The Cabinet on Monday approved the 2019 draft state budget after weeks of haggling, during a session that was held under President Michel Aoun at the Baabda Palace.

The draft was referred to Parliament which is expected to study it and approve it in a speedy manner.

Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh assured that the Lebanese pound is “stable,” hailing the reforms included in the 2019 state budget, the National News Agency reported on Monday.

Beirut Investigative Judge George Rizk on Monday ordered the release of the head of the General Confederation of Lebanese Workers Beshara al-Asmar on LL500 thousand bail, the National News agency reported.

NNA said that Asmar has been released on bail, but the decision is pending the plaintiffs' move.

Lebanon is likely to boycott an economic conference in Bahrain next month in support of Washington's Middle East peace plan, the Saudi Asharq al-Awsat newspaper reported on Monday.

A Lebanese man from the northeastern border town of Arsal was tortured before being killed by Syrian forces, al-Mustaqbal Movement’s Arsal department said on Sunday.

“Arsal bids farewell at noon to its martyr Hussein al-Hujeiri, who was killed by the Syrian regime’s criminality after its troops made an incursion into Lebanese territory in Arsal’s hills, where they kidnapped Hujeiri and his companions Wissam Kranbi and Nayef Rayed,” the department said in a statement.

A Saudi man was arrested Sunday at Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport as he was attempting to smuggle Captagon narcotic pills to the United Arab Emirates.

The National News Agency said the man, H. al-Roueily, was detained in a joint operation between the Airport Security Apparatus and the army’s Intelligence Directorate.

Progressive Socialist Party leader ex-MP Walid Jumblat on Sunday blasted remarks by Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil on the Syrian and Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

“We remind the orientalists at the Lebanese foreign ministry that Zionism displaced most of the Palestinian people under the slogan that Palestine is a land without people, and the ‘deal of the century’ might displace the rest,” Jumblat tweeted.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri has described the deficit reduction in the draft 2019 state budget as a "message in all directions."

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri received in Ain el-Tineh on Saturday, US Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee Eliot Engel and the accompanying delegation, in the presence of the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee MP Yassin Jaber, the National New Agency reported on Saturday.

After wrapping up weeks of Cabinet negotiations to slash a ballooning budget deficit, Finance Minister ali Hassan Khalil said on Saturday that the deficit could have been lowered further.