Thursday’s meeting in Yarze between Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Walid Bukhari and Marada Movement chief Suleiman Franjieh “did not change the kingdom’s stance as to what it has declared regarding the Lebanese presidential juncture,” a media report said on Friday.

“What Franjieh heard from the ambassador was the same stance that the other parties heard from him: his country does not have any problem with anyone and it does not support or veto anyone,” Annahar newspaper reported.

A crushing economic crisis in Lebanon has impelled members of the security forces to take on side hustles to get by, raising concerns about security in the eastern Mediterranean country.

Soldiers in Lebanon have seen their salaries diminish to around an eighth of their value in dollar terms since the country's economy began tanking in late 2019.

The British Ambassador to Lebanon, Hamish Cowell CMG, hosted a celebration of the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla on Wednesday, May 10 at the Sursock Palace Gardens in Beirut.

Army Commander General Joseph Aoun has once again become “one of the most serious candidates” for the Lebanese presidency, especially for the main foreign nations concerned with the Lebanese file, a media report said.

According to media reports, a Qatari delegation has recently promoted Aoun’s nomination during a visit to Lebanon.

The U.S. Justice Department announced Thursday that it has seized 13 domains used by Hezbollah and affiliates.

The United States obtained court authorization to seize moqawama.org, almanarnews.org, manarnews.org, almanar-tv.org, alshahid.org, manartv.net, manarnews.net, almanar-tv.com, almanar-tv.net, alidaamouch.com, Ibrahim-alsayed.net, alemdad.net, and naimkassem.net, the Department of Justice said.

The opposition forces will hold a meeting Thursday in an attempt to agree on a presidential candidate, in the first such talks between them, a media report said.

The meeting will be attended by the MPs of the Lebanese Forces, the Kataeb Party, the Tajaddod bloc and a number of Change and independent MPs, the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper said.

Kataeb leader Sami Gemayel met Thursday with Democratic Gathering bloc MP Wael Abou Faour over the presidential file.

Gemayel had said Wednesday in a televised interview that meetings with other opposition parties are in an advanced stage.

France has decided to go back to consulting Bkerki regarding the presidential file, a church source told MTV.

According to the source, this is what Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi has sensed after he met with French Ambassador to Lebanon Anne Grillo.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has stressed that the election of a new president is the “beginning of beginnings,” warning that “the presidential election should be finalized before June 15 at the latest, seeing as no one would know where the country would head if the presidential vacuum continued.”

“The mother of all problems is the sectarianism that is deep-rooted in all the joints of the state,” Berri added, underlining that “there is a dire need to work for reaching a non-sectarian electoral law and implementing what has not been implemented of the Taif Accord, especially its reformist articles.”

Saudi Ambassador Walid Bukhari and Marada leader Suleiman Franjieh met Thursday at Bukhari's residence in Yarze.

The two sat in the garden after having breakfast to discuss the presidential crisis.