Hezbollah is confident of its ability to secure Suleiman Franjieh’s election any voting session that might be held, a media report said.

“It is pressing to neutralize the Aounist Movement’s bloc by offering it guarantees that it will be influential in the coming period,” Annahar newspaper reported.

After reports and rival parties said the French, Saudi and U.S. stances are no longer in favor of Suleiman Franjieh’s nomination, Ain el-Tineh sources have stressed that “the international stances have not changed regarding the Lebanese presidential settlement.”

“The French have not retreated, the Saudis have not backpedaled and the Americans have not reconsidered their vision,” the sources told al-Jadeed TV.

Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh has decided not to attend the May 16 interrogation session in Paris and is instead planning to retire in Sharjah, UAE, media reports have said.

Salameh fears that he might be detained or banned from traveling if he goes to France, the reports said. Instead, the governor and his legal team will argue that he has not been officially notified of the French interrogation request.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has decided not to reveal the developments of the talks with the Free Patriotic Movement over a presidential candidate.

"Every party has the right to keep its cards hidden," Geagea told MTV, urging Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri to call for an election session this week. "We are totally ready for it," he said.

Political circles are betting on the outcome of the meeting that will be held Tuesday between Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil and Hezbollah liaison and coordination official Wafiq Safa, media reports said.

Sources close to the FPM told al-Joumhouria newspaper in remarks published Monday that the meeting will be held at Hezbollah’s request.

The “countdown” for Speaker Nabih Berri’s call for a presidential election session has started, informed sources quoted a prominent political leader as saying.

Lebanon's foreign minister has spoken with his counterpart in the United Arab Emirates following the death of a Lebanese citizen while in custody in the oil-rich Gulf nation, Lebanon's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The Ministry said that Lebanon's ambassador to the UAE, Fouad Dandan, spoke by telephone with the wife and brother of the late Ghazi Ezzedine, 55. The envoy later received a signed letter from the family saying the man died as a result of heart problems.

Following "pressure" from Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Walid Bukhari, the Lebanese parties appear to have agreed to go to parliament within two weeks to elect a president, media reports said on Saturday.

A Lebanese man who was detained in the United Arab Emirates on unknown charges has died in custody, rights observers and family members said, raising questions about his possible mistreatment by authorities.

A committee of family members of Lebanese citizens detained in the UAE, including the man who died earlier this month, alleged in a statement that Ghazi Ezzedine, 55, had died under torture.

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has denounced as "baseless lies" reports that one of Syria's most well-known drug dealers, who was killed earlier this week in an airstrike near the Jordanian border, was linked to his group.

Nasrallah's televised speech came four days after the rare strike that some Syrian opposition activists claimed was carried out by Jordan's air force. The activists and a war monitor said the amphetamine Captagon kingpin killed Monday was among the most wanted by Jordanian authorities for drug smuggling across the border with the backing of a small militia.