Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati held talks Wednesday in Diman with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri is upset by caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati's attempt to evade passing a law that would allow the government to borrow foreign currency from the central bank, al-Akhbar newspaper said Wednesday.

First central bank vice-governor Wassim Mansouri, who took over as BDL's acting governor on Tuesday, urged parliament and the government to cooperate in order to legalize spending during a transitional period before the central bank stops funding the state completely.

Caretaker Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi has denied the presence of a “terror plot” behind the deadly clashes that rocked the Ain al-Helweh Palestinian refugee camp over the past four days.

There is no “terror plot being implemented in Lebanon as some are saying,” Mawlawi said in a TV interview, calling on politicians to “perform their duties to the fullest, especially that security and military forces are carrying out their duties.”

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil said overnight that his call for broad administrative and financial decentralization and for establishing a trust fund is not part of any “bargain or deal.”

“The equation of decentralization at the regional and local level and the trust fund at the national level is an equation for rescuing Lebanon at the financial, economic and social levels, regardless of any constitutional juncture,” Bassil said at a dinner for FPM expats.

Calm was engulfing the Ain al-Helweh Palestinian refugee camp on Wednesday after a ceasefire entered into effect following four days of deadly clashes between the Fatah Movement and hardline Islamist militants.

One of history's biggest non-nuclear explosions rocked Beirut on August 4, 2020, destroying swathes of the Lebanese capital, killing more than 220 people and injuring at least 6,500.

Three years on, the probe into the traumatic disaster caused by a huge pile of poorly-stored fertiliser remains bogged down in legal and political wrangling, to the dismay of victims' families.

Russia pulled out of a deal brokered by the U.N. and Turkey to allow Ukraine's grain to flow during a global food crisis. It helped stabilize food prices that soared last year after Russia invaded Ukraine — two countries that are major suppliers of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other food to developing nations.

Lebanon, Egypt -- the world's largest wheat importer, and other lower-income Middle Eastern countries like Pakistan worry about what comes next.

Dany Salameh was already ill but a blast that devastated Beirut's port three years ago aggravated his condition, leaving him dependent on a walker and feeling abandoned by authorities.

People hurt or disabled by the catastrophic explosion told AFP that Lebanon, bankrupt and politically paralysed, has failed to deliver adequate medical care, financial support or justice.

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Tuesday described the deadly clashes at the Ain al-Helweh Palestinian refugee camp as “painful.”

Fruit and vegetable seller Ismail Akkawi had no choice but to brave days of intermittent but deadly fighting in Lebanon's biggest Palestinian refugee camp in order to make ends meet.

The produce market at the heart of the restive Ain al-Helweh camp -- in the southern coastal city of Sidon -- is usually bustling with vendors, but few have ventured out since clashes broke out in the camp late Saturday.