Tonnes of dead fish have washed up on the shore of a highly polluted lake in eastern Lebanon in the past few days, an official said Thursday.

It was not immediately clear what caused the fish kill in Lake Qaraoun on the Litani river, which several local fisherman said was unprecedented in scale.

France has begun imposing entry restrictions on certain Lebanese figures as a sanction for their role in Lebanon's political crisis or corruption, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Thursday.

His comments were the first official confirmation from Paris that it has imposed sanctions against Lebanese officials over their failure to reform the country in the wake of the deadly August 2020 Beirut port explosion.

Free Patriotic Movement chief MP Jebran Bassil held talks Thursday in Moscow with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

“The (new) government is necessary but it will be insufficient should it lack the decision, will and ability to carry out reforms,” Bassil said at a press conference after the meeting.

President Michel Aoun on Thursday reminded the Lebanese that only a few days separate them from “the juncture of the handing over of files and documents by Banque du Liban to the financial audit firm.”

“There is a deadline for submitting BDL’s files and documents to the financial audit firm and we and the Lebanese people are monitoring,” Aoun added in a tweet.

In April 2021, the Office of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) at the Embassy of the United States in Beirut, in collaboration with the American Bar Association (ABA), concluded a series of training seminars for members of the Lebanese judicial system focused on efforts to strengthen the country’s criminal justice processes and develop proposals for alternative sentencing or judicial punishments other than incarceration, the US embassy said in a press release on Thursday.

The Embassy’s support for this program represents its ongoing commitment to the creation of an independent and effective Lebanese judicial system that can address issues of corruption and help enact reforms necessary for the country’s development.

Caretaker Interior Minister Mohammed Fahmi expressed gratitude to Saudi Arabia for allowing around 40 stranded Lebanese trucks on the Saudi border to enter the Kingdom, Fahmi’s press office said in a statement on Thursday.

Caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab refuses lifting subsidies on basic goods in Lebanon before the crisis-stricken country completes the allocation of food ration cards mainly for needy families, media reports said on Thursday.

Director of the Rafik Hariri University Hospital Firass Abiad said on Thursday the vaccination campaign against coronavirus in Lebanon is an "uphill battle," pointing to a lack of availability of the vaccine.

Lebanon’s halted sea border demarcation talks with Israel are likely to resume sometime “soon,” the reputable An Nahar newspaper reported on Thursday.

Mount Lebanon Prosecutor Judge Ghada Aoun on Wednesday lauded a decision by Bekaa’s acting First Examining Magistrate Amani Salameh that froze the real estate assets of all Lebanese banks and the real estate assets, shares and stocks of their chairmen.

“I publicly declare my belonging to the club of judges – to the most honorable people. Bravo, Judge Amani! You have always and anew proved that you support the right, the aggrieved and righteous justice,” Aoun tweeted.