The Union of Bakery owners announced a strike Monday "if no positive developments take a place."

General Security Chief Major General Abbas Ibrahim stressed on Thursday that celebratory gunfire in Lebanon is a “crime” requiring the State's action, the National News Agency reported on Thursday.

Following the “clarification” statement of the World Bank Group a few days ago urging reform of Lebanon’s troublesome energy sector, the bank has directly reaffirmed through its senior officials to Lebanese officials the importance of “immediately” initiating the required reform steps, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Thursday.

Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday condemned a Turkish military operation against Kurdish militants in northeast Syria as an “aggression” and “occupation.”

The Foreign Ministry “considers the military operation that the Turkish armed forces are carrying out in northern Syria an aggression against a brotherly Arab country and an occupation of Syrian territory which will subject its people to killing and internal and external displacement,” it said in a statement.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri met Wednesday at the Grand Serail with the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo, in the presence of the U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jan Kubis, former Minister Ghattas Khoury and Hariri’s advisors Nadim Mounla and Hazar Caracalla.

During the meeting, which included a working lunch, discussions focused on the situation in the region and the challenges that Lebanon is facing to preserve its security and economic and social stability.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Wednesday criticized the delay in discussing the 2020 state budget.

“The Speaker wondered about the progress of the state budget debate, after the series of meetings in Cabinet and in its ministerial committees,” MP Ali Bazzi said after the weekly Ain el-Tineh meeting between Berri and lawmakers.

President Michel Aoun on Wednesday said that appearing before the judiciary is “a duty, not a choice,” after two ministers refused to meet with the financial prosecutor over suspected corruption at the Ministry of Telecommunications.

“Respecting the judiciary is a duty, not a choice, and summoning someone to it is not necessarily an accusation,” Aoun tweeted.

Retired military servicemen on Wednesday staged a sit-in outside the Finance Ministry’s VAT building protesting austerity government measures and delays to end-of-service payments, medical aid and benefit cuts.

Amid concerns the government might be unable to finish studying the 2020 state budget before a mid of October deadline, Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil said its completion proves the government has kept a pledge to the international community, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Wednesday.

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil on Tuesday called for a “unified response” to the latest dollar shortage crisis in the country, as he slammed what he described as attacks on “the President’s dignity.”