Spotlight
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil met Friday in Bkirki with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi, hours after the patriarch held talks with President Michel Aoun in Baabda.

President Michel Aoun sent a cable of well wishes to his French counterpart on Friday after his diagnosis with coronavirus.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara el-Rahi on Friday said that it’s crucial for an agreement on the cabinet formation to be reached between the President Michel Aoun and PM-designate Saad Hariri, noting that he “sensed no intention” on the President’s part to get veto powers in the new cabinet.

The Internal Security Forces said Friday it wants to make the public aware of a scammer that is impersonating Valet to park cars offered by some restaurants, stores, and other businesses to steal the vehicles of customers.
ISF said in a statement that the suspect stole two vehicles on 11-11-2020 and on 1-12-2020 from Zalqa area, by pretending to work as a 'Valet Parking’ employee. He then escaped to an unidentified location.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara el-Rahi will visit Baabda Palace Friday before noon in an effort to bridge the gap between President Michel Aoun and PM-designate Saad Hariri on the delayed cabinet formation, Nidaa al-Watan reported.
According to information obtained by the daily, the Patriarch is trying to make practical steps to ease the formation hurdles, mainly that a postponed visit of French President Emmanuel Macron to Lebanon might worsen the situation.

Marada Movement chief Suleiman Franjieh on Thursday distanced his ally Hizbullah from the ammonium nitrate shipment that exploded at Beirut port and instead pointed the finger at President Michel Aoun and the security agencies.

Scores of Lebanese rallied Thursday outside Judge Fadi Sawwan's house in Beirut after he paused the probe into the Beirut port explosion for ten days.
The protesters urged Sawwan to keep up his investigation.

Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri on Thursday wished French President Emmanuel Macron a speedy recovery after the latter tested positive for Covid-19.

The Government of Sweden on Thursday decided to amend and extend the regional development cooperation strategy for the Syria Crisis for 2021-2023.

A Turkish court hearing the case against four pilots, two flight attendants and a private airline official accused of smuggling former Nissan Motor Co. chairman Carlos Ghosn out of Japan to Lebanon via Istanbul, on Thursday rejected a request for the pilots' travel bans to be lifted, a lawyer said.
In the second hearing of the case, the court listened to testimony from two ground technicians who said they saw the airline official accompanying Ghosn in Istanbul while he left one jet and boarded the next, the state-run Anadolu Agency said.
