Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati visited on Wednesday Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi at his summer seat of Diman where he attended part of the meeting of the council of Maronite bishops.

Miqati was accompanied by Caretaker Ministers Hassan Diab, Walid al-Daour and Ahmed Karami and the head of the Council for Development and Reconstruction, Nabil al-Jisr.

The Internal Security Forces Intelligence Branch is interrogating eight members of the Regional Drug Control Office in the Bekaa for using their arms for celebratory gunfire, al-Akhbar daily reported on Wednesday.

The newspaper said the eight officers used their guns to fire in the air during the wedding of the bureau's chief, Captain Bassel Nasser, at Hotel Massabki in the Bekaa town of Chtaura.

The failure to form a new government helped the Economic Committees and the Syndicate Coordination Committee unite in their demands for a “strong and capable cabinet” which culminated with a nationwide strike on Wednesday and calls for politicians to resolve the country's crises.

The head of the Economic Committees, Adnan Kassar, said at a press conference following a visit to President Michel Suleiman at Baabda palace that the success of the general strike confirms the move of the Committees “meets the request of every Lebanese.”

America's biggest pro-Israel groups are throwing their weight behind President Barack Obama's plan for U.S. military intervention in Syria.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, known as AIPAC, said Tuesday that congressional authorization for strikes against Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime would ensure that what it called "barbarism on a mass scale" does not go unanswered.

The World Bank is helping Lebanon prepare the ground to request an influx of international aid to offset the high costs of the spillover from the Syrian civil war, President Jim Yong Kim told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Kim said in an interview that the Lebanese government asked the World Bank to take the lead in preparing a quick assessment of the social and economic impacts of the war in neighboring Syria. This analysis will be presented during a Sept. 25 meeting of an international support group for Lebanon at the United Nations General Assembly.

An Israeli force on Tuesday attempted to open the metal gate between the Misgav Am settlement and the eastern entrance of the southern town of Adaisseh with the aim of conducting repair works in an area disputed by Lebanon, the Lebanese National News Agency reported.

The Israeli army brought a bulldozer amid “strict security protection from troops and around seven military vehicles,” NNA said, adding that the soldiers opened the gate and sent a tracker dog through it for a period of time before closing it again.

German intelligence said Tuesday that spying on a conversation between a Hizbullah member and an Iranian diplomat provided “an additional clue” that proves Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons in the August 21 attacks.

"The intelligence agency (BND) intercepted a phone conversation between a high-ranking Hizbullah member and the Iranian embassy and in which the Hizbullah official seems to admit chemicals were used,” a report by Der Spiegel magazine said.

Kuwaiti Ambassador to Lebanon Abdul Al al-Qinai announced on Tuesday that a Kuwaiti Airways plane is scheduled to arrive in Beirut later at night to evacuate Kuwaiti nationals from the country due to the rising tensions in the region over the Syrian conflict, reported the Kuwait News Agency (KUNA).

The ambassador explained that the evacuation was part of “Kuwaiti efforts to guarantee the safety of its people in Lebanon.”

Al-Mustaqbal bloc on Tuesday condemned Hizbullah's "attacks against citizens and diplomats under the excuse of security measures,” urging the president and the premier-designate to overcome “illegal obstacles” and form a new cabinet.

"We strongly condemn the attacks of Hizbullah's militia on citizens and diplomats,” the bloc said in a released statement after the MPs' weekly meeting at the Center House.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun on Tuesday hoped U.S. President Barack Obama will not act on Syria as his predecessor George W. Bush acted on Iraq, accusing caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati of appointing directors general as “his spies” in state institutions.

“I had suggested in 2005 to form a parliamentary committee on security, but they have been delaying it because there is a political will against its creation. It should be a regular committee like the rest of committees and MPs must demand a proper performance from the security agencies, or else it should not be formed and let them bear the responsibility,” Aoun said after the weekly meeting of the Change and Reform bloc in Rabiyeh.