President Michel Aoun has received a cable from U.S. President Donald Trump, greeting him on the occasion of the 77th anniversary of Lebanese Independence, the Presidency said on Wednesday.

“In the name of the people of the United States of America, I would like to wish the Lebanese people all the best, while celebrating their independence anniversary,” Trump said in the cable.

The streets of the southern city of Sidon flooded with garbage on Wednesday as migrant workers went on a strike for the third consecutive day.

Garbage piled up on the streets of the city, and in the overcrowded Palestinian refugee camp of Ain el-Hilweh.

Mount Lebanon Prosecutor Ghada Aoun on Wednesday accused the Special Investigation Commission at the Central Bank of Lebanon of “procrastination and refusing to practice its job.”

A new batch of US sanctions are expected to be issued this week against “one or more” Lebanese political figures, MTV TV channel reported on Wednesday.

A European official reportedly expressed resentment at what he called “successive negative signals” Lebanese officials continue to send to the international community by their “constant escape from reforms” and adherence to “corruption,” al-Joumhouria daily reported on Wednesday.

According to the daily, a political figure in Lebanon received a lengthy phone call from a senior European official, who “expressed clear dissatisfaction with the successive negative signals the Lebanese send to the international community through their constant evasion of reforms, and their insistence on remaining in the world of corruption they created.”

Israeli forces on Tuesday foiled a “smuggling attempt” near the Ghajar village on the Lebanese-Israeli border, an Israeli army spokesman said.

The Strong Lebanon parliamentary bloc on Tuesday decried that some parties are seeking a return to “the era of elimination and marginalization.”

Caretaker Deputy PM and Defense Minister Zeina Akar met Tuesday in Baghdad with Iraqi Defense Minister Juma Inad Saadoun and said military and intelligence cooperation treaties will soon be signed between the two nations.

Talks also tackled the aid offered by Iraq to Lebanon in the wake of the catastrophic Beirut port explosion and the outcome of a visit by an Iraqi economic delegation to Lebanon.

An armed clash broke out Tuesday in the Lebanese town of al-Qasr which borders Syria over smuggling operations, the National News Agency said.

The Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Dominic Raab, the United Kingdom’s First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, on Tuesday announced the winner of the first Canada-United Kingdom Media Freedom Award to recognize the journalists, individuals and organizations that actively promote and protect media freedom.