"My mum doesn't agree with what I do here: at home, we don't eat like this," laughs Alan Geaam, the first Lebanese chef to earn a Michelin star in Paris.

The self-taught chef believes that promoting Lebanon's culinary riches means combining them with some of "the elegance and refinement" of French cuisine.

French firm TotalEnergies has signed a contract to begin drilling and exploring for gas this year in waters off crisis-hit Lebanon, the company said in a statement.

"TotalEnergies in agreement with its partners Eni and QatarEnergy has signed a firm contract with Transocean to hire the drilling rig that will drill an exploration well on Block 9 offshore Lebanon, as soon as possible in 2023," the group said.

Lebanese officials are cracking down on Syrian refugees against the backdrop of a worsening economic crisis and political stalemate, an escalation that has caused a panic among Syrians in the country.

In recent weeks, the army has raided refugee camps and set up checkpoints to review the documentation of non-Lebanese citizens, arresting and in many cases deporting Syrians found not to have legal residency, according to refugees and humanitarian organizations.

In Lebanon's impoverished Palestinian refugee camps, young people say they dream of leaving a struggling country where their families took refuge generations ago and where their futures remain bleak.

Nirmeen Hazineh is a descendant of survivors of what Palestinians call the Nakba -- the "catastrophe" -- when more than 760,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes by the 1948 war over Israel's creation.

Protesting taxi drivers on Tuesday blocked several vital roads and highways across the country to voice a host of demands.

The drivers blocked the Saifi road, the Beirut-Karantina highway, the Jounieh highway and the main Hamra street following a sit-in at the Riad al-Solh Square.

Hezbollah has backed down on fiery presidential stances at the request of Marada Movement chief Suleiman Franjieh, a parliamentary source from the Hezbollah-led camp said.

“Through the open communication channels between them, Franjieh relayed to Hezbollah’s leadership that there was no need to escalate in the presidential file in a way that embarrassed him and that the party could have done without it because it would obstruct his communication with the hesitant lawmakers,” the source told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper in remarks published Tuesday.

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jubmlat has stopped nominating presidential candidates, as it became obvious that there is no political will to elect a president, PSP MP Wael Bou Faour said Tuesday.

"There is obviously no foreign and domestic will to elect a president, and naming a candidate would destroy his chances," Bou Faour told LBCI.

The Administration and Justice Committee studied Tuesday a law aiming at regulating the status of Syrian refugees in Lebanon and decided to adjourn the discussion until next week.

The Committee's head, Lebanese Forces MP Georges Adwan, said that he will not accept the integration of the refugees and urged Arab states not to return Syria to the Arab fold before the repatriation of the refugees.

Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab met Tuesday with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi in Bkerki, as he starts an "exploratory tour" to discuss the presidential crisis with Lebanese leaders.

"Our real problem is not the name of the president but that parties are not willing to communicate," Bou Saab answered a reporter in a press conference after the meeting, after he had said that he did not discuss with al-Rahi any names.

The United States has called on Lebanon’s parliament to elect a new president, as the country marks six months without a leader at the helm amid grinding political and economic turmoil.

“The United States calls on Lebanon’s political leadership to move expeditiously to elect a president to unite the country and swiftly enact the reforms needed to rescue its economy from crisis,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.