Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi launched Monday a new electronic platform for entering and sorting votes.

The new platform will be used for the first time in Lebanon in the May 15 parliamentary elections, next Sunday.

The World Bank approved a $150 million soft loan for food security in crisis-hit Lebanon to stabilize bread prices during the coming months, the economy minister said Monday.

Amin Salam told reporters that the loan has a very low interest rate but the minister did not make the rate public. He used the term soft loan indicating a below-market rate of interest.

The turnout of Lebanese diaspora voting in 58 countries ahead of May 15 parliamentary elections was nearly 60 percent, officials said Monday, similar figures to the last polls in 2018.

Some 130,000 Lebanese expatriates out of 225,000 registered voters cast their ballots, foreign ministry official Hadi Hashem said, releasing preliminary figures.

Lebanese and Russian citizens have marched for Russia's Victory Day in Beirut, carrying portraits of relatives who fought in World War II.

The Russian holiday of Victory Day brings out patriotic displays of flags, military parades and marches by veterans' groups celebrating the country's triumph over Nazi Germany in 1945.

Foreign ministry official Hadi Hashem announced Monday the end of the expat voting for the Lebanese parliamentary elections, with Canada and the U.S. -- home to the largest community of registered voters -- being the last two countries to close the ballots.

The turnout of Lebanese diaspora voting in 58 countries was nearly 60 percent, according to Hashem, with Syria registering the highest participation of 84 percent and Iraq the lowest.

As a law student in late 2019, Verena El Amil joined mass street protests against Lebanon's political elite. Now she wants to fight them at the ballot box.

At age 25, she is one of a growing number of independent candidates running in a May 15 parliamentary vote in the crisis-torn country.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday lauded “the role of the government, the concerned ministers and the employees of embassies and diplomatic missions for the proper management” of expat parliamentary polls, which got underway in the morning in dozens of countries.

“We have seen the Lebanese women and men heading to polling stations with pain, anger and hope showing on their faces,” al-Rahi added in his Sunday Mass sermon.

Supporters of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and the Amal Movement on Sunday turned out heavily in Lebanon’s expat parliamentary elections in Germany.

Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib reassured Sunday that “polling stations in Dubai will not be closed before all Lebanese present in the consulate cast their votes,” amid scenes of long queues of voters who lined up in scorching heat.

President Michel Aoun on Sunday visited the Foreign Ministry to inspect its monitoring of the second round of expat parliamentary elections that got underway in the morning in 48 countries.