The Free Patriotic Movement issued a statement on Saturday saying the formation of a government in Lebanon and conducting forensic audit into the central bank accounts are two top “priorities” needed to handle the crisis in Lebanon.

Lebanon will enter phase two of easing a four-stage lockdown on Monday, one week after it launched its vaccination campaign against COVID-19.

The Emirates News Agency (WAM) announced that the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan received at Qasr Al Shati' Palace Friday Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri who is visiting the state.

Hariri’s press office released an English-langauge statement and said:

The U.N. Security Council has given a green light to keep the U.N.-backed tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister Rafik Hariri operating and funded for at least this year.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a letter to the council circulated Friday that the president of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Judge Ivana Hrdličková, informed him in November that its work wouldn't be finished by the expiration of its mandate Feb. 28.

Lebanon's top judicial body on Friday named a new judge to lead the investigation into last year's massive explosion at Beirut's port, the National News Agency said, a day after his predecessor was removed following legal challenges by former ministers he had accused of negligence that led to the blast.

The Higher Judicial Council named Judge Tarek al-Bitar as the new prosecutor after he was proposed for the post by caretaker Minister of Justice Marie-Claude Najem, NNA said.

The prosecutor investigating last year's massive blast in Beirut was formally notified Friday that he would no longer lead an enquiry into last year's deadly port explosion, state-run Lebanon's National News Agency reported.

Thursday's decision by the country's highest court to remove Investigating Judge Fadi Sawwan came after legal challenges by senior officials he had accused of negligence that led to the blast, considered one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history.

Relatives of the Beirut port blast victims held a protest for the second day on Friday and blocked traffic in Riad el-Solh highway after a decision that recused judge Fadi Sawwan off the case.

Progressive Socialist Party leader ex-MP Walid Jumblat encouraged the Lebanese to take the Covid-19 vaccine amid a nearly low turnout since the inoculation campaign kicked off in Lebanon on Sunday.

The Internal Security Forces arrested three suspects involved in smuggling people through Tripoli’s al-Abdeh shore area to Cyprus, the ISF said in a statement on Friday.

Despite intensifying foreign and Arab calls urging political leaders in Lebanon to speed a much-needed government, “domestic hurdles” stand in the way of any progress, al-Joumhouria daily reported Friday.