A small quake measuring 3.6 on the Richter scale jolted cities in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, without causing any injuries or damage, the Bhannes Center for Seismic and Scientific Research announced.

Residents of the southern city of Tyre and its suburbs felt the earthquake at around 10:47 am, the National News Agency said.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati held a meeting with President Michel Suleiman ahead of a cabinet session on Wednesday at the Grand Serail.

The two discussed at the Baabda palace the latest local developments and the issues facing the cabinet and the parliament.

The thorny issue of appointments seems to be fading away as the cabinet will tackle the subject during its upcoming session at the Baabda Palace, As Safir newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The daily reported that head of the Higher Judicial Council will not be from the previous disputed names, as officials sought to choose a name other than those proposed by President Michel Suleiman and Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun.

The Lebanese army took stronger security measures and set up checkpoints in northeastern areas bordering Syria on Tuesday after heavy gunfire was heard on the other side of the border, An Nahar daily reported.

The newspaper said Wednesday that gunfire was also heard between 8:00 pm and 10:00 pm on the other side of North Lebanon’s al-Kabir river inside the Syrian al-Arida village where the Assad regime forces carried out raids in their crackdown on protestors.

The electricity crisis emerged back to the surface amid reports saying that Prime Minister Najib Miqati is seeking to refuse the leasing of power-generating vessels, while officials are still discussing the possibility of receiving a back-up from Iran.

According to An Nahar newspaper published on Wednesday, Electricite du Liban decided to ink an agreement with Iran to begin supplying Lebanon with 25 megawatts of power starting April, which would reach 100 megawatts in September.

Speaker Nabih Berri has stressed that National Struggle Front leader Walid Jumblat was still part of the March 8 parliamentary majority despite accusations that he had joined the March 14 opposition.

In remarks to several newspapers published Wednesday, Berri said: “The March 14 team should be comforted. Walid Jumblat is still in the majority … and still one of its leaders.”

Speaker Nabih Berri announced on Wednesday that he agreed with Premier Najib Miqati and Finance Minister Mohammed Safadi for the government to prepare a detailed draft-law on an $11 billion spending made between 2006 and 2009 similar to a $5.9 billion bill referred to parliament by the cabinet.

“I decided to go ahead with the proposal of (al-Mustaqbal bloc leader) Fouad Saniora and the March 14 team to correlate the two draft laws,” Berri said in remarks to An Nahar and As Safir dailies.

Marada Movement leader MP Suleiman Franjieh on Tuesday voiced concerns over a possible “dangerous thing being plotted against Lebanon under the slogans of humanitarian corridors and support for the (Syrian) opposition.”

“Security-wise, some places in Lebanon are calm and other places are tense. The atmosphere is being prepared day after day and it is heading towards negativity, not positivity. Who sensed the presence of (the extremist group) Fatah al-Islam before the eruption of its conflict with the army?” Franjieh said in an interview on OTV.

MP Akram Shehayyeb, a member of Druze leader Walid Jumblat’s National Struggle Front, on Tuesday called for unveiling the fate of Syrian dissident Shebli al-Aysami who was last seen in May in the Mount Lebanon town of Aley.

Aysami, 86, is a co-founder of Syria's ruling Baath party who fled his native country in 1966 over political differences.

The Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc on Tuesday stressed that “transparency governs the work of the Mustaqbal Movement, its parliamentary bloc and the March 14 coalition,” noting that the Saniora and Hariri governments had to resort to extra-budgetary spending between 2006-2011 after “five state budgets referred by the governments of Fouad Saniora and Saad Hariri to parliament were not approved.”

“Some people’s insistence on stirring an uproar is aimed at distorting the facts and demonizing a previous era in Lebanon’s history,” the bloc said in a statement issued after its weekly meeting.