U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea in an interview with Lebanese al-Modon newspaper on Saturday, said the US regularly meets with international partners who share the same desire to see Lebanon and its people march towards prosperity, noting that Hizbullah’s activities in Lebanon “serve its own interest.”

Ever since a monster blast ravaged the arches and high ceiling of his family home in Lebanon's capital, Bassam Bassila says a real estate developer has been hounding him to sell.

"The owner of a tower block nearby is trying to pressure me into selling him my home so he can raze it to the ground" and "build a tall tower" instead, the 68-year-old said in Beirut's Monot neighbourhood.

The UN on Friday renewed its peace mission in Lebanon for a year but reduced its troop capacity and requested that Beirut grant access to tunnels under the border with Israel.

Lebanon passed the 15,000 mark for coronavirus cases on Friday, the health ministry said, as the country eased lockdown measures just a week after re-imposing them following pressure from businesses.

The ministry announced 676 new infections and two deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of novel coronavirus cases registered since February to 15,613, including 148 deaths.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday warned that Lebanon risks a return to civil war if it is left alone to deal with the crisis that followed the deadly Beirut port explosion this month.

Macron was speaking as he prepared to head to Lebanon on Monday in a new bid to press its leaders to undertake radical reform in the wake of the explosion this month that left 181 dead.

A lawyer for two American men urged a judge Friday to block their extradition to Japan, where they are wanted on charges that they smuggled former Nissan Motor Co. Chairman Carlos Ghosn out of the country in a box last year.

Attorneys for Michael Taylor and his son, Peter Taylor, have not denied that the men helped Ghosn flee while he was awaiting trial on financial misconduct charges in December, but say their actions don't fit under the law with which Japan is trying to convict them.

For the past decade, art collector Nabil Debs has been working on turning his 19th century ancestral home in a historic neighborhood of Beirut to a hotel and art gallery. He planned to open it to the public in mid-August.

Within seconds, his lifelong dream came crashing down, along with the two-story building's stone facade and front balcony as a massive explosion tore through Beirut, shearing off facades, blasting holes in buildings, doors, stones and shattering glass across the capital.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for  Near Eastern Affairs David Schenker will travel to Kuwait, Qatar, and Lebanon August 28-September 4, 2020, the U.S. State Department said on Friday.

“On September 2, the Assistant Secretary will travel to Beirut, where he will meet with civil society representatives, discuss U.S. assistance efforts in the wake of the August 4 Beirut port explosion, and urge Lebanese leaders to implement reforms that respond to the Lebanese people’s desire for transparency, accountability, and a government free of corruption,” the State Dept. said in a statement.

French President Emmanuel Macron will next week meet iconic singer Fairuz and members of Lebanon's political leadership as he returns to the country in search of serious reform in the wake of the devastating Beirut port blast, the Elysee said Friday.

Macron will be in Lebanon on Monday and Tuesday for his second visit in less than a month after the August 4 blast at the Beirut port that killed 181 people and revived calls for radical change in the country.

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat mockingly suggested Friday that the binding parliamentary consultations to choose a new premier have been scheduled for Monday “out of courtesy.”

“After the delay in calling for consultations -- which violates the Taef Accord, as if some political forces are experimenting with a new constitution… -- the consultations were scheduled for Monday out of courtesy, seeing as the French president will arrive on Tuesday,” Jumblat tweeted.