Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun said on Tuesday that his party does not intend to topple Prime Minister Tammam Salam's government.

“Toppling the cabinet led by Tammam Salam is not among the objectives that we are currently working for,” Aoun told Iran's state news agency IRNA.

Environment Minister Mohammed al-Mashnouq vowed on Tuesday to resolve the waste management problem by implementing a plan proposed by him after the closure of the Naameh landfill sparked an environmental crisis.

Al-Mashnouq told al-Akhbar newspaper that he would start on Tuesday to take practical measures to implement the plan to transport the waste to several regions as a temporary solution pending the launching of tenders on the establishment of new landfills.

The residents of the town of Naameh that lies south of Beirut and nearby areas staged on Friday a sit-in near the landfill after the last truck left the facility following the expiry of the deadline for its closure.

The trucks of Sukleen, which is responsible for collecting and transporting the garbage in Beirut and Mount Lebanon, operated early Friday backed by security forces.

General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim has returned from Doha with pledges to revive the prisoner exchange deal between the Lebanese authorities and jihadists who have taken Lebanese servicemen captive, al-Joumhouria newspaper reported Thursday.

Ibrahim, who is the official Lebanese negotiator in the case of the troops and policemen, returned to Beirut on Wednesday after a two-day visit to Qatar.

A woman has admitted to killing her husband's daughter, a Syrian, in Blat Jbeil north of Beirut, for being paralyzed, the state-run National News agency reported Wednesday.

NNA said Nazliyeh Ziad Hammoud, 13, was found dead at her father's house at dawn Wednesday.

Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni, who is on an official visit to Beirut, has expressed concern over the presidential crisis in Lebanon.

“A commitment to elect a president concerns all the Lebanese,” Gentiloni told An Nahar daily in an interview published on Tuesday.

A major crisis looms on the Naameh landfill this week as environmentalists warned that they would stop trucks from hauling waste there starting Friday, which coincides with Eid al-Fitr.

The landfill that lies in the town of Naameh south of Beirut is scheduled to be closed in accordance with a government decision.

Police arrested on Friday the Lebanese ringleader of a gang which kidnapped a six-year-old child in the Jbeil district town of Amchit last week, reports said.

The man, S.Aa., was apprehended by the Internal Security Forces Intelligence Branch in the town of Dora near Beirut, which lies around 40 kilometers away from Amchit, they said.

General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim is expected to travel to Turkey next week to discuss with Qatari officials the case of Lebanese servicemen taken hostage by jihadists last year.

Security sources told al-Akhbar daily published on Friday that Ibrahim, who is the official Lebanese negotiator in the case of the troops and policemen, will inform the Qataris that Lebanon has completed the file on the prisoner exchange which was mediated by Doha's envoy.

European Union Ambassador to Lebanon Angelina Eichhorst has expressed regret that she will leave Lebanon at the end of her mission amid a continued vacuum at the presidential palace in Baabda.

In remarks to An Nahar daily published on Friday, the diplomat said: “I regret that I will leave Beirut in this situation, without knowing when a president will be elected.”