Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Wednesday announced that “the majority of the Lebanese people and parliament are totally against paying” a $1.2 billion Eurobond debt on March 9.

“The banks, which have led us into a loss amounting to 75% of the debt, must bear the responsibility along with the foreign buyers,” Berri told lawmakers during the weekly Ain el-Tineh meeting.

Prime Minister Hassan Diab met with a UN delegation where talks touched on UNIFIL’s role and mission in South Lebanon and necessary means to maintain stability along the Blue Line, the National News Agency said on Wednesday.

Health Minister Hamad Hassan on Wednesday assured the Lebanese that all necessary measures were taken to contain the spread of coronavirus, saying the situation is “under control.”

As the world continues to grapple with coronavirus disease, Speaker Nabih Berri was notified that a meeting scheduled in March for the the Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union was postponed, MTV station reported on Wednesday.

The meeting was set to be held in Cairo on March 7-8. It was postponed “until further notice,” said the station.

The final version of a “capital control” law prepared by a committee of legal and financial experts will reportedly be discussed during the cabinet meeting on Thursday, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Wednesday.

Lebanon’s banks on Tuesday expressed readiness to cooperate with the government in order to reschedule the state’s debt, a media report said.

“But they called on the government to negotiate with the foreign firms,” LBCI TV reported.

Al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc on Tuesday criticized what it described as “a major flaw in the measures that accompanied the arrival of the Iranian planes from the cities of Mashhad and Qom to Beirut,” amid the major outbreak of the COVID-19 coronavirus in Iran.

“The spread of the disease and the confirmation of new cases against which there had been warnings expose a major flaw in the measures that accompanied the arrival of the Iranian planes from the cities of Mashhad and Qom to Beirut from the very first day,” the bloc said in a statement issued after its weekly meeting.

Lebanon’s first coronavirus patient tested negative for the virus on Tuesday as lab tests conducted for all suspected cases over the past 24 hours also indicated that they are not infected, the Health Ministry said.

The Ministry added in a statement that the test will be repeated Wednesday for the country’s first patient and that she will be discharged from hospital should she anew test negative.

Lawmaker Assem Araji on Tuesday lauded the medical team efforts at the Rafik Hariri University Hospital, saying they are “the front medical defense line in the country,” against the coronavirus disease.

Lebanese protesters and several MPs staged a sit-in near the Swiss embassy in Beirut demanding the refund of capital flight transferred abroad after the October 17 uprising, as Lebanon grapples with a liquidity crisis unprecedented in its history.

They gathered in front of the embassy before meeting with Swiss Ambassador to Lebanon, Monika Schmutz Kirgِz, to deliver a petition they had signed to recover looted state funds.