President Michel Aoun chaired a meeting Monday to proceed with the discussions concerning the negotiations with the International Monetary Fund.

The meeting was attended by Prime Minister Najib Miqati, Deputy PM Saadeh al-Shami, and the two ministers of Finance and Economy Youssef al-Khalil and Amin Salam.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday deplored those attacking the judiciary with the aim of “obstructing the investigation” into the catastrophic Beirut port explosion.

“The Lebanese state’s top officials should condemn the attacks on the judiciary and support the work of the investigative judge so that he can reach the truth,” al-Rahi said in his Sunday Mass sermon.

MP Hassan Fadlallah of Hizbullah’s Loyalty to Resistance bloc on Sunday called on Lebanese authorities to “giver answers” about the source and owners of the ammonium nitrate quantity that was seized in the Bekaa.

“The continued concealment of the source of the Bekaa nitrates and the way they entered Lebanon and were being illegally stored raises major question marks over the motives and sides that are trying to cover up this essential case,” Fadlallah said in a statement.

The Free Patriotic Movement on Saturday stressed the importance of preserving the right of expats to vote in the upcoming parliamentary elections, while calling for cooperation with Judge Tarek Bitar’s investigation into the catastrophic Beirut port blast.

“The government’s formation gave the Lebanese hope that the country has entered a phase of relative stability and a halt of the collapse,” the FPM’s political committee said in a statement issued after a periodic e-meeting chaired by FPM chief MP Jebran Bassil.

President Michel Aoun on Friday called on the international community to assist Lebanon’s probe into the port explosion catastrophe, as he warned that Lebanon will not bargain over its offshore oil and gas resources in the border dispute with Israel.

“The investigation, which is still confidential, must identify who brought the explosive material, why it entered our port and the real side that was behind it,” Aoun told the U.N. General Assembly via videolink.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday urged Lebanon’s new Prime Minister Najib Miqati to undertake "urgent" reforms to help his crisis-wracked country, as the two men met for the first time in Paris.

After repeating previous criticisms of Lebanon's political class, Macron told Miqati it was "urgent to implement measures and essential reforms."

Head of the Progressive Socialist Party Walid Jumblat asked Friday "what has become of the Iraqi oil” and “who are the companies in charge of replacing it with fuel in order to produce electricity?”

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi said Friday, after meeting with President Michel Aoun, that he “has hope now that we have a government with committed and known people.”

Al-Rahi stressed the importance of separating powers and separating religion from state.

Former interior minister and incumbent MP Nouhad al-Mashnouq on Friday filed a request asking the Court of Cassation to remove Judge Tarek Bitar from the Beirut port blast investigations.

The request was submitted by Mashnouq’s lawyer Naoum Farah.

A second Hizbullah-imported ship carrying Iranian diesel has arrived in Syria, the Iran-backed Lebanese party announced on Friday.

In a statement, Hizbullah’s Media Relations Unit said the ship docked at Syria’s Baniyas port at 10:00 pm Thursday.