The World Bank put high emphasis in a series of reports and statements it made recently on the deteriorating conditions inside Lebanon’s military institution.

European Union member states have agreed to lift coronavirus travel restrictions on travelers from eight countries and territories including the United States, officials and diplomats said Wednesday.

A senior army official confirmed in remarks to the Associated Press on Wednesday that the economic situation in Lebanon has greatly affected the army’s morale.

Since the civil war, through wars with Israel, militant bombings and domestic turmoil, Lebanese have considered their military as an anchor for stability, one of the only institutions standing above the country's divisions.

But the military is now threatened by Lebanon's devastating financial collapse, one of the worst the world has seen in the past 150 years, according to the World Bank.

A delegation of top EU officials are expected to arrive in Beirut on Saturday in preparation for an international conference on Lebanon scheduled on June 22-23 at the EU level, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Wednesday.

The Free Patriotic Movement-led Strong Lebanon bloc on Tuesday said it rejects “veiled tripartite power-sharing” in a so-called “three eights” government that would grant each political camp eight ministerial seats.

In a statement issued after its weekly meeting, the bloc also said that it rejects “the fabrication of new norms related to an incomplete rotation (of portfolios) or a so-called exclusivity in the formation or nomination process.”

Sources following up on the cabinet formation process and close to al-Mustaqbal Movement have snapped back at a statement issued by the Presidency, describing it as an attack on Speaker Nabih Berri and the stance of Dar al-Fatwa’s juristic council.

“President Aoun is shutting the doors in the face of initiatives and openly declaring that he does not want a government. He does not want a government led by (PM-designate Saad) Hariri because any progress in addressing the files will be attributed to Hariri’s role,” the sources told LBCI TV on Tuesday.

Rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch Tuesday called for a U.N. investigation into last year's port blast in Beirut in light of a slow domestic probe.

The August 4 explosion at Beirut port killed more than 200 people and destroyed swaths of the capital but ten months on, little light has been shed on the circumstances that led to Lebanon's worst peacetime disaster.

The Presidency issued a statement on Tuesday criticizing what it said were “interventions” and statements made by political parties concerning the government formation process.

MP Qassem Hashem of the Development and Liberation parliamentary bloc said on Tuesday that the initiative presented by Speaker Berri to ease the formation of a government “could be the last chance” for Lebanon to have a government.