President Michel Aoun on Monday criticized Hizbullah and the Amal Movement without naming them as he called for “urgent” national dialogue over key matters.

Defense Minister Maurice Slim has left Beirut for Baghdad on an official visit to meet Iraqi officials.

Slim will hold talks Tuesday with his Iraqi counterpart Juma Inad at the defense ministry in Baghdad.

Interior Minister Bassam al-Mawlawi on Monday signed a decree calling for parliamentary elections to be held in May 2022.

According to the decree, expats will cast their votes abroad on May 6 and May 8.

Free Patriotic Movement MP Alain Aoun said that any step that President Michel Aoun might take today “shouldn’t be considered as an escalation but would rather be for the benefit of the Lebanese.”

“The President’s stance, at its core, is not to take part in the (government’s) obstruction,” Aoun said, asking what would be more alarming, “to escalate or to remain in the situation we are in?”

The Transatlantic Leadership Network - TLN, a Washington D.C. based nonpartisan think-tank, has held its inaugural "Freedom of the Media" gala dinner and award ceremony at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

An award was presented to MTV Lebanon's Chairman and CEO, Michel El Murr, by TLN's President Dr. Daniel Hamilton and TLN's Vice President Dr. Sasha Toperich, who praised MTV Lebanon for its “investigative reporting on corruption, foreign meddling in Lebanon, including Hizbullah, and various government mishandlings that gained wide popularity, particularly amongst the Middle Eastern youth,” MTV said in a press release.

Yemeni Information, Culture and Tourism Minister Moammar al-Aryani has called on Lebanon to “declare a clear stance on Hizbullah’s aggression,” a day after the Saudi-led coalition accused Iran and Hizbullah of helping Yemen's Huthi rebels to launch missiles and drones at the kingdom.

The Lebanese “brothers” must exert “real pressure” on Hizbullah to compel it to “withdraw its experts and fighters and end the smuggling of arms to Yemen,” Aryani said.

Lebanon’s ruling political forces are mulling a new political deal that would guarantee the interests of all parties, following the failure of the latest attempted settlement, a media report said.

According to ad-Diyar newspaper, the new proposals include points from the botched deal, such as “passing a law for the creation of an accusatory body whose powers would exceed those of the judicial investigator (into the Beirut port blast), in return for the government pledging to tackle the appointments file in the first session” it would hold after the resumption of its meetings.

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has reportedly met with Hizbullah coordination official Wafiq Safa in the past few days.

Well informed sources told ad-Diyar newspaper, in remarks published Monday, that the two officials have met for “open and frank” talks and discussed the recent “crisis” that occurred between the two parties after the Constitutional Council failed to issue a ruling on the appeal against the electoral law’s amendments.

The Saudi-led coalition on Sunday accused Iran and Hizbullah of helping Yemen's Huthi rebels to launch missiles and drones at the kingdom, where two people were killed.

President Michel Aoun will voice “explosive” remarks in his televised address on Monday and will tackle all the obstacles that marred his tenure since 2016 until today, Baabda Palace sources told said.