International peace envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi is expected to visit Lebanon during his upcoming tour of the region, al-Liwaa newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Diplomatic sources told the newspaper that Brahimi will arrive in Beirut after a short visit to Egypt and Syria after President Bashar Assad sets the date for a meeting.

A U.S. State Department official has expressed a cautious optimism at prospects for a European designation of Hizbullah as a terrorist organization.

“We've been engaging with our partners in Europe, and we are cautiously optimistic about the prospects for an EU designation of the group,” the State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism, Daniel Benjamin, said in an address at the Brookings Institution on Tuesday.

United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Derek Plumbly visited southern Lebanon on Tuesday where he toured part of the area along the Blue Line. He also viewed development projects and met with Lebanese local authorities.

During all his meetings, he emphasized the link between the security and stability, which was made possible in southern Lebanon by the implementation of U.N. Security Council resolution 1701 and the longer term development of the region.

Al-Mustaqbal bloc criticized on Tuesday Prime Minister Najib Miqati's comments on Tripoli's events, saying that his remarks are a “political scandal serving the Syrian regime”.

"They (Miqati's comments) suggest that the north is a hub for extremists and terrorists,” the bloc said in a released statement after the MPs' weekly meeting at the Center House.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Tuesday noted that the March 14 forces are exerting efforts more than others to pass a new electoral law, urging Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah to “let the state function” before offering advice to al-Qaida about Syria.

“The current deterioration of the economic situation stems from the lack of confidence in the government politically and security-wise, as it does not have relations with the Arab countries and they're almost severed, at a time when the factor of the Arab countries has an impact on our economy,” Geagea said in an interview with the Central News Agency, in response to Nasrallah's recent suggestion to form an economic action group.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun slammed on Tuesday the March 14 camp's obstruction of parliamentary work, accusing the “minority of practicing a dictatorship” in Lebanon.

He said after the Change and Reform bloc's weekly meeting: “I assure the people that no unrest will take place if the parliamentary elections are not staged due to the March 14 camp's obstruction.”

Lebanon saw a mass influx of Palestinians on Tuesday, as hundreds fled mounting violence in the Yarmuk refugee camp in Syria and entered through the Masnaa border in the east, an Agence France Presse correspondent said.

They will join about 2,000 other Palestinians who crossed into Lebanon over the past three days, according to estimates by the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and the Lebanese General Security.

U.S. journalist Richard Engel, who was freed after being held hostage for five days in Syria, said Tuesday that his captors were taking him to an alleged Hizbullah stronghold when he was set free by rebels.

"This was a group known as the shabiha. This is a government militia. They are loyal to President (Bashar) Assad," Engel said about his captors.

Lebanese lawyer Rashad Salameh filed on Tuesday a lawsuit against al-Mustaqbal movement lawmaker Oqab Saqr for allegedly sending arms to Syrian rebels.

The lawyer agreed last week to file the lawsuit at the behest of Syrian authorities against several people allegedly involved in arming the Syrian opposition.

Two youths were wounded on Tuesday in a dispute that broke out at the Humanities Faculty of the Lebanese University in al-Fanar district north of Beirut, reported the National News Agency.

It said that Lebanese Forces students were distributing candy on the occasion of the holiday at the entrance of the university campus when the dispute broke out.