French President Emmanuel Macron who is currently visiting Washington will try to convince U.S. President Joe Biden to separate the Lebanese presidential elections from the Iranian nuclear deal, a diplomatic source in Paris said.

The source told Nidaa al-Watan newspaper, in remarks published Thursday, that Macron will discuss with Biden the urgent need to prioritize the presidential election file, suggesting three presidential choices.

Parliament is "not shouldering its responsibilities", charged lawmaker Antoine Habchi of the Lebanese Forces, before an eighth session that failed to elect a new president.

Habchi slammed the MPs leaving the session before the second round of voting, saying that "obstruction is not an acquired right."

Parliament convened on Thursday and failed for the eighth attempt to elect a president who will succeed former President Michel Aoun.

Fifty two blank votes were cast and MP Michel Mouawad garnered 37 votes, a few votes less than the past sessions.

The capital control draft law that is being discussed by the joint parliamentary committees is on the “right track,” Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab said on Wednesday.

“We have discussed the draft clause by clause and it needs drastic amendments in many points,” Bou Saab said after a committees session.

Two containers went up in flames on Wednesday at the blast-hit Port of Beirut.

State-run National News Agency said the containers had car parts and furniture in them.

More than 50 countries, including Lebanon, and the U.N. agreed urgent action to end sexual violence in conflict at the UK-hosted PSVI Conference this week, signing up to a new declaration, the British embassy in Lebanon said.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has blamed Hezbollah and its allies for the crises that are gripping the country, noting that dialogue with them is of no use.

“We cannot exit the crisis through talking to those who caused it,” Geagea said in an interview with Asharq al-Awsat newspaper published Wednesday.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri will provide cover for any call for a cabinet session that caretaker PM Najib Mikati may make, informed sources said.

“Necessities permit the forbidden and if preserving (sectarian) balances is necessary, protecting people’s health is a duty,” the sources told al-Joumhouria newspaper in remarks published Wednesday.

Football fans looking for a respite from Lebanon's crushing economic crisis have found a challenge in simply watching the World Cup after the bankrupt state failed to pay for broadcasting rights.

"No football this year," said Jean Bassil angrily, flicking through channels on his old-fashioned television screen.

Lawmaker and presidential candidate Michel Mouawad slammed Wednesday a capital control draft law after joint parliamentary sessions resumed discussing it.

Mouawad said that the law will make the depositors bear the burden of the financial crisis.