Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat announced Friday that Russia is “concerned” over the failure to elect a new president in Lebanon, following talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow.

“I explained to Lavrov that we failed to elect a president due to some political disputes and he expressed his concern over the issue,” Jumblat said in remarks to Al-Arabiya television.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam on Friday raised the voice against the continued failure to elect a new president for the country, especially after the parliament voted to extend its own term, stressing that “this unsound situation is unacceptable.”

“The harm against Christians is failure to elect a president and we cannot accept this unsound situation,” said Salam at a conference titled “Family and the Current Challenges in the Middle East”, which was held at the International Center for Dialogue of Civilizations in Rabweh.

Acts of sabotage and armed violence have been on the rise in recent weeks in the Bekaa border town of Arsal, where gunmen are trying to "take back the town to the atmosphere of August 2."

"Since three days, masked gunmen have been shooting at surveillance cameras in the main and side streets and public squares of Arsal,” state-run National News Agency reported on Friday.

Mustaqbal bloc MP Robert Fadel announced on Friday that he will be donating his monthly salary as a lawmaker to combat poverty in the northern city of Tripoli, following the example of Kataeb Party MP Sami Gemayel who made a similar announcement on Thursday.

He said in a statement: “Poverty has started to act as a direct threat to civil peace.”

First Military Examining Magistrate Judge Riyad Abu Ghida issued on Friday indictments against several foreigners and Lebanese who plotted to carry out terrorist attacks in Lebanon.

Abu Ghida indicted a Frenchman, originally from the Comoros islands, who was arrested in June during a raid on the Napoleon Hotel in Beirut's Hamra district.

The army continued on Friday clamping down on offenders across Lebanon, detaining several suspects linked to terror acts, the military command said in a statement.

An army unit raided Syrian encampments in the Zgharta town of Meryata, arresting ten Syrians who entered the country illegally.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Friday criticized Lebanese politicians for “destroying” the country and slammed lawmakers for “protecting their seats” at the parliament.

At the end of his two-week pastoral visit to Australia, al-Rahi said: “Politicians destroy and we build no matter what.”

The international humanitarian community is seeking to establish a new program to aid Lebanon, which is hosting Syrian and Palestinian refugees, to share the burden of the displaced.

Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas told al-Akhbar newspaper published on Friday that “the concerned international organizations will urge donor countries to share the burden of Syrian and Palestinian refugees with Lebanon.

Ahmed Salim Miqati, a terror detainee, confessed during investigations that his group aimed at carrying out a wide-scale assault against the army, revealing that fugitive Salafist cleric Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir is taking the Palestinian refugee camp Ain al-Hilweh, near the southern city of Sidon, as his refuge.

According to As Safir newspaper published on Friday, Miqati surprised investigators with spilling out the roles of his accomplices.

Speaker Nabih Berri has said that the law on the extension of parliament's term until June 2017 will come into force despite the rejection of several cabinet ministers to endorse it, and stressed that the new electoral law should adhere to the Taef Accord.

Several local dailies on Friday quoted Berri as telling his visitors that the extension of the legislature's tenure will become a fait accompli next week when the law is published in the Official Gazette.