The Lebanon Renaissance Foundation on Tuesday released its 2020 version of the ‘State of Our State’ index, which evaluates the country’s situation in several key fields on yearly basis.

The Foundation has released yearly reports since 2010.

Lebanon handed back two 18th-century religious icons of Jesus and Mary to Greece on Tuesday after they were seized during an auction, a judicial source said.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s (“STL”) Pre-Trial Judge, Daniel Fransen, will hold a fifth Status Conference on 3 February 2021, the STL said in a press release on Tuesday.

President Michel Aoun called the Higher Defense Council for an “urgent” meeting on January 21 at Baabda Presidential Palace.

Caretaker Justice Minister Marie-Claude Najm announced on Tuesday that she had received a request from judicial authorities in Switzerland to cooperate on an inquiry into financial transfers made by the Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh, media reports said.

The head of Lebanon's main coronavirus hospital Tuesday backed the extension of a total lockdown to curb soaring infection figures and save a fragile healthcare system from collapse.

"Easing the lockdown cannot occur if the virus is spreading unchecked in the community," Firas Abiad said on social media.

Spokesperson of the Lebanese Higher Defense Council Brig. Gen Mahmoud al-Asmar warned on Tuesday of the latest alarming death rate in Lebanon as the result of coronavirus, noting that a decision to extend or not the lockdown is up to the government.

Lebanon is reeling under multiple crises including a deteriorating health sector and a shortage in medicines as a result of the exchange rate crisis, which also reflected on a shortage in infant milk formula strictly sold at pharmacies, Asharq el-Awsat reported on Tuesday.

General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim has met with President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri in an endeavor to implement the initiative of Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi regarding the formation of the new government, al-Jadeed TV said.

A ship will on Monday set sail from the south coast of the UK bound for Lebanon with 100 armored patrol vehicles (Land Rover RWMIK) donated by the British Government to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), the British embassy said.

These vehicles, worth £1.5 million, will "further reinforce the stability on the Lebanese border with Syria and help the LAF to counter efforts by terrorists and smugglers to cross into the country," the embassy said in a statement.