At the forefront of challenges facing PM-designate Mustafa Adib is whether Lebanon’s rival political parties will allow him to form a government of “experts” excluding political parties or any of their representatives, An Nahar daily wrote on Thursday.

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat on Wednesday said the Democratic Gathering parliamentary bloc has named Mustafa Adib for the PM post because “there is a unique French initiative to rescue what’s left of Greater Lebanon.”

In an interview with LBCI television, Jumblat added that comparing the approach of “democratic France” towards Lebanon to that of Syria’s pre-2005 administration of Lebanon would be a “silly and absurd claim.”

Lebanon recorded six deaths and 598 coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, the Health Ministry said on Wednesday evening.

In a statement, the Ministry said 588 of the cases were recorded among residents and only 10 among individuals entering from abroad.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Schenker arrived Wednesday evening in Lebanon for talks with civil society groups but not political leaders, in an apparent snub to the ruling class.

In an interview with the pan-Arab Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, Schenker said the new Lebanese government must believe in reforms and implement them.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday faced accusations from opponents of trampling on press freedom after he personally berated a prominent reporter over an article the head of state described as "unprofessional and mean."

Macron sternly rebuked Le Figaro journalist Georges Malbrunot, a specialist on the Middle East, after his press conference Tuesday at the end of a two-day visit to Beirut.

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh was in Beirut on Wednesday for a week-long visit that will see him meet with Palestinian factions over growing cooperation between their enemy Israel and Arab states.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday called for the formation in Lebanon of a government that would carry out “significant reforms” and “real changes.”

“As for Lebanon, we’re certainly in close conversations with the French, we share the same objective. The objective is the same: business as usual in Lebanon just is unacceptable. I think (French) President (Emmanuel) Macron said the same thing,” said Pompeo at a press conference when asked about the French drive in Lebanon.

President Michel Aoun on Wednesday described French President Emmanuel Macron as a "true friend" of the Lebanese people.

Prime Minister-designate Mustafa Adib on Wednesday pledged to form a "government of experts" to spearhead reforms demanded by France and the rest of the international community as well as by the vast majority of the Lebanese people.

"We hope that we will quickly succeed in forming a government made up of a coherent team that is focused on dealing with the many dossiers before us," Adib said in a televised statement that followed non-binding consultations with the parliamentary blocs in Ain el-Tineh.

Lebanese leaders began consultations on Wednesday to form a new crisis government, with the majority of parliamentary blocs expressing uncommon willingness to drop demands for government portfolios.