The prices of imported foodstuffs will be lowered this week, the head of the Syndicate of Importers of Foodstuff, Consumer Products & Drinks, Hani Bohsali, said on Tuesday.

“In cooperation with all importers, the syndicate is currently studying the fluctuation in the dollar exchange rate in the parallel market with the aim of re-pricing foodstuffs imported from abroad,” Bohsali said in a statement, following a recent drop in the dollar exchange rate on the black market.

UNIFIL Head of Mission and Force Commander Major General Stefano Del Col on Tuesday chaired a special Tripartite with senior officers from the Lebanese and Israeli armies at a U.N. position in Ras al-Naqoura, a UNIFIL statement said.

The meeting was held under a curtailed format due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Development and Liberation bloc MP Qassem Hashem said in remarks on Tuesday that the principle of rotation of portfolios in future governments will apply to all ministries “except for the Finance Portfolio.”

A large fire broke out at dawn in pine woods between the mountainous towns of Qoubbei and Chbaniyeh, and civil defense firefighters are trying to douse it, the National News Agency reported on Tuesday.

Amid the ongoing efforts to form a new government in Lebanon, Speaker Nabih Berri reportedly said the new cabinet has a “very difficult mission” ahead and must be formed “quickly” to counter the multiple crises facing the country, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Tuesday.

“Time is not on our side. A new cabinet must be formed without any delay for it has a very difficult mission ahead requiring the backing of all political parties,” a political source quoted Berri as saying.

Lebanese Armenian students and the youth sector of the Tashnag Party staged a protest Monday outside the Turkish embassy in Rabieh.

The protesters condemned “the breach of the truce agreement between Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan and Turkey’s support for Azerbaijan in the conflict (with Armenia) over the region,” the National News Agency said.

The new government will not comprise political figures but rather specialists named by the political parties and there is an attempt to keep the energy portfolio with the Free Patriotic Movement, media reports said on Monday.

“The possibility of forming the government this week has been ruled out and Hizbullah is clinging to the health portfolio, which is also demanded by Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat,” MTV quoted unnamed sources as saying.

A personal dispute in the Baalbek neighborhood of al-Sharawneh on Monday escalated into gunfire, including the firing of rocket-propelled grenades, the National News Agency said.

NNA said the clash, between members of the same clan, caused material damage.

The Health Ministry’s scientific panel will submit a recommendation to the country’s national anti-coronavirus committee on the need to lock down some neighborhoods in major cities, including the capital, in order to contain the spread of the virus, caretaker Health Minister Hamad Hassan said on Monday.

“Sometimes the infection originates in the city before moving to rural areas, not the opposite,” Hassan explained.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Monday said it seems no hopes can be pinned on the new government in light of the way it is being formed.

In an interview with Radio Free Lebanon, Geagea said the LF will only grant its vote of confidence to “a government of real independents formed of competent and specialist ministers who know exactly how to work.”