Suleiman Postpones Visit to Saudi Arabia
President Michel Suleiman has postponed a visit he planned to make to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for talks with top officials, his office announced.
The statement did not set a new date for the visit.
It said Suleiman followed up the security situation in the eastern city of Baalbek and the issue of Lebanese asylum-seekers whose boat sank off Indonesia on Friday.
The president was briefed on the measures taken by the authorities to deal with the two issues, the Baabda palace statement added.
The police chief in the Agrabinta area of Indonesia's Java, where the boat went down, told Agence France Presse on Sunday that the death toll from Friday's accident was now 28, including multiple children -- with many more passengers unaccounted for.
It is not clear whether all of the dead were Lebanese.
The vessel, carrying an estimated 120 asylum-seekers from Lebanon, mainly from the town of Kabiit in Akkar, Jordan and Yemen, sank after being hit by high waves Friday. Survivors said the boat was headed for Australia's Christmas Island. Eighteen of the Lebanese survived the ordeal.
In Baalbek, the Lebanese army carrying out patrols and set up checkpoints on Sunday a day after five people were killed in clashes between Hizbullah and armed men following a dispute in Baalbek’s al-Qalaa marketplace.
Suleiman was expected to discuss with Saudi officials the government crisis in Lebanon and the repercussions of the war in Syria on Lebanon's stability.
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