U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will expectantly arrive in Beirut next week as part of a travel plan that includes Israel, Kuwait and Lebanon.

Speaker Nabih Berri expressed “anger” with David Satterfield, acting U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, who met with several Lebanese officials in Lebanon last week without meeting the Speaker or President Michel Aoun, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Saturday.

But Berri has assured that “he would have refused to see Satterfield even the latter asked to meet him,” added the daily.

Al-Mustaqbal Movement official ex-MP Mustafa Alloush wondered Friday if Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah intends to “fight corruption with weapons,” after the Hizbullah leader announced the anti-corruption fight is “as sacred as” his group's military resistance against Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon.

“After setting aside Jerusalem's liberation and after the doors were locked in the face of the trade of blood, wars and destruction, someone today is inventing an alternative holy war titled as the battle against corruption! Then why should the weapons stay and will he fight corruption with weapons?” Alloush tweeted, in an apparent reference to Nasrallah.

An Internal Security Forces officer and a policeman were ordered detained on Friday in an ongoing probe into corruption in the ISF institution.

“Under the supervision of the military prosecution, the ISF Intelligence Branch continued its interrogation of a large number of security personnel and civilians in the multi-pronged corruption file, in which new details emerge everyday,” the National News Agency said.

President Michel Aoun has called upon the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to keep pace with Lebanon in “facilitating and expediting” the return of Syrian refugees.

President Michel Aoun on Friday signed a decree setting April 14 as the date to hold by-election in the district of Tripoli to fill the fifth Sunni parliamentary vacant seat, the Presidency said in a tweet.

Lebanese officials on Friday marked International Women’s Day noting the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women.

Using this year’s theme #balanceforbetter, Prime Minister Saad Hariri said in a tweet: “We commit ourselves to continue to work for equality of rights as well as duties among citizens and empowering women to lead all sectors in order to achieve development, economic advancement and balance in our society because the failure to benefit from this energy is a national loss,” he said.

Ex-PM Fouad Saniora on Thursday accused Hizbullah and its ally the Free Patriotic Movement of seeking to “deviate attention” from “their hegemony over the state,” the upcoming Special Tribunal for Lebanon rulings and the U.S. sanctions on Hizbullah.

Saniora was referring to the latest corruption-related controversy sparked by the remarks of Hizbullah MP Hassan Fadlallah.

United States Ambassador to Lebanon Elizabeth Richard traveled to Tripoli to visit American funded projects focused on economic development and education in Northern Lebanon, the U.S. embassy said on Thursday.

“As part of the $825 million in assistance the United States provided to Lebanon in 2018, we are funding projects in northern Lebanon to provide youth with the education, tools, and skills to succeed in the marketplace. Today, we commemorated two projects: 'Lebanon Youth SEEK Jobs' which has already helped dozens of young people find jobs, and a new project 'Tripoli Youth Economic Engagement,' also designed to assist young people in northern Lebanon by offering them vocational training in fields with high demands for skilled labor,” the embassy said in a statement.

British Minister of State for the Middle East and International Development Alistair Burt has visited Lebanon for two-days, where he “reaffirmed the UK’s commitment to supporting a strong and prosperous Lebanon, while explaining the UK government’s decision to proscribe Hizbullah in its entirety,” the British embassy said on Thursday.

Burt held a series of meetings with President Michel Aoun, Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil, Defense Minister Elias Bou Saab, Minister of Education Akram Shhehayyeb, Minister of Social Affairs Richard Kouyoumjian, and Director of General Security Major General Abbas Ibrahim.