Lebanese security agencies have thwarted a new attempt to smuggle narcotics out of the country, Interior Minister Bassam al-Mawlawi announced on Thursday.

Kataeb Party leader Sami Gemayel held talks Thursday at Dar al-Fatwa with Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Daryan.

Cabinet on Thursday held “a discussion in depth over the situation of state administrations and the need to secure the continuity of their work” and also tackled “the need to explain the state budget’s objectives to citizens,” the acting information minister said.

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has noted that “a host of domestic and foreign circumstances have influenced the decision of ex-PM Saad Hariri,” who has announced the suspension of his role in political life.

U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea, Dr. Fadi Sanan representing Health Minister Firass Abiad and Dr. Souha Kanj of the American University of Beirut who represented AUB President Fadlo Khuri on Thursday launched the Moderna Covid-19 vaccination campaign at Haykel Hospital in Tripoli.

The United States, through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has recently donated over 600,000 vaccine doses to support the Lebanese government's National Vaccination Strategy against the Covid-19 pandemic.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea said Wednesday that he highly values the Kuwaiti paper and considers it "a real opportunity to pull Lebanon out of hell."

He added that the paper shows the keenness of the Gulf on Lebanon's interests by wanting it to become a state that offers its people decent living conditions, within Arab support and international legitimacy.

Prime minister Najib Miqati chaired Wednesday a Cabinet session to continue studying the draft law of the 2022 state budget.

Cabinet will reconvene on Thursday morning, the National News Agency said.

The central bank on Wednesday extended until the end of February the implementation of Circular 161.

President Michel Aoun informed Wednesday U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Joanna Wronecka that Lebanon has launched an investigation into an attack on a UNIFIL patrol that took place Tuesday, west of the southern village of Ramyah.

UNIFIL Spokesperson Andrea Tenenti had called on the Lebanese authorities to investigate the attack.

President Michel Aoun informed, Wednesday, U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Joanna Wronecka that the Lebanese response to the Kuwaiti paper will be given by the end of the week.

Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib will give Beirut's response during a meeting of Arab foreign ministers on January 30 in Kuwait, Aoun said.