The Syrian refugees cannot return to their country from Lebanon due to the inappropriate circumstances and the absence of a political solution, U.S. State Department Arabic Spokesperson Sam Werberg said.

The return decision must be in the hands of the refugees, Werberg added, in remarks to Lebanon’s al-Jadeed television.

The World Bank approved a $300 million additional financing to Lebanon's poor, providing cash payments to help families struggling through the country's historic economic meltdown, institution said in a statement Friday.

The new financing comes two years after the World Bank approved a $246 million loan to Lebanon to provide emergency cash assistance to hundreds of thousands in the tiny Mediterranean nation of 6 million people.

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday noted that “further dialogue and contacts” are required in the presidential file.

Lebanon's gracious Sursock Museum is set to reopen on Friday, more than two years after a catastrophic explosion at Beirut port devastated the architectural gem and its modern and contemporary art collection.

The Lebanese file was a priority on the agenda of the meeting that was held in Jeddah between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Syrian President Bashara al-Assad, a Saudi newspaper reported on Thursday, expecting a return to the so-called S-S (Saudi Arabia-Syria) equation in Lebanon.

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat on Thursday announced his resignation as PSP chief, a post he has held since the 1977 assassination of his father Kamal Jumblat.

Jumblat also resigned from the PSP’s leadership council and called for an electoral convention on June 25 as per the party’s constitution and bylaws, the PSP’s al-Anbaa news portal reported.

Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab has lamented that the latest efforts to break the presidential deadlock have been fruitless while noting that “communication is still ongoing.”

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has confirmed that “the alliance with Hezbollah has become in a different stage.”

A German delegation has visited the Lebanese’s judiciary headquarters in Beirut and handed over five arrest warrants issued in Germany for Central Bank chief Riad Salameh and four others over corruption charges, officials told the Associated Press.

They did not reveal the name of the four others.

Lebanese authorities have briefly detained a prominent Egyptian blogger and human rights activist, his lawyer and sister said, but the reason for his arrest was not immediately clear.

The first word about the arrest of Abdul-Rahman Tarek, also known by his nickname Moka, came from his sister, Sara Tarek. She posted on her Facebook page that her brother was detained by plainclothes policemen Wednesday afternoon from his apartment. She called for his release saying he had spent seven years in jail in Egypt until his release last year.