The Central Security Council on Tuesday asked the General Directorate of General Security to devise a mechanism that would organize the entry of Syrian and Palestinian refugees from Syria into Lebanon, amid criticism by the U.N. and a rights watchdog over a recent incident.

“The council discussed the access of Syrian citizens and Syria-based Palestinian refugees into Lebanon by land and air, stressing that there is no resolution that totally prevents their entry and that the borders are not closed in their face,” state-run National News Agency said.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea said Thursday that the rival March 8 camp does not want a “real state” in Lebanon, accusing it of “obstructing” parliamentary sessions aimed at electing a new president in order to “maintain the state of chaos” in the country.

“We will not accept the persistence of the artificial, paralyzed and usurped state in Lebanon. We will struggle to restore the real and strong state,” Geagea said at a ceremony titled Day of the Republic that was organized by the LF's Student Department in Maarab.

Residents of the southern city of Sidon and its suburbs spotted several locusts on Saturday, which some experts said is due to the hot weather that Lebanon is witnessing currently, media reports said.

Citizens and farmers of the coastal area fear that an increase in the number of locusts could threaten their fields and crops.

The U.N. secretary-general is warning that the 3-year-old conflict in Syria poses a serious threat to the stability of Lebanon, as thousands of refugees stream into the small country and weapons and fighters are transferred out.

Ban Ki-moon's latest report to the U.N. Security Council, circulated Thursday, says the involvement of Lebanese groups in the Syrian fighting "has had a devastating impact on security," including several terrorist attacks in Lebanon "by groups claiming that they are acting in response to Hizbullah's fighting in Syria."

Pope John Paul II, who will be made a saint on Sunday along with John XXIII, was a charismatic leader who helped topple communism but was criticized for failing to tackle the scourge of child sex abuse by priests.

The first non-Italian pope since the Renaissance, and the first from eastern Europe, Polish Karol Wojtyla was hugely popular, eschewing the pomp that surrounded his predecessors and seeking contact with ordinary people.

Al-Jadeed TV's Karma al-Khayat and al-Akhbar daily's Ibrahim al-Amin might be sentenced to seven years in jail and/or fined 100,000 Euros if the Special Tribunal for Lebanon finds them to be in contempt of the court, STL spokesperson Marten Youssef told Naharnet on Thursday.

Earlier in the day, the STL said the two have been summoned to appear before it on charges of “contempt and obstruction of justice.”

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea stressed Thursday that he will stay in the presidential race “until the end” regardless of the candidacy of Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun.

“I will carry on with my nomination until the end and this has nothing to do with General Aoun's candidacy,” Geagea told LBCI television, during a weekly show dedicated to interviewing the major presidential hopefuls.

Aid trucks delivered on Tuesday food packages and fuel oil to the residents of Tufail on the Lebanese-Syrian border through the backing of armed forces.

Tufail, which lies in eastern Lebanon in an area surrounded by Syrian territory, was isolated after the only road that leads to the town came under the control of Syrian government troops.

Anti-drug agents in the Dominican Republic said they have dismantled a synthetic drug laboratory and arrested five people, including a Lebanese suspect.

Abel Rojas, a spokesman for the Caribbean country's National Drug Control Directorate, said the clandestine drug lab in the northern town of Villa Gonzalez made ecstasy, or MDMA.

Internal Security Forces arrested in Beirut on Saturday an Italian national who is wanted by the Interpol for belonging to a “criminal organization.”

"The Intelligence Bureau arrested Marcello Dell'Utri in a hotel in Beirut,” the ISF said in a released statement.