Dozens of Lebanese tourists who were stranded in Turkey and Georgia were returned on Saturday to Beirut after falling victim to a scam pulled off by an unlicensed Lebanese travel agency, LBCI TV said.

171 Lebanese nationals including two toddlers were returned from Turkey’s Dalaman Airport. They were trapped in Marmaris after realizing that the return tickets and hotel reservations booked by New Plaza Tours travel agency were fake.

Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil on Saturday assured that the Lebanese government takes seriously the ratings of Standard & Poor's and Fitch and will pursue serious and structural reforms, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Saturday.

The Standard & Poor's credit rating agency on Friday kept Lebanon's rating at B- while the Fitch agency downgraded it from B- to CCC.

In a statement, S&P affirmed its long- and short-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings on Lebanon at 'B-/B', saying that the outlook remains negative.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri met Friday afternoon at the Center House with the U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Elizabeth Richard.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Friday distanced himself from the controversy over the exclusion of the Lebanese Forces from the membership of the Constitutional Council, blaming “others” for failing to honor an agreement reached in parliament.

“As for what some newspapers reported regarding Speaker Berri’s stance on the appointment in Cabinet of the Constitutional Council members, Speaker Berri would like to clarify what follows: An agreement was indeed reached in parliament during the election of the first batch of the Council’s members,” Berri said in a statement.

Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil on Friday stressed that Lebanon is not a “bankrupt country,” hours before the release of a key financial report by the Standard and Poor’s international credit rating agency.

“We are not a bankrupt country and we have the ability to overcome difficulties and get out of our crises, regardless of rating headlines or foreign stances,” Khalil said at a financial seminar in Sidon.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Friday held separate meetings with President Michel Aoun, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Saad Hariri.

The National News Agency said Aoun told Cavusoglu that "the international community's continued disregard for the need to repatriate Syrian refugees to their country raises several question marks about the reasons."

Lebanese citizen Ali Nehme Hamzeh was killed Thursday when a bomblet from an Israeli cluster bomb fired during the 2006 war exploded under his bulldozer in the southern town of Majdel Selm, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported.

NNA said Hamzeh succumbed to his wounds at the Tebnin Hospital.

Dozens of Lebanese tourists are stranded in Turkey and Georgia after falling victim to a scam pulled off by an unlicensed Lebanese travel agency, Lebanese TV networks reported on Thursday.

“After we booked travel tickets and hotel rooms via the New Plaza Tours agency, we realized after arriving in Marmaris that the return tickets and hotel reservations were fake,” four of the victims, who are also lawyers, told MTV.

Beirut’s Grand Serail has hosted a press conference announcing Digital Lebanon Conference, which will be held under the patronage of Prime Minister Saad Hariri on September 13, 2019, in Beirut.

The conference is co-organized by Al-Iktissad Wal-Aamal, the Ministry of Telecommunications, the Ministry of State for Investment and Technology, the Office of the Minister of State for Administrative Reforms (OMSAR), the Office of the Prime Minister, and the World Bank.