The President of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) Judge Ivana Hrdličková visited Beirut this week.

Hrdličková and Vice President Ralph Riachi met with Lebanese Minister of Justice Albert Serhan, Minister of Interior and Municipalities Raya el-Hassan and Head of the Beirut Bar Association André Chidiac. President Hrdličková and Judge Riachi also met representatives of the diplomatic community.

Energy Minister Nada al-Bustani announced in a press conference on Friday the opening of a second round of bidding for licenses to search offshore oil and gas field blocks number 1, 2, 5, 8 and 10.

Speaker Nabih Berri concluded his official visit to Iraq by holding more meetings with Iraqi leaders and political parties at the Prime Minister's Guest House in the Green Zone in Baghdad, the National News Agency reported on Friday.

Berri has met with Ahmed al-Jabbouri, a leader in the parliamentary National Axis Alliance, who said after the meeting that “Berri’s visit to Baghdad would have positive results on all files, in terms of completing the formation of the (Iraqi) government and on relations between Lebanon and Iraq and with the countries of the region.”

An armed personal dispute erupted overnight in the southern Palestinian refugee camp of Ain el-Hilweh, the National News Agency reported on Friday.

Authorities in Lebanon are struggling at this delicate economic stage to take various reformative steps in order to reduce the budget deficit, and to promote economic and financial efforts in an attempt to give some positive signals to the international community, the group of donor countries and international institutions, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Friday.

A ministerial panel on Thursday adopted a plan proposed by the energy minister to resolve the country's chronic electricity problem, referring it to the Cabinet.

LBCI television said the panel finished its meetings “without resolving a lot of points of contention.”

Economy Minister Mansour Bteish on Thursday lashed out at Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh's “financial engineering” tactics.

“The country is rife with talk about the difficult economic situation and people are sharing reports about an expected collapse and they're only wondering about its timing!” Bteish said at a press conference.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Thursday commented on high-level Russian-Israeli cooperation that resulted in the repatriation of the remains of an Israeli soldier missing since the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

Addressing “the advocates of normalization with the Assad regime” and “those fighting for its return to the Arab League,” Geagea tweeted: “What will you say now after what happened, which proved that there is no state in Syria?”

The Council of Ministers on Thursday formed a ministerial panel tasked with devising a “national strategy for combating corruption,” as it failed to reach an agreement over fine exemptions for certain firms.

At the beginning of the session which had 26 items on its agenda, Prime Minister Saad Hariri said “it is unacceptable to leak the Cabinet's agenda and discuss it through the media before it reaches the Council of Ministers.”

A series of protests were held in Riad al-Solh in Beirut ahead of a Cabinet session held at the Grand Serail.