Parliament failed once again on Wednesday to elect a president after quorum was not met during the 25th elections session.

Speaker Nabih Berri postponed the polls to July 15.

Countries across the world have a favorable view of the U.S. while 60 percent of Lebanese express an unfavorable view, according to a Pew Research Center report.

The U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and Syria against Islamic State group fighters also drew 62 percent support worldwide. Among the supporters are 78 percent of the Lebanese population.

The head of the Association of Banks in Lebanon, Francois Bassil, has said the ABL will participate in a conference organized by the Economic Committees on Thursday to shed light on the severe repercussions of the political crisis on the country's economy.

Bassil told An Nahar daily published Wednesday that although the banking sector is functioning properly, the ABL will take part in the conference that will be held in BIEL.

Contacts between Bkirki and officials from the Free Patriotic Movement, the Lebanese Forces and the Marada Movement are expected to be activated this week in an attempt to resolve the presidential deadlock.

An Nahar daily said Wednesday that Change and Reform bloc MP Ibrahim Kanaan is planning to hold separate talks with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi, LF chief Samir Geagea and Marada leader MP Suleiman Franjieh.

Speaker Nabih Berri has called for the punishment of the Roumieh prison guards and their backers for torturing Islamist inmates and stressed that the law should also be enforced on rioters.

“Such practices are totally rejected,” Berri told officials who visited him in Ain el-Tineh on Tuesday. “If they take place in some countries, then Lebanon should not follow suit.”

The mother-in-law of one of a Lebanese man and Australia's most notorious Islamic State fighters has pleaded for the government to help her "desperate" daughter and five grandchildren flee the Middle East, saying she made "the mistake of a lifetime.”

Karen Nettleton's emotional appeal for help came after reports that her son-in-law Khaled Sharrouf and his friend Mohamed Elomar were killed in fighting in the Iraqi city of Mosul in the past week, although officials Wednesday suggested they may have died in Syria .

Al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc on Tuesday voiced support for “the measures taken by Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq and Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi” to address the situations in Lebanese prisons in the wake of the abuse videos that were leaked from Roumieh.

The bloc “joins its voice to their voices and to the voice of the vast majority of Lebanese in their demand for pressing on with the investigation in a transparent and strict manner,” it said in a statement issued after its weekly meeting.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea noted Tuesday that the election of a new president would resolve the country's growing political crisis, as he stressed that only the army should be entrusted with defending the country.

“If the obstruction of the presidential election is causing governmental crises, then the solution is not further obstruction but rather the immediate election of a president who would restore the regularity of the work of the government, the parliament and the rest of institutions,” said Geagea at an LF ceremony in Maarab.

Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi accused Hizbullah of seeking to create differences between him and Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq following a scandal at the country's largest and most infamous prison.

The party later rejected the claims.

Free Patriotic Movement chief MP Michel Aoun demanded on Tuesday that an investigation be held in the recent developments at Roumieh Prison, accusing the Internal Security Forces Intelligence Bureau of shortcomings at the facility.

He said after the Change and Reform bloc's weekly meeting: “The abuse at Roumieh jail was caused by individuals, not the ISF institution, and an investigation must be held without defamation.”