Prime Minister Najib Miqati discussed on Wednesday with Saudi Ambassador Ali Awadh Asiri his country’s travel restriction advisory to Lebanon.

“The cabinet is taking all the necessary measures to maintain security and stability in Lebanon,” Miqati told Asiri.

Al-Baba Sweets workers held on Wednesday a sit-in near the protest site of Salafist cleric Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir in the southern city of Sidon to ask the clergyman to open the road for traffic.

Some 250 employees marched towards the area of the sit-in at the northern entrance of Sidon after the protest launched by al-Asir affected their work and reduced the number of their customers.

Energy Minister Jebran Bassil slammed on Wednesday the performance of the cabinet, saying that the Change and Reform bloc would continue to boycott its sessions until it assumes its responsibilities.

“Either we have a government that rules, or a one that lets all issues slip by,” Bassil told reporters after holding a meeting with Prime Minister Najib Miqati at the Grand Serail.

An eight-year-old student was killed and two others were injured on Wednesday when a truck collided with their school bus on the Shekka highway that links the northern city of Tripoli to Beirut, the National News Agency reported.

Azzam Owaida was killed, and Mohammed Hajjaj, 13 and seven-year-old Bahaa Hajjaj were injured when the rear window of the bus smashed in the collision, NNA said.

A Lebanese teenager was wounded when a stray bullet from inside Syrian territories landed on his home’s rooftop in the northern border town of al-Arida, the National News Agency reported on Wednesday.

NNA said Samer Khaled, 17, was sleeping on the roof when the bullet struck his neck.

The controversial employment of Electricite du Liban’s contract workers, which paralyzed the cabinet and the parliament on Tuesday, is jeopardizing the alliance between Hizbullah and the Free Patriotic Movement as President Michel Suleiman is set to decide on the matter.

The ball is in the president’s court, who will have to either ink the parliament’s approval of the workers’ permanent employment or refer it back to the legislature, local newspapers said on Wednesday.

Fears that the Syrian crisis could spill over to other countries in the region and mainly Lebanon haven’t dissipated, Russian Ambassador Alexander Zasypkin said Wednesday.

“We have said this on several occasions particularly to Lebanon,” Zasypkin told As Safir daily in an interview.

Al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc on Tuesday slammed the latest “violations by the Syrian regime’s army against Lebanon’s northern and eastern border areas,” rejecting what it called the Syrian army’s “arrogance towards Lebanon and its security forces and citizens.”

In a statement issued after its weekly meeting, the bloc blamed “the Syrian regime’s persistent violations” on the Lebanese state’s failure to take “decisive stances towards these continuous breaches.”

Cabinet sessions that have been scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday have been postponed due to the absence of Minister of the Displaced Alaeddine Terro and the boycott of the Change and Reform bloc ministers.

President Michel Suleiman adjourned Tuesday’s session, which was scheduled to be held at the Baabda Palace, due to the absence of 11 ministers.

Pope Benedict XVI will bring a message of peace for the Middle East on a three-day trip to Lebanon in September, the Vatican said Tuesday, amid rising tensions due to the conflict in neighboring Syria.

The 85-year-old German pontiff will meet with a variety of religious leaders during his visit to multi-faith Lebanon, which will be his 24th foreign trip since he was elected pope in 2005 and is one of his most sensitive missions.