A lack of verbal clashes at the cabinet session that tackled the 2012 draft state budget on Tuesday was described by parliamentary sources as “the calm before the political storm.”

The sources said that the calm during the session came amid expected “political storms” when cabinet ministers begin debating the issue of the funding of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

Teachers in private and public schools carried out their strike on Wednesday protesting the “humiliating” deal that was made between the General Labor Confederation (GLC), the cabinet and the Economic Committees last week.

However, private schools refused to close their doors.

A unit from the Syrian army made a new incursion in Lebanese territories in in the area of Dawrat al-Ghazal and al-Qaa in the northern Bekaa valley, killing a Syrian man and arresting his brother, media reports said Wednesday.

The incursion took place on Tuesday as the Syrian military was chasing a group of men who escaped on motorcycles to the Lebanese side of the town of al-Douwar, they said.

A delegation from Hizbullah arrived in Moscow on Wednesday in the first official visit to the Russian capital, As Safir newspaper reported.

The delegation will discuss with Russian officials the bilateral relations, issues of common interest and the developing situation in the region, mainly in Lebanon.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun on Tuesday held talks with former premier Omar Karami at the latter’s residence in Beirut, in the presence of Energy and Water Minister Jebran Bassil and Sports and Youth Minister Faisal Karami.

A statement issued by the FPM’s press office after the meeting said the conferees discussed “the economic and social issues, topped by the issues of state budget and wage hike.”

The Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc on Tuesday strongly condemned what it called “the Lebanese government’s deafening silence” over the alleged “abduction of the two Syrian dissidents belonging to the al-Jassem family and similar cases related to other Syrian citizens who were abducted in Lebanon, including Mr. Shebli al-Aysami.”

In a statement issued after its weekly meeting, the bloc also slammed the “suspicious idleness and flagrant indifference of some judicial authorities concerning this issue,” holding the government responsible for addressing the disappearance cases.

Energy Minister Jebran Bassil denied on Tuesday Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat’s recent remarks that proposals by certain Arab states to fund the Energy Ministry’s electricity plan have been rejected.

He said during cabinet session: “These remarks are untrue.”

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun slammed on Tuesday Prime Minister Najib Miqati’s statements, saying that they are a concession of Lebanon’s sovereignty.

He said after the Change and Reform bloc’s weekly meeting: “His statements expose Lebanon to dangers and I proudly say that I will not agree to the funding of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.”

President Michel Suleiman hoped on Tuesday that Israel would release all prisoners in its jails, urging it to resume peace negotiations based on the 2002 Arab peace initiative.

He said: “The prisoner swap between Israel and the Palestinians should stand as a lesson to Israel that its policies of war and aggression are useless.”

U.S. Ambassador Maura Connelly lauded the Lebanese Energy Ministry for making commitments to implement “strong” and “transparent” regulations in the energy sector, the U.S. embassy said in a statement on Tuesday.

Connelly’s remarks came during a meeting with Energy Minister Jebran Bassil at his ministry’s office in Karantine.