Speaker Nabih Berri revealed on Friday that he will reactivate the meetings of the electoral subcommittee if he perceived positive signs from the rival parties.

“I began contacting the representatives of the foes participating in the subcommittee as it is crucial to reach an electoral law ahead of the parliamentary session set on May 15,” Berri said in comments published in several newspapers.

President Michel Suleiman slammed Lebanon's rival parties for failing to agree on a new electoral law, stressing that he would challenge any attempt to extend parliament’s mandate.

In an interview with al-Mustaqbal daily published Friday, Suleiman said: “All the countries surrounding us are suffering from major problems and bloodshed so that the people could have the right to vote.”

The Progressive Socialist Party will file on Friday an appeal against the suspension of the nominations' deadlines for the parliamentary elections, radio Voice of Lebanon (100.5) reported Thursday.

"The appeal is being signed at the moment and it will be submitted to the Constitutional Council at 9 a.m. on Friday,” VDL noted.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said Thursday that he shares Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel's viewpoint that Christians “are going through difficult and complicated circumstances in the region, especially in Syria.”

“We agreed with the Phalange Party to activate contacts between our two parties and between the institutions … in the framework of finding solutions to the region's problems,” Bogdanov said after meeting Gemayel, in his first meeting after arriving in Beirut on a 4-day official visit.

Caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel signed the civil marriage certificate of Kholoud Succariyeh and Nidal Darwish, the state-run National News Agency reported on Thursday.

"By this, Succariyeh and Darwish's union becomes the first civil marriage registered in the records of the Directorate General for Personal Affairs in Lebanon,” the NNA noted.

Hizbullah on Thursday denied sending a drone into Israel's airspace, a few hours after the Israeli air force said it shot down an unmanned aircraft several miles off the coast of the northern city of Haifa after it entered Israeli airspace from Lebanon.

“Hizbullah denies sending any unmanned drone into the airspace of occupied Palestine,” said a terse statement issued by the party.

Key figures in the northern city of Tripoli agreed on Thursday to take a series of measures to improve political, economic and social conditions, Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati announced.

“We formed a follow-up committee to execute the decisions taken” at the meeting that was held at the residence of MP Mohammed Kabbara, Miqati said.

More than 60 public school students were hospitalized in the northern city of Tripoli on Thursday after the tap water was contaminated, the state-run National News Agency reported.

The students, who age less than 12, were taken to Dar al-Shifa hospital after suffering from pain in the abdomen, vomiting, diarrhea and having difficulty breathing.

The families of the nine Lebanese pilgrims held in Syria's Aazaz region held a sit-in on Thursday in front of the French Embassy in Beirut to pressure France to exert efforts to release the captives.

They said in a statement: “We will escalate our actions and stage sit-ins in front of the embassies of all countries that support the Syrian opposition.”

Lebanese Forces Leader Samir Geagea rejected any side-talk or attempt to form a cabinet of political figures, urging PM-designate Tammam Salam to discuss the thorny matter with all the factions concerned without exception, An Nahar daily quoted him as saying.

“To facilitate the mission of the PM-designate to form a new cabinet, we agreed primarily on the formation of a neutral technocrat government because its duty is to hold the elections, and to make Lebanon emerge from the dark tunnel,” stressed Geagea.