The Office of the U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon (UNSCOL) is organizing digital consultations with Lebanese youth on Thursday, May 5 at 5:00 pm Beirut Time.

The Lebanese Army on Friday said it has detained five people in the northern city of Tripoli as they prepared to smuggle 85 migrants by boat to Europe.

The army said the smugglers were detained late Thursday as they were preparing to send 85 people on a boat after collecting a total of $400,000 from them. The boat was confiscated in a sea resort in the country's north, it added, and the detainees are being questioned.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati and U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon Najat Rochdi signed Thursday the “United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework” (UNSDCF).

The framework is meant to strengthen the existing and ongoing cooperation between both parties on promoting the principles of sustainable development, and build the foundations for a prosperous and inclusive Lebanese society, where no one is left behind, the U.N. said in statement.

A parliament session for looking into a request for withdrawing confidence from Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib was adjourned Thursday due to lack of quorum.

After the session was cancelled, Lebanese Forces MP George Adwan accused Free Patriotic Movement Jebran Bassil of being the "de facto foreign minister," saying that his consultant Pascale Dahrouj is the one organizing the elections instead of Bou Habib.

Ex-PM Fouad Saniora has warned against “falsifying the will of the Lebanese and the people of Beirut,” following talks with Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Daryan.

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has said that Lebanon’s political system is “paralyzed” and “cannot be sustained.”

In an interview with al-Mayadeen TV aired overnight, Bassil added that he believes that “there is integration between the project of protecting the arms that protect the state” and “the priority of building the state.”

Lebanese rescue teams searched the Mediterranean by helicopters Thursday for dozens of bodies still missing at sea, after an overloaded people-smuggling boat capsized near Tripoli's coast.

Some family members of the boat victims accompanied the rescue teams, while the hunt also continued by sea and land for the fifth consecutive day.

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil is keen on holding a Parliamentary session to discuss withdrawing confidence from Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib, OTV said Thursday.

The TV station said that Bassil wants the session to be held, "despite that some parties are trying to strip the session of its quorum."

A Lebanese Army post in the Wadi Khaled border town of al-Majdal was on Wednesday targeted by heavy gunfire from the Syrian town of al-Maajir, al-Jadeed TV said, after an Islamic State-linked fugitive was killed earlier in the day by Lebanese military intelligence agents.

President Michel Aoun on Wednesday reiterated the accusation that some parties are “manipulating the dollar exchange rate,” which has been fluctuating in recent days.

“Some are manipulating the financial issues and the dollar exchange rate, which is negatively reflecting on citizens, amid reports by local and international experts indicating the presence of sides seeking to aggravate the situation, some of whom are in power,” Aoun said.