Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi urged on Monday the members of a subcommittee to agree on a new draft-law and put it on parliament's agenda.

In a message to the MPs, who are scheduled to revive the subcommittee meetings in parliament on Tuesday, al-Rahi said: “You should work hard to produce a new electoral law and overcome the 1960 law that marginalizes a large segment of the Lebanese.”

Schools throughout Lebanon will be closed on Tuesday and Wednesday due to the fierce storm lashing Lebanon, announced Education Minister Hassan Diab in a memo on Monday.

The memo said: “Due to our keenness on the students' safety, all private and official schools will be closed on January 8 and 9.”

The body of 46-year-old Lebanese Fouad Elias Abou Murad was transferred from Israel into Lebanon on Monday through al-Naqoura border crossing.

Fouad's body was handed over to his family, who hail from the town of Jdeidet Marjeyoun.

Some 5,000 Hizbullah members have been fighting alongside Syrian regime troops against rebels in the restive suburbs of Damascus, the Saudi al-Watan daily reported.

The newspaper quoted sources as saying that the fighters crossed the border into Syria last month.

Deputy Speaker Farid Makari said Monday that Hizbullah is not ready to lose its grip on Lebanon and prefers that the parliamentary elections are not held.

“The March 8 team and mainly Hizbullah is not ready to lose its control and hegemony over the country and is aware that it would lose the elections if a (new) law” is not up to its expectations, Makari told Radio Orient.

Head of Parliament’s Public Health, Labor and Social Affairs committee MP Atef Majdalani revealed on Monday that forged medications were released again in the market after the recent scandal that hit the health sector in Lebanon.

“Judicial sources confirmed that the forged medications are in containers at the Health Ministry and were released into the market,” Majdalani told Voice of Lebanon radio (100.5).

March 14 MP Marwan Hamadeh considered on Monday that the electoral subcommittee meetings are to witness the exchange of viewpoints among the rival political parties over which electoral law to adopt during the upcoming polls.

“If the electoral subcommittee meetings were a waste of time, we wouldn't have set more than one session,” Hamadeh said in comments to Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3).

A deadly rainstorm brought traffic chaos to major Lebanese cities, including the capital Beirut and its suburbs, as students returned to schools following the Christmas and New Year holidays, and workers and employees struggled to head to work.

The torrential downpours that started on Saturday and are expected to last till Wednesday left a toddler dead in the area of Iqlim al-Kharroub after rainwater flooded the camps of Bedouins.

The Christian four-party committee on the electoral law on Sunday agreed to endorse the electoral system proposed by the so-called Orthodox Gathering, under which each sect would elect its own lawmakers, LBCI television reported.

The committee took its decision during a meeting held in Bkirki. The four-party panel comprises representatives from the Free Patriotic Movement, the Lebanese Forces, the Phalange Party and the Marada Movement.

Speaker Nabih Berri on Sunday held talks with Prime Minister Najib Miqati in Ain al-Tineh, state-run National News Agency reported.

Talks between the two officials tackled the current situations and developments and a number of issues, NNA said.