After a heated debate in the Cabinet earlier this week that disrupted hopes for harmony among its components, Speaker Nabih Berri on Saturday said the government has no choice but to work hard in order to resolve a number of pressing issues, al-Joumhouria daily reported.

The bodyguard of Mount Lebanon Prosecutor Judge Ghada Aoun was detained on Friday on charges of involvement in bribery-related offenses, the National News Agency said.

“Based on the confessions of some civilians and security personnel, it turned out that Judge Aoun's bodyguard, State Security Sergeant H.Kh., is among those involved in acts of receiving bribes, so he was summoned for interrogation before the Internal Security Forces Intelligence Branch after informing Judge Aoun of the issue,” NNA said.

President Michel Aoun on Friday signed a decree calling on parliament to convene an extraordinary legislative session from February 22 until March 18, 2019.

According to the decree, the session's agenda will include draft laws already referred to the legislature and drafts that could be referred during this period in addition to any draft laws, proposals or texts that the Parliament Bureau could decide to refer to the body.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi stressed on Friday that President Michel Aoun is the “guardian of the Constitution,” and described his stances during a heated Cabinet meeting on Thursday as “honorable.”

After Switzerland’s announcement it is freezing arms exports to Lebanon over missing weapons it sold to a Lebanese minister, former Public Works Minister Ghazi Zoaiter said on Friday the arms are “at his possession and all that Switzerland needs to do is communicate with him.”

An unknown assailant hurled two grenades at dawn at two private power generators in the northern Tripoli neighborhood of al-Qobbeh, the National News Agency reported Friday.

Switzerland has decided to halt arms exports to Lebanon due to “inability to account for a Swiss shipment of weapons to Lebanon,” Swiss authorities have said on Thursday.

Head of the Swiss Economics Ministry said Switzerland has exported 10 assault rifles and 30 sub-machine guns to Lebanon in 2016, but post-shipment verification in March 2018 was only able to verify nine.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Progressive Socialist Party chief ex-MP Walid Jumblat held talks Thursday evening at the Center House, after the latest war of words between them was contained.

“We will discuss topics that we disagree on and others that we agree on,” said Jumblat upon his arrival at the Center House.

Al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc on Thursday decried “political treachery” against it and against Prime Minister Saad Hariri, after the Constitutional Council invalidated Dima Jamali's membership of parliament.

In a statement issued after an emergency meeting, the bloc regretted the Council's ruling but announced that it will deal with it “according to the applicable legal and constitutional framework.”

Al-Jadeed television and the Progressive Socialist Party announced Thursday that they would drop the lawsuits that they had filed against each other in the wake of the grenade attack on the TV network.

The announcement was made during a visit to the network's building by Industry Minister Wael Abu Faour of the PSP, where he met with al-Jadeed's chairwoman Karma Khayyat.