The cabinet on Wednesday approved the executive decrees for the law on oil excavation in Lebanon’s territorial waters.

The parliament endorsed the bill in August 2011.

Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn on Tuesday said the army has “clear information” about the presence of al-Qaida members in the Bekaa border town of Arsal, noting that “the army raided Arsal in search of Hamza Qarqouz,” who is believed to be an al-Qaida militant who had fled from Syria to Lebanon.

In an interview on OTV, Ghosn added: “It is our duty as politicians and officials to announce that there is an infiltration by some extremists, including al-Qaida members, through the borders, and it is our duty not to conceal things.”

Energy and Water Minister Jebran Bassil on Tuesday said he visited Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi in Bkirki to “inform him of the deliberate obstruction” of the plans proposed by the ministers of the Free Patriotic Movement in cabinet.

“The seat of the patriarchate is the place that gathers everyone and preserves the principles, that’s why we have to inform His Eminence of all the vital information and the fears and concerns we live daily with as ministers, whether concerning the administration or the appointments,” Bassil told reporters after the meeting.

Arab foreign ministers working on the Syrian crisis will meet in Cairo on Saturday to discuss the first report by an observer mission in Damascus, the Arab League said on Tuesday, as fresh violence killed 10 civilians and 18 regime troops, according to activists and a rights watchdog.

"The Arab League committee on Syria will meet Saturday at the Arab League headquarters," Assistant Secretary General Ahmed Ben Hilli told reporters.

Change and Reform bloc MP Michel al-Helou revealed on Tuesday that the bloc has decided to form a committee to study the Shura Council’s rejection of the government’s wage hike decree.

He said after the bloc’s weekly meeting: “Our initial assessment has determined that the Shura Council’s decision has legal flaws.”

The Free Patriotic Movement on Tuesday slammed “what Premier Najib Miqati has been saying about an infringement of the premiership’s powers,” stressing that the prime minister has been “acting in excess of his jurisdiction and in fact infringing on the powers of others.”

“Every now and then, Prime Minister Najib Miqati voices stances in the media that carry a lot of fallacies and overbidding, through which he attacks who he claims are parties ‘infringing on the powers’ of the premiership, which represents an infringement of the Sunni sect’s rights -- as he claims,” the FPM’s press office said in a statement.

Armed clashes erupted in the center of the Libyan capital Tripoli on Tuesday, killing two, as gunmen traded anti-aircraft and heavy machinegun fire, witnesses said.

Meanwhile, Al-Arabiya television reported that six people were killed in the fighting.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon will visit Lebanon next week to meet with officials as well as members of the U.N. peacekeeping force deployed in the south of the country, a government official told Agence France Presse.

The official said Ban's three-day trip would start on January 13.

The Arab League chief said on Monday that snipers and gunfire continue to threaten civilian lives in Syria and called for the shootings to end, as activists heaped criticism on the mission.

But Nabil al-Arabi defended the observers in his first remarks since the Arab monitors were deployed in Syria a week ago, saying the "mission needs more time."

Syrian authorities on Saturday seized “quantities of weapons and over 1,000 narcotic tablets near Sweid bridge on the Syrian-Lebanese border and in both cities of al-Qusayr and Tal Kalakh in Homs” near the border with Lebanon, Syria’s state-run news agency SANA reported Sunday.

“The weapons included PKM (machineguns), 14 anti-tank shells, 14 RPGs and various rifles,” SANA said.