Minister of Economy Raed Khoury said on Saturday that the Syrian crisis has entailed economic costs on Lebanon worth $18 billion dollars, as he urged displaced Syrians to return back home.

“The Syrian crisis has cost the Lebanese economy 18 billion dollars since 2011 until today.

Head of Lebanon's General Labor Union Beshara al-Asmar said that practical consultations have begun to raise the minimum wage level in the private sector after the latest tax hikes that were initially approved to fund the wage scale for the public sector, al-Joumhouria daily reported Saturday.

“Wage correction in the private sector is supposed to take its way to implementation in order to update the salaries, correct them and raise the minimum wage level,” Asmar told the daily.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi said on Friday that displaced Syrians and Palestinians have become a “great burden on Lebanon and must return home,” as he stressed “humanitarian solidarity with their causes.”

“It is our duty as Lebanese to preserve our country and its specifications for the benefit of all of us, and for Lebanon to carry out its mission in its Arab environment,” said Al-Rahi, adding “that is why all the displaced and refugees must return back to their land and country.”

Al-Mustaqbal Movement MP Ammar Houri said on Friday that the approval of the 2017 state budget was a “step in the right direction.”

“Although most of the budget has been used-up due to the fact that we are approaching the end of 2017, but this budget is a foundation for the 2018 budget which will take matters to better public financial regulation,” Houri told VDL radio (93.3) in an interview.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on the Lebanese to “move towards the full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1559,” recalling the Lebanese government's “international commitment to disarm Hizbullah and the rest of the armed groups,” al-Joumhouria daily reported on Friday.

“The participation of Hizbullah and other Lebanese groups in the conflict in Syria violates the international resolution, the Baabda Declaration and the dissociation policy and constitutes a threat to Lebanon's stability,” said Guterres in a semi-annual report to the UN Security Council on the implementation of Resolution 1559.

The Lebanese Forces party described any future visit by a Syrian minister to Lebanon as “provocative” and “overriding” Lebanon's judicial ruling against the Syrian regime over its involvement in the deadly 2013 bomb blasts in the northern city of Tripoli, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Friday.

“The visit of any Syrian minister to Lebanon will be just a tourist visit and a provocative one to a large segment of the Lebanese who stand surprised by the continued disregard of the judicial rulings against the Syrian regime which has been accused in the bombing of the two mosques and Michel Samaha's explosives,” LF sources told the daily.

The State Security Directorate said it arrested in the district of Hasbaya a 4-member cell comprised of Syrian nationals who had been monitoring “strategic locations with the intention of carrying out terrorist attack plots,” the National News Agency reported on Thursday.

During interrogation, the mastermind who was identified as Kh.M., confessed to having formed groups affiliated to the Islamic State organization via social media.

An Israeli bulldozer carried out digging works in Wadi Qatamoun across the town of Rmeish in the Bint Jbeil district, the National News Agency reported on Thursday.

According to NNA the bulldozer started digging works inside the border of occupied Palestinian territories adjacent to the U.N. demarcated Blue Line.

Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea stated that the Syrian “tutelage” has exiled President Michel Aoun back in 1990 and ordered his own detention, as he reassured that the March 14 alliance “has not died but is alive" and well.

The Lebanese Forces party stressed on Thursday that remarks made by deputy chief MP George Adwan about BDL's possible tax evasion are not aimed at indicting its governor Riad Salameh but were mere questions that needed answers, the pan-Arab Asharq al-Awsat reported on Thursday.