Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat on Thursday firmly reiterated his rejection of an electoral law based on the proportional representation system.

“I don’t want any type of proportionality and that’s all,” Jumblat told al-Manar television, ahead of a meeting at his residence with Speaker Nabih Berri’s aide, Health Minister Ali Hassan Khalil, and Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s aide, Hussein Khalil.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati stated on Friday that Lebanon has long stood as an example of tolerance and democracy in the region, adding that the country is serious in implementing political, economic, and social reform.

He said: “Maintaining stability must not prevent us from implementing all forms of necessary reform, regardless how painful they may be.”

The hacktivist group Raise Your Voice hit again on Thursday, hacking around 10 Lebanese government websites, the second such attack in nine days.

“We are RYV, short for Raise Your Voice, and we are simply a group of people who could not bare (sic) sitting in silence, watching all the crimes and injustice going on in Lebanon. We will not be silenced and brainwashed by your media. We will not stop until the Lebanese people mobilize, demand their rights, and earn them,” said the group’s message posted on the hacked websites.

The military tribunal issued the death sentence on Thursday against 26 individuals for their involvement in the 2011 abduction of the seven Estonian cyclists.

The tribunal had charged 29 suspects for being involved in the crime, as well as a number of others committed in Lebanon over the past year.

A box containing explosives that were not rigged for detonation was found in the area of Jeitawi in the Beirut neighborhood of Ashrafiyeh on Thursday.

The National News Agency said the box that was found at the entrance of Zeidan building contained a rocket, a digital clock and TNT templates.

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri noted on Thursday that the living conditions in Lebanon have greatly deteriorated in the past year, blaming the current government for the poor situation in the country.

He said via Twitter: “The 2013 parliamentary elections will surely change” this reality.

Speaker Nabih Berri warned on Thursday against the ambush set for regional countries, saying that their economic and political powers are being scattered.

“Division is increasing (among the regional countries) and they’re turning into nations governed by the power of arms,” Berri said at the opening of the Languages Faculty at St. Joseph University (USJ).

Lebanon’s public transportation sector held a nationwide strike on Thursday with some drivers blocking streets with burning tires in the northern province of Akkar.

The sector decided to hold the strike between 5:00 am and 12:00 pm after the government failed to place ceilings on the price of gasoline sold to drivers.

Saudi ambassador to Lebanon Ali Awadh Asiri hailed efforts exerted by Lebanese officials to detain two members of an “Arab gang” that abducted two Saudi nationals on the outskirts of Beirut, the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat reported.

Asiri confirmed that the two Saudi nationals Tawfiq and Abdullah al-Shaqaqeen were kidnapped and tortured for eight days and are currently receiving medical treatment at the American University of Beirut Medical Center.

Western security sources warned that the situation in Lebanon is “very delicate” as they fear that it would turn into a conflict arena between international and regional powers, al-Joumhouria newspaper reported on Thursday.

“Suspected extremist groups could be plotting attacks in Lebanon on foreign interests that are playing a critical role in the Syrian crisis,” the report said.