Saudi Arabia and France are exploring the available options in order “not to repeat the experience of President Michel Aoun in the Baabda Palace,” a media report said on Friday.

“Riyadh seems to be interested in looking for a candidate who can be promoted and eventually endorsed by the Western countries, especially Paris and Washington, in order to engage in this juncture with a unified stance,” ad-Diyar newspaper quoted Western diplomatic sources as saying.

Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh has said that he is willing to meet with Swiss prosecutors over a money-laundering investigation.

"I have already informed the Swiss justice that I am ready to go," he told Swiss television SRF.

French Ambassador to Lebanon Anne Grillo met recently with Hizbullah officials to put them in advance in the picture of the return of the Saudi and Kuwaiti ambassadors to the country, a media report said on Thursday.

She told them that “this step is not related to the parliamentary elections and is not aimed at aggravating tensions in the country, specifically with Hizbullah,” ad-Diyar newspaper reported.

Cabinet on Thursday agreed to demolish the blast-hit silos at Beirut’s port, which according to a technical report are facing the threat of collapse, as it approved the use of funds from the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights for importing wheat and incurable disease medicines.

“The banking secrecy law will be re-discussed at the next Cabinet session,” Information Minister Ziad Makari said after the meeting.

Hizbullah deputy chief Sheikh Naim Qassem has announced that his party wants a “national unity” government to be formed after the upcoming parliamentary elections.

“Our project is partnership with everyone and a national unity government,” Qassem said in an interview with Hizbullah’s al-Nour radio station.

President Michel Aoun on Thursday reassured that the May 15 parliamentary elections will be held on time.

“We’re a month away from the parliamentary elections, and some are still questioning whether the vote will be held or not. I reiterate that the vote will be held on time and that the additional funds for it have been approved,” Aoun said at the beginning of a Cabinet session in Baabda.

A UNIFIL patrol belonging to the French contingent was intercepted Wednesday in the southern town of Blida, al-Jadeed TV said.

The patrol was passing in a narrow internal road, accompanied by a Lebanese Army vehicle, when it got stuck in an alleyway, the TV network said.

On the occasion of International Day of Sport for Development and Peace, a group of Lebanese professional athletes launched Wednesday, in collaboration with the United Nations Information Center in Beirut (UNIC Beirut) a podcast in Arabic dedicated to sports.

The Fourth Chamber of the Court of Cassation on Wednesday decided to dismiss one of the recusal requests filed against Beirut port blast investigator Judge Tarek Bitar, media reports said.

The request had been filed by the family of blast victim Ali Sawwan.

April 13 is a gloomy date for the Lebanese seeing as it marks the start of the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war.

Today, families of the disappeared in Lebanon’s Civil War gathered in Bayt Beirut -- a historic museum that commemorates the civil war -- to ask for justice, as an independent national commission has failed to investigate what happened to the disappeared and to question former officials.