The UK Director General covering the Middle East Vijay Rangarajan ended a two day visit to Lebanon from 15 to 16 February, with the British Embassy in Beirut and UK Syria Office.

"He saw first-hand the UK’s continued support to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and the most vulnerable in Lebanon, including Syrian refugees," a British Embassy statement said.

The Central Security Council held Friday an emergency meeting at the Grand Serail, a day after angry protesters blocked roads across the country and smashed windows and set tires on fire outside banks in Beirut, as the value of the local currency hit a new low.

After the meeting, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati asked if the activists who burned tires in front of the banks are "real depositors," suggesting that they might have received instructions to do what they did.

In less than a week the Lebanese pound's value against the dollar has plummeted to a new low from 66,000 to 80,000 at the black market rate, the exchange rate used for buying and selling most goods and services in the country. There are several mobile exchange rate applications that have been the reference for the black market rate for years.

Though the country’s pegged exchange rate against the dollar was officially devalued to 15,000 earlier this month, the black market rate has reflected a more realistic market rate for years, but rapidly fluctuates with no transparency.

The Lebanese woke up terrified on February 6 as a 7.8-magnitude quake centered in Turkey jolted them from beds, shaking buildings for about 40 seconds.

Many residents of Beirut left their homes and took to the streets or drove in their cars away from buildings, terrorized by memories of the 2020 port explosion that wrecked a large swath of the city.

A European judicial delegation from France, Germany, and Luxembourg will return to Lebanon in the first week of March, a judicial source said.

The source told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, in remarks published Friday, that the judges will start to arrive in Lebanon starting March 5 and will question Central Bank governor Riad Salameh and other central bank employees and commercial banks heads.

Three soldiers and three fugitives were killed Thursday during a Lebanese Army raid aimed at arresting durg barons in the Bekaa town of Hawrtaala, the army said.

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday warned the United States against seeing to stir “chaos” in Lebanon, warning that such an upheaval would spread to the entire region.

BLOM Bank, Creditbank and Saradar Bank have agreed to cooperate with Judge Ghada Aoun in her request to lift banking secrecy off several accounts to facilitate her probe into the suspected illegal transfer of funds abroad by bankers, businessmen and politicians, a media report said on Thursday.

Financial Prosecutor Judge Ali Ibrahim on Thursday pressed charges against 22 money changers of whom 18 are in custody.

A magnitude-4.6 earthquake struck the Syrian coast at 1:15 pm Thursday and was felt in Lebanon, the director of Lebanon’s National Center for Geophysics, Marleine Brax, said.