Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq will adhere to the current applicable electoral laws and is set to order the start of preparations for Lebanon's parliamentary polls where he will be sending a decree to the Presidential Palace in the coming 48 hours, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Saturday.

According to information, the decree will not be signed by President Michel Aoun because it is linked to the current 1960 majoritarian law which the President has rejected having the elections staged on its basis.

British Interior Minister, Amber Rudd stressed Lebanon's need to stage the parliamentary elections on time, on the basis of an electoral law that meets approval of all Lebanese parties, the National News Agency reported on Friday.

“It is encouraging to conduct the parliamentary elections this year in Lebanon. We hope the efforts succeed at finding a new electoral law acceptable to all sides,” Rudd said in a message to her Lebanese counterpart Nouhad al-Mashnouq.

A bomb threat on Friday on a Greece-bound airplane that flew from the Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut and landed in Athens Airport turned out to be fake alarm.

An anonymous call was made earlier on Friday giving Athens airport's air traffic control tower a false alarm about a bomb planted aboard a plane belonging to Middle East Airlines (MEA), the National News Agency reported.

State Minister for Combating Corruption Nicolas Tueni said on Friday that the approval of the longtime thorny wage scale for the public sector would be an achievement for the new term of President Michel Aoun, but stressed that its ratification is linked to finding the needed revenues to cover its expenses.

“Endorsing the wage scale is an achievement for (President's) mandate and for Lebanon, but the matter is linked to finding the revenues to cover it. It is being discussed in cabinet,” Tueni told VDL (93.3).

Director of Political and Consular Affairs of the Foreign Ministry, Ambassador Charbel Wehbe, held a meeting with UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Sigrid Kaag on Thursday after the latter's tweets replying to comments made by President Michel Aoun about Hizbullah's arms.

During the meeting, Wehbe stressed the necessity to comply with the provisions of the Vienna Convention in respect to what applies to accredited diplomats, the state-run National News Agency said.

Suspicions arose early on Friday after an improvised bomb placed inside an old car tire was found in the northern al-Beddawi area in Tripoli, the state-run National News Agency reported.

The device, which turned out to be a mock bomb, was discovered near Salaheddine Mosque in al-Beddawi, NNA added.

Israel warned Hizbullah on Thursday against attacking it after Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah threatened to strike Israel's nuclear reactor in any future war.

The comments by Nasrallah marked the first time his group explicitly threatened to target the reactor in the southern Israeli town of Dimona.

Lebanon's electricity outage will be decreased three hours per day by the end of February, to be paralleled by a “slight” increase in electricity tariffs, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Thursday.

Sources well-informed on Lebanon's longtime problematic electricity file, told the daily that a new supply program will increase power supply by 3 hours per day, starting at the end of February.

Lebanon's judiciary charged ten suspected Palestinian and Lebanese militants with involvement with the Islamic State terror group, the National News Agency reported on Thursday.

Military Prosecutor Judge Saqr Saqr charged the ten suspects, three of whom are already in detention, on charges of involvement with the IS terror group, executing terror operations in Syria, planning to carry out terror assaults in Lebanon and assassination attempts of Lebanese officials, NNA added.

As endeavors to endorse a new electoral law for the upcoming parliamentary polls stutter, Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat recently submitted to Speaker Nabih Berri a new draft law proposal that was kept away from media spotlight, media reports said on Thursday.

“Jumblat has submitted some general ideas about an electoral law that involves specific acceptable proportionality, agreeable for him, and very much unlike other formats that tend to marginalize some political components,” unnamed sources following up on electoral law discussions told al-Joumhouria daily.