Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri announced Wednesday that he will finalize the government formation issue “next week.”

“There will be other meetings with the political parties over the issue of the government and there are positive developments and I will finalize the issue next week,” said Hariri after talks with Progressive Socialist Party chief ex-MP Walid Jumblat in Clemenceau.

Progressive Socialist Party leader ex-MP Walid Jumblat, Lebanese Democratic Party chief MP Talal Arslan and Arab Tawhid Party head ex-minister Wiam Wahhab on Wednesday traded jabs over the Choueifat and Jahliyeh deadly incidents.

“It seems that the Great Satan is interfering in the investigations in the case of the martyr Mohammed Abu Diab, seeing as all evidence has disappeared as if by magic, the same as the Smaller Satan interfered in the case of the martyr Alaa Abu Faraj and the suspect Amin al-Souqi is now in the protection of (senior Syrian general) Maher al-Assad,” Jumblat tweeted.

One of the most notorious drug dealers has been arrested at a hotel in the Mount Lebanon region, the army announced on Wednesday.

“As part of the crackdown on drug dealers in the various Lebanese regions, and following follow-up, the Intelligence Directorate managed in a special operation to arrest one of the most notorious drug dealers in Mount Lebanon, M.B., at one of the region's hotels,” the army said in a statement.

Caretaker Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil said on Wednesday that Qataris are “good investors,” as he invited “Saudi arabia and other states” to follow Qatar’s steps and invest in Lebanese government bonds.

The Commander of United States Central Command General Joseph Votel met early this week with senior Lebanese officials during his visit to Lebanon, where he affirmed full support for the Lebanese army, the US embassy said in a statement released on Wednesday.

The statement said that Votel has met on Monday with President Michel Aoun, Speaker Nabih Berri, Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri, and Commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces General Joseph Aoun, as well as UNIFIL Force Commander Major General Stefano Del Col, accompanied by U.S. Ambassador Elizabeth H. Richard.

Saudi Arabian Finance Minister, Mohammed al-Jadaan, said his country is prepared to do everything in its power to support Lebanon’s struggling economy, CNBC news reported on Wednesday.

The Free Patriotic Movement-led Strong Lebanon parliamentary bloc on Tuesday announced its support for the latest cabinet formation drive which Speaker Nabih Berri says might lead to forming a new government “within a week or less.”

President Michel Aoun and FPM chief MP Jebran Bassil are “exerting great efforts to resolve the obstacles,” MP Ibrahim Kanaan said after the bloc's weekly meeting.

Free Patriotic Movement chief and caretaker Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil announced Tuesday that “stability in Syria and the endurance of the secular/non-theological state in it are in Lebanon's interest.”

Bassil voiced his remarks during a political seminar at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he represented Lebanon in the absence of Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri who canceled his participation to follow up on the renewed drive to form a new government in Lebanon.

Speaker Nabih Berri announced Tuesday after talks with Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri that the new government could be formed “within a week or less.”

“There are active and needed efforts and PM-designate Saad Hariri intends to intensify his efforts and he hopes to form the new government within a week or less,” Berri told reporters after the Ain el-Tineh meeting with Hariri.

Lebanese director Nadine Labaki's film 'Capernaum' was on Tuesday selected among four nominees for the best foreign language film Oscar, which will be handed out on February 24 in Hollywood.

Below is the list of nominees: