Outgoing Prime Minister Saad Hariri has cancelled a visit scheduled next week to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Thursday.

Tension rose in central Beirut when a group of young men tried to attack the epicenter of the anti-government protests, prompting security forces to fire tear gas.

Dozens of men threw stones and Molotov cocktails at anti-riot police who deployed to stop the advancing assailants.

Caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Wednesday thanked France and the U.N. for the Lebanon support meeting that was held in Paris and called for expediting the formation of a “credible and harmonious” technocrat cabinet.

“I thank France and the United Nations for inviting the International Support Group for Lebanon to today’s meeting in Paris, and I also thank all of Lebanon’s friends, brothers and the representatives of the international institutions who took part in the meeting and expressed their keenness on helping Lebanon overcome the dire economic crisis it is facing,” Hariri said in a statement released by his office.

A Lebanon support meeting held Wednesday in Paris has urged the crisis-hit country to endorse a “bundle of sustainable, comprehensive and credible economic reforms.”

In a draft closing statement, the International Support Group for Lebanon (ISG) also called on Lebanese authorities to “approve a credible state budget for 2020 within weeks from the formation of the new government.”

Mount Lebanon Prosecutor Judge Ghada Aoun on Wednesday ordered the arrest of Huda Salloum, the Director of the Traffic, Trucks and Vehicles Management Authority.

Caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Wednesday called the British Secretary of State for Middle East and North Africa, Andrew Morrison, Hariri’s office said.

He discussed with him “the economic difficulties that Lebanon is facing and the efforts to tackle the crisis,” the office said in a statement.

Diplomats were meeting behind closed doors in Paris on Wednesday to consider measures to help Lebanon as it grapples with ongoing political turmoil and its worst economic crisis in decades.

The International Support Group, co-chaired by France and the United Nations, is weighing conditions for providing financial aid to Lebanon. Lebanese businesses and households are growing increasingly desperate as cash supplies there have dwindled.

In light of an aggravating economic crisis, the Association of Lebanese Industrialists sounded the alarm on Wednesday over a shortage in raw materials, warning of escalating measures.

France will host Wednesday a working meeting of the International Support Group (ISG) for Lebanon, in order to help it out of the political crisis, according to the French Foreign Ministry.

A British envoy who arrived in Beirut late on Tuesday will meet senior Lebanese officials to “discuss the situation in Lebanon at various levels”, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Wednesday.