Five soldiers were injured in a blast that targeted an army tank in Ras al-Sarj in the eastern border town of Arsal, the state-run National News Agency said on Friday.

Gunfire was later heard in the area and the army deployed heavily, NNA added.

Speaker Nabih Berri insistence to hold a legislative session on the 12 and 13 of November to approve 38 items including financial draft laws have driven contacts between the Free Patriotic Movement and the Lebanese Forces who say could boycott the session, al-Hayat daily said.

FPM and the LF could possibly boycott the session over the exclusion of the electoral law proposal from the agenda, which the Speaker believes that it needs more time to be studied.

A new committee has been formed on Thursday to tackle the controversial trash crisis and to study the proposals presented by some companies to export Lebanon's waste abroad, al-Mustaqbal daily reported on Friday.

Agriculture Minister Akram Shehayyeb heads the committee which is comprised of three new members one representing the Environment Ministry another representing the Council for Development and Reconstruction in addition to a judge to study the legal aspects of the offers put forward, unnamed ministerial sources told the daily.

Britain probed security at Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh airport on Thursday and scrambled to repatriate thousands of tourists as Cairo and Moscow dismissed fears a Russian plane was downed by a bomb.

Hours after Britain announced it was suspending flights in and out of the Red Sea resort, where most tourists are British or Russia, Germany's Lufthansa followed suit, citing "the current situation on the Sinai peninsula" as fears grew over airline safety. 

Speaker Nabih Berri dubbed on Wednesday the four-month trash crisis as a “farce”, and scheduled a legislative session on the November 12.

“The trash crisis has become a farce. It is unacceptable that it stays trapped in bickering and disputes among the regions,” said Berri after his weekly meeting with lawmakers.

Two members of the Army Intelligence were killed in a raid on one of the nightclubs in the area of Maameltein in search for fugitives, an army statement said on Monday.

“A patrol of the army intelligence was investigating information on some fugitives in one of the nightclubs in the Maameltein area when fugitive Mahdi Hussein Zoaiter and his companions opened fire killing two soldiers,” the army said in a statement.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara Boutros al-Rahi said on Sunday that the Lebanese state has touched the verge of collapse in light of the vacuum at the presidential post and the paralysis of the parliament and government.

“The Lebanese state has reached a stage that threatens of total collapse because of those who either directly or indirectly were responsible for the vacuum at the top state post for the last year and six months,” said al-Rahi during Sunday mass in Bkirki.

Army chief Gen. Jean Qahwaji stressed that the delay in payment of salaries to the military must be “solved as soon as possible,” assuring that he will not stand idle, al Mustaqbal daily reported on Sunday.

“We will not remain silent, we want the payrolls as soon as possible,” he told the daily.

Speaker Nabih Berri and Hizbullah party have vowed to Prime Minister Tammam Salam that they will handle the talks with MP Talal Arslan to substitute the Kfour landfill with that in the area of Costa Brava in Khaldeh after the latter expressed unwillingness to do so, unnamed ministerial sources told Al Mustaqbal daily on Sunday.

The Premier was planning to call for a cabinet session on Monday to tackle the thorny trash crisis file, but Berri and Hizbullah asked him to pause the move for 24 hours pending their scheduled meeting with head of the Lebanese Democratic Party Arslan on Sunday, the paper added.

An Internal Security Forces Corporal was found dead in the eastern city of Zahle with a gunshot wound to his head, the state-run National News Agency said on Friday

Maroun Jerjes al-Khoury, 27, was found dead on the balcony of his home in Zahle's al-Hmar region suffering from a gunshot wound, NNA added.