U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale is expected to visit Beirut on Thursday in line with Lebanon’s parliamentary consultations to name a new prime minister, media reports said on Wednesday.

A bodyguard of caretaker Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil on Tuesday snatched the cellphone of a prominent journalist during a U.N. forum in Geneva, the journalist said.

“Lebanese FM Jebran Bassil had his security confiscate my phone and erase the video when I was trying to interview him at UN Refugees forum in Geneva,” Lebanese-German journalist Jaafar Abdul Karim tweeted.

Caretaker Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil on Tuesday warned the international community, especially European countries, that “hundreds of thousands of Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinians” might flee to Europe should Lebanon turn into another “Syria.”

Speaking at an international conference for refugees at the U.N. headquarters in Geneva, Bassil urged the world to stand by Lebanon and “prevent its collapse.”

The Central Criminal Investigations Bureau will interrogate AMAL Movement supporter Abbas al-Shami, who has received and shared a video deemed insulting to Shiites following a Facebook feud with a Lebanese man who lives in Europe.

LBCI television said the interrogation will take place under the supervision of the public prosecution.

Anti-corruption protesters on Tuesday stormed the headquarters of the Chamber of Commerce, Industry & Agriculture in Sanayeh during a meeting attended by caretaker Telecom Minister Mohammed Choucair.

The protesters expressed their rejection of any privatization of the mobile telecom sector and the costs of telecom services in Lebanon.

U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jan Kubis on Tuesday warned Lebanon’s political leaders that “blocking a sustainable political solution” will only lead to further violence and sectarian “provocations.”

In a series of tweets, Kubis said he was “alarmed to hear about the increasingly complex & dangerous security situation around the protests” from caretaker Interior Minister Raya al-Hassan, Army chief General Joseph Aoun and Internal Security Forces chief Maj. Gen. Imad Othman.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Tuesday discussed the latest political developments in a meeting that lasted for more than an hour and a half in Ain el-Tineh, a joint statement said.

“The two leaders urged all Lebanese to show awareness and vigilance during this period and not to be dragged into strife,” the statement said, warning that some parties are exerting “strenuous efforts to drag the country into the inferno of strife.”

Caretaker Minister of Foreign Affairs Jebran Bassil led a Lebanese delegation to the first Global Refugee Forum in Geneva where heads of state, government ministers, and business and civil society leaders are gathered to discuss ways to support refugees and host communities.

Diplomats in Beirut were surprised when outgoing Prime Minister Saad Hariri requested that President Michel Aoun postpone the consultations on a new PM “in order to garner bigger backing,” for his nomination, the Saudi Asharq al-Awsat reported on Tuesday.

Abbas Ali spends most of his free time camped out in Tahrir Square — the epicenter of Iraq's anti-government protests — going home only at 3 a.m. to catch few hours of sleep, change his clothes and check on his family. He is determined to stay in the square until the end, whatever that may be.

Ali was only 13 when the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein. He only vaguely remembers life under the dictator. What he knows clearly is that life in post-Saddam Iraq is a daily, often humiliating struggle for survival.