Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri announced Thursday that he categorically rejects any postponement of the upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for May 15.

“Lebanon is keen on holding the elections with full transparency and away from any pressures, and it categorically rejects any attempt to postpone them," Berri said in a speech at the 32nd session of the Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union in Cairo.

The 2022 state budget will be referred next week to Parliament, Head of the Parliamentary Finance and Budget Committee MP Ibrahim Kanaan revealed.

Kaanan said that the minister of finance has assured that the budget hasn't been referred yet to Parliament, and will be sent next week, after the signing of the decrees.

Energy Minister Walid Fayyad announced Thursday that he held a “fruitful” meeting with Prime Minister Najib Miqati at the Grand Serail, after the latest Cabinet session witnessed a heated exchange between them that reportedly prompted Miqati to tell Fayyad to “shut up.”

“The meeting with Mr. Premier was fruitful and we continued in it the discussion of the plan aiming to revive the electricity sector,” Fayyad said after the talks, noting that the media reports about the latest Cabinet session “took issues in another direction” and that Miqati “lauded the nature of the plan that we presented.”

President Michel Aoun said Thursday that systematic campaigns have been launched against him, for wanting a forensic audit.

Aoun accused "sides and parties that have benefited from the wrong practices in running the state and its institutions, the Central Bank particularly," of launching these campaigns.

The political tensions of the past few days have triggered the concern of the foreign diplomatic missions in Lebanon, prompting them to strongly warn some officials to preserve domestic stability and refrain from any steps that might increase its fragility, media reports said on Thursday.

French shipping giant CMA CGM on Thursday won a 10-year contract beginning in March to run the container terminal at Beirut port, Public Works and Transport Minister Ali Hamiyeh said.

CMA CGM -- the third largest shipping company in the world -- will take over Lebanon's biggest port a year and a half after the deadly explosion that killed more than 200 people and destroyed large parts of the capital.

Al-Mustaqbal bloc head MP Bahia Hariri slammed, in a phone call with Prime Minister Najib Miqati, the lawsuit against Internal Security Force chief Maj. Gen. Imad Othman, al-Sharq newspaper said.

The daily said Thursday that Miqati also rejected the behavior of Judge Ghada Aoun.

A clash erupted Wednesday outside the campus of the Lebanese American University (LAU) in Beirut’s Qureitem area.

Judge Nicolas Mansour on Wednesday scheduled a session for the interrogation of Internal Security Forces chief Maj. Gen. Imad Othman in the lawsuit filed against him by Mount Lebanon Prosecutor Judge Ghada Aoun, LBCI TV reported.

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Wednesday announced that his group now possesses the ability to transform its ordinary rockets into precision-guided missiles, adding that Hizbullah has also been manufacturing drones for several years now.