A scientific committee formed by caretaker Health Minister Hamad Hassan on Monday granted emergency use authorization (EUA) to the Chinese anti-Covid vaccine Sinopharm.

The committee has been tasked with discussing the registration of vaccines submitted by the private sector.

The Amal Movement on Monday urged an end to “political overbidding and to raising constitutional and legal disputes,” stressing that it is necessary to speed up the formation of the new government.

In a statement issued after a meeting for its political bureau, the Movement said a new government is needed to “address the inevitable collapse of the economic and social situations and its impact on the stability of the security situation.”

French Ambassador to Lebanon Anne Grillo held talks Monday with President Michel Aoun at the presidential palace.

She was accompanied by the embassy’s political advisor, Jean Heilbronn

The United Nations Secretary-General, Antὸnio Guterres, appointed David Tolbert to the post of Registrar of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), the STL said in a statement Monday.

After his calls for a UN-sponsored international conference for Lebanon, Maronite Patriarch Beshara el-Rahi received a delegation from al-Mustaqbal Movement in Bkirki, the National News Agency reported.

Director of the state-run Rafik Hariri University Hospital, Firass Abiad, warned on Monday of the effect of Covid on children who retract the virus.

The amount of tar that has polluted the sand beaches of south Lebanon in recent days has been estimated to be at around two tons, a Lebanese MP said.

“The cleaning process will be arduous and painstaking and it requires followup and cooperation between municipalities, scout associations and local, national and international NGOs and environmental groups,” MP Enaya Ezzeddine of the Development and Liberation bloc said.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday saluted “the 15,000 people who rallied Saturday at the patriarchal seat in support of the patriarchate’s stance that has called on the international community to declare Lebanon’s positive and active neutrality.”

MP Hassan Fadlallah of Hizbullah’s Loyalty to Resistance bloc has suggested that certain sides are using Bkirki as a cover to serve their own political agendas, hours after thousands of Lebanese rallied in Bkirki in support of Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi and his latest stances.

The Israeli army arrested overnight a suspect who sneaked into the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms from south Lebanon, a spokesman said on Sunday.