Russia is backing the election of Marada Movement leader MP Suleiman Franjieh as president, reported al-Liwaa newspaper on Saturday.

Russian Ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Zasypkin relayed this stance to the lawmaker, revealed a diplomatic source.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat held talks in Paris on Friday with French President Francois Hollande and Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, reported An Nahar daily on Saturday.

Discussions tackled the latest developments in Lebanon with French officials stressing their support for the Lebanese army and institutions, as well as the need to elect a president “without delay.”

The Internal Security Forces on Friday announced the arrest of two Syrian individuals suspected of murdering two Kuwaiti citizens in the Kahale region.

“A special operation by the Intelligence Branch has resulted in the arrest of two individuals suspected of having committed the crime of murdering two Kuwaiti citizens,” the ISF announced on Twitter.

Arab League foreign ministers on Friday declared Hizbullah a "terrorist" group, days after Arab interior ministers and the Gulf Cooperation Council issued similar resolutions.

Nearly all members of the pan-Arab body supported the decision, but not Lebanon and Iraq which expressed "reservations", the bloc said in a statement read out at a news conference by Bahraini diplomat Wahid Mubarak Sayar.

Lebanese Democratic Party leader MP Talal Arslan declared Friday that the town of Choueifat will not agree to the establishment of any “solid waste” landfill within its boundaries.

“There is a big difference between a landfill for (all types of) garbage and one for non-recyclable and non-treatable waste,” Arslan pointed out in a tweet.

U.S. Ambassador-designate Elizabeth Richard has vowed to strengthen Washington's partnership with Beirut and the army while pledging to limit Hizbullah's role by helping Lebanese authorities exercise full sovereignty throughout the country.

“Respect for religious freedom and confessional tolerance lie at the very core of Lebanese identity. We must do all we can to help Lebanon continue to uphold these principles,” Richard told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday.

Tens of thousands of documents that were leaked Wednesday containing the names, addresses, phone numbers and family contacts of Islamic State militants included the names of two Lebanese engineers who planned to carry out suicide attacks, LBCI reported on Friday.

Engineer graduates Abou Khattab al-Tamimi (1988) from the Bekaa area of Bouwerij and Abou Shadi al-Lebnani (1982) from the town of Qaraoun were listed among the names of 122 IS suicide attackers.

Speaker Nabih Berri said on Friday that the stalled presidential elections are ready to be held at the current stage and assured that Saudi Arabia will not abandon Lebanon, An Nahar daily reported.

“The presidential fruit is mature and ripe for picking after all the delay,” he told the daily.

The Lebanese Army Intelligence has arrested eight suspects who have entered Lebanon from the Syrian town of Zabadani to carry out terrorist activities, As Safir daily reported on Friday.

The newspaper said that the arrests took place on Thursday in parallel with a preemptive strike launched by the military against jihadists from the Islamic State group on the outskirts of Ras Baalbek in eastern Lebanon.

Kuwait's Embassy said late Thursday that it was premature to identify the killers and know the motives behind the murder of two Kuwaiti nationals in the area of Kahale near Beirut.

Ambassador Abdul Al al-Qinai said in a statement that the Lebanese authorities had informed the embassy that the two Kuwaitis, who were reported missing by their families, were found dead with gunshot wounds on their bodies inside a room of a restaurant they owned.