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The Vatican urged Lebanon on Friday to elect a president, after two years of vacuum amid deadlock between pro- and anti-Hezbollah blocs in parliament.
Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, who met Friday with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, said the Vatican has been calling for the election of a president for two years.
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An Israeli drone on Friday bombed the Tebna area near the Sidon district town of Bayssarieh, the state-run National News Agency said.
Full StoryA meeting Wednesday between the Quint's ambassadors and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri was "one of the best", Egyptian Ambassador to Lebanon Alaa Moussa said in a televised interview.
Moussa said that Berri is committed to electing a consensual president who supports the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701.
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Speaker Nabih Berri has two presidential candidates: ex-ambassador to the Vatican and former army intelligence chief Brig. Gen. George Khoury and MP Farid Haykal al-Khazen, Kuwait’s al-Anbaa newspaper reported on Friday.
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The Israeli army has claimed that Hezbollah militants were the target of a drone strike that killed a person in Khiam on Thursday and was swiftly condemned by caretaker PM Najib Mikati.
Full StoryAn Israeli drone targeted Thursday the square of the town of Khiam, reportedly killing one person and injuring another, a day after Israeli troops withdrew from the strategic town, handing it back to the Lebanese army.
The Lebanese army had warned civilians to stay out of Khiam until it can clear the area of any unexploded munitions. The strategic hilltop town, located less than 5 kilometers from the border with Israel, saw some of the most intense fighting during the war.
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Independent MP Neemat Frem of Keserwan on Thursday officially announced his presidential nomination.
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Four separate air strikes by Israeli forces, which killed at least 49 civilians and decimated entire families in Lebanon during the latest war, must be “investigated as war crimes,” leading international rights group Amnesty International said on Thursday.
Full StoryLebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has said that he is willing to announce his nomination for the presidency “if there is an acceptable number of parliamentary blocs that are willing to endorse this nomination.”
“Nominating oneself is not heroism,” he noted, an in interview with the Hala London TV.
Full StoryParliament Speaker Nabih Berri has received "positive and encouraging signals" from the ambassadors of the United States, France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt.
Envoys from the five countries who met with Berri Wednesday have been working for months to facilitate the election of a president, as crisis-hit Lebanon has been without a head of state for more than two years amid deadlock between pro- and anti-Hezbollah blocs in parliament.
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