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Berri says 1990 troika better than 'Aoun-Bassil-Jreissati' era

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri's press office said Thursday that the situation in 1990 was better than the Aoun-Bassil-Jreissati era of the past six years.

Bassil had said in a leaked audio from Paris that electing Marada leader Suleiman Franjieh as a president will bring Lebanon back to the nineties.

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Constitutional Council rejects appeals against Khazen, Frem, Alameh

The Constitutional Council on Thursday dismissed two more electoral appeals filed over the results of the May 15 parliamentary elections.

The first appeal had been filed by the candidate Wassef al-Harakeh against MP Fadi Alameh over the Shiite seat in Baabda.

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Presidential deadlock: Vacuum wins again in stormy session

"It's a complete deadlock," change lawmaker Mark Daou told AFP, after parliament failed Thursday to elect a president for the sixth time. "We will not have a president before next year."

Lawmaker Michel Mouawad, who is seen as close to the United States, won the support of 43 of parliament's 128 MPs. But his tally was outnumbered by the 45 blank ballots cast by pro-Hezbollah lawmakers and fell well short of the margin needed for victory.

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Berri to call for legislative session 'whenever needed' despite some MPs objections

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri will call for a legislative session whenever the need arises, he told al-Joumhouria newspaper, in remarks published Thursday.

Many MPs including al-Kataeb and Change MPS, Michel Mouawad and other independent lawmakers had criticized a parliamentary session that discussed a letter by ex-President Michel Aoun. They walked out after voicing their objection.

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MPs quarrel over 'two-third quorum' in déjà vu presidential vote session

Parliament convened Thursday for the sixth time and failed again to elect a president, with the post vacant since the mandate of Michel Aoun expired last month.

Parliament is split between supporters of Hezbollah and its opponents, neither having a clear majority.

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Geagea rejects president-PM deal, says confrontation with Hezbollah political

Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea on Wednesday said he rejects the “equation” of electing a president who is “close to Hezbollah” and designating “a PM who is close to the other camp.”

“The Hezbollah camp and our camp represent two parallel lines that will not meet until further notice. I hope Hezbollah will tomorrow change its political project and give up its ideology, which would allow us to meet within five minutes, but as things are now, there are totally opposite political projects,” Geagea said in an interview with the Akhbar al-Yawm news agency.

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13 MPs file partial appeal against banking secrecy law

Thirteen MPs have filed a partial appeal before the Constitutional Council against the new banking secrecy law.

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MSF Lebanon starts cholera vaccination amid threat of full-blown spread

Médecins Sans Frontières /Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is contributing to the national vaccination campaign against cholera launched by the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health’s by vaccinating people in Arsal, Akkar, Tripoli and Baalbek-Hermel in the north and northeast of Lebanon where most cholera cases are registered in the country, a statement said.

“600,000 cholera vaccines received by Lebanon, as first phase procurement, are to be administered in coordination with various international and local actors,” MSF said in a statement.

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32 opposition MPs meet in parliament, stress priority of electing president

Nineteen MPs representing 32 Kataeb Party, independent and change lawmakers on Tuesday met in parliament and stressed that the “ultimate priority” is for the “immediate” election of a new president.

A statement said the legislators discussed “the mechanism of exiting the intractable political crisis which has plunged the country into the inferno of presidential vacuum, amid a dire economic and social situation accompanied by a total paralysis of the various state institutions and administrations in this critical period of Lebanon’s history.”

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Bassil slams 'farce' as capital control debate protracts

"What happened today is a farce," Free Patriotic Movement Jebran Bassil said Tuesday about a joint parliamentary session that discussed a capital control law.

"The session showed that there is no will to pass the law," Bassil went on to say.

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