Caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Thursday posted a tweet commemorating slain minister Mohammed Shatah, who was killed in a December 2013 car bombing in central Beirut.

“Mohammed Shatah was the force of moderation and dialogue in the era of divisions and extremism and he was the symbol of loyalty and bravery during the difficult days,” Hariri tweeted.

The head of the Finance Parliamentary Committee MP Ibrahim Kanaan on Thursday announced that the committee has approved the 2020 state budget, slashing expenses worth LBP 1,000 billion from the draft devised by the government.

“The surplus secured in the budget will provide the needed funds for the health care of 12,000 self-registered social security beneficiaries,” Kanaan said after a meeting for the committee with caretaker Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil, Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh and Association of Banks chief Salim Sfeir.

Prime Minister-designate Hassan Diab has reportedly met with Speaker Nabih Berri away from media spotlight to discuss the delayed formation of a new government, LBCI television reported on Thursday.

Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh said that legal measures will be taken to know the fate of sums of money allegedly transferred to Switzerland, amid an unprecedented economic and liquidity crisis gripping Lebanon.

A stormy weather accompanied with rain and snow has been battering Lebanon since Wednesday damaging homes, blockading roads and flooding major highways.

The repatriation of a new batch of Syrian refugees from Lebanon has been postponed on Thursday because of bad weather, the National News Agency reported.

Al-Mustaqbal Movement official ex-MP Mustafa Alloush on Wednesday lamented that “all the attempts to protect the Presidency from the pettiness of the son-in-law have failed,” in a jab at Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil, who is President Michel Aoun’s son-in-law.

“All what we hope for today on Christmas Day is mercy for Lebanon in the face of the maliciousness of the devil and his greed for swallowing everything and depriving the Lebanese of welfare and hope,” Alloush tweeted.

President Michel Aoun on Wednesday lashed out at caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri over his latest remarks and announced that the new government will be a “government of experts.”

Speaking to reporters in Bkirki after a closed-door meeting with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on the sidelines of Christmas Day mass, Aoun hoped Lebanon will “manage to overcome its current crisis” and that the Lebanese will have a new government as a “New Year’s gift.”

Ex-interior minister and Beirut MP Nouhad al-Mashnouq on Tuesday said Iran has welcomed the designation of new PM Hassan Diab which proves that the latter “does not represent the Lebanese or the Sunni community in Beirut.”

A group of students staged a sit-in near Lebanon’s central bank in Hamra protesting the bank’s “financial and economic policies,” as the nation faces its worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.

The protesters voiced calls for “change,” asserting refusal to pay taxes, demanding that levies be imposed on “profits and insurance."