Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi criticized on Sunday lawmakers for their failure to elect a new president following five rounds of the elections.

He warned during Sunday mass: “The failure to elect a new president is a dangerous violation of the constitution and will lead to the crippling of the state.”

Speaker Nabih Berri has launched a number of contacts with various concerned political sides over the new wage scale, reported the Kuwaiti daily Al-Anba on Sunday.

March 8 camp sources told the daily that the speaker is seeking an agreement between the political powers ahead of Tuesday's parliament session that is aimed at discussing the wage hike.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi will renew next week his demands on political parties to exert greater efforts to hold the presidential polls and elect a new head of state, reported the daily An Nahar on Sunday.

Sources close to Bkirki said that the patriarch will adopt a stronger tone in urging the officials to stage the elections.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea is expected to launch an initiative next week to end the deadlock over the presidential elections, reported the daily An Nahar on Sunday.

It said that his initiative will likely include “extending the hand to the March 8 alliance.”

The Internal Security Forces said Saturday that it arrested a robber after catching him red-handed at a house in Beirut, but his accomplice was still on the run.

An ISF Intelligence Branch patrol apprehended M.Q. while he was robbing the home in the Ramlet al-Bayda district, claiming he was a satellite dish worker.

The Syrian opposition said on Saturday that Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s recent statements meant the Syrian regime and its allies had a strategy to bring the international efforts to resolve the Syrian crisis to a dead end.

“The Hizbullah militia does not have any decision-making but it is … the porte-parole of the Iranian regime,” the National Coalition said in a statement.

Visiting Italian Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini stressed on Saturday that the army should be offered all the necessary support to maintain stability in Lebanon.

“Offering support to the Lebanese army is very important to maintain local, regional and international security,” the FM said in a joint press conference with her Lebanese counterpart Jebran Bassil at the Bustros Palace.

Education Minister Elias Bou Saab urged lawmakers on Saturday to attend next week's parliamentary session to approve the new pay hike.

“Our priority is to stage the official exams,” Bou Saab told reporters at the General Directorate of Technical Education in Dikwaneh after talks with the Federation of Private Educational Institutions.

Two Orthodox bishops kidnapped in Syria in April 2013 are currently in the northern city of Raqqa and held captive by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

According to a report published in al-Akhbar newspaper on Saturday, the two bishops are “in good health” and are currently detained in the region of Tal Abyad, which is located in north of Raqqa governorate, near the Turkish border.

Unknown assailants kidnapped at gunpoint an Egyptian national in Hawch-Bay in Baalbek, the state-run National News Agency reported on Saturday.

According to NNA, 22-year-old Hanine Othman, a Saudi-Egyptian national pressed charges at Chmestar police station against unknown assailants after her husband Mohammed Saeed Ibrahim Mahmoud, 32, was abducted.