed over to the security agencies.

He said after the Change and Reform bloc’s weekly meeting: “Handing over the complete data to the security agencies is a crime against the constitution.”

Director-General of state-run Electricite du Liban Kamal al-Hayek urged on Tuesday the company’s contract works to end their strike, stressing that the solution is in the hands of the parliament and not the administration.

“We were the first to propose the full-time employment of the contract workers,” al-Hayek said during a press conference for the board of directors at the Zouk power plant.