Speaker Nabih Berri's call to slash the parliament's extension term and bring the legislative polls closer, is aimed at preventing attempts to “further postpone the elections” under a delay plight of “creating magnetic voter cards,” the pan-Arab Asharq al-Awsat reported on Friday.

A car carrying "flammable cleaning liquids" sparked a bomb scare in central Beirut on Thursday evening.

TV networks initially reported that the explosive detection equipment of Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq's convoy had detected "a car carrying boxes filled with explosive material in the Ring area in central Beirut."

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah announced Thursday that his group does not want war with Israel but that it stands ready to fight should a confrontation be imposed on it.

“A real resistance fighter, a real mujahid is one who performs his religious assignment to the fullest,” said Nasrallah in a televised sermon marking the beginning of Ashura, according to the Hizbullah-affiliated website al-Ahed News.

President Michel Aoun held talks Thursday in New York with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

The meeting was held on the sidelines of the annual meetings of the U.N. General Assembly, shortly after Aoun's speech before the world body.

Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil held talks Thursday in New York with his Syrian counterpart Walid al-Muallem, in the presence of Syria's U.N. envoy Bashar al-Jaafari.

The meeting, on the sidelines of the annual meetings of the U.N. General Assembly, was held “at Bassil's request,” LBCI television reported.

President Michel Aoun stressed Thursday in his maiden speech before the U.N. General Assembly that Lebanon will not allow the naturalization of any Syrian or Palestinian refugee on its soil “no matter what that might cost.”

“The decision in this regard belongs to us and not to anyone else,” Aoun underlined.

Higher Islamic Shiite Council chief Sheikh Abdul Amir Qabalan on Thursday condemned calls for “naturalizing” Palestinian and Syrian refugees in Lebanon.

“We condemn every call and effort to naturalize the Palestinians and we also deplore the call for naturalizing Syrian refugees,” said Qabalan in a statement marking the first of Muharram, in an apparent reference to recent remarks by U.S. President Donald Trump.

French Ambassador to Lebanon Bruno Foucher on Thursday described President Michel Aoun's upcoming visit to France as “highly important.”

Foucher was speaking during a visit to Maronite League in Beirut's Medawar area.

The army on Thursday set up fixed posts in the northern Bekaa town of Hourtaala, state-run National News Agency reported.

The posts were introduced on the road that links Hourtaala to al-Khodr, one of eastern Baalbek's towns, NNA said.

Democratic Gathering bloc leader MP Walid Jumblat criticized on Thursday the fiery positions traded between the United States and North Korea saying “what a future awaits us.”