Lebanese officials were on Tuesday making last-minutes talks to clinch a deal on the electricity project, 24 hours before a government session scheduled to discuss the plan.

The cabinet has so far failed to approve the project proposed by Free Patriotic Movement official Energy Minister Jebran Bassil. The draft law calls for allocating $1.2 billion to Bassil to generate 700 Megawatts of electricity.

Several ministers have tasked Hizbullah and Amal movement with informing Energy Minister Jebran Bassil about the decisions they reached on the electricity crisis at a meeting held at the Grand Serail on Monday.

Amal Minister Ali Hassan Khalil and a Hizbullah representative will make the proposal to Bassil although he rejected any amendment to his electricity plan that calls for the allocation of $1.2 billion to generate 700 Megawatts of electricity.

The Progressive Socialist Party unveiled on Tuesday that most of its requests to amend several articles in the controversial electricity project were met during a ministerial meeting held at the Grand Serail the day before.

PSP official Minister Ghazi Aridi told As Safir newspaper that major achievements were made. “We could say that we made good progress with the hopes of reaching a serious understanding through cooperation and good will from all sides.”

A wave of flies is causing an environmental and humanitarian hazard in the eastern Baalbek town of al-Hellaniyeh valley, keeping residents indoor, media reports said Friday.

An Nahar daily quoted a resident as saying that a farmer spread fertilizers imported from Arab countries on a 1000-square-meter land in the town without mixing it with the soil. This has attracted the flies.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Monday called on Hizbullah to “take a brave decision to abandon its military wing,” noting that “the regional equation that was behind the strengthening of (Hizbullah’s) military clout is changing at the moment.”

“The fall of the regime in Syria will not necessarily lead to the fall of Hizbullah in Lebanon and Syria’s allies in Lebanon will throw their support behind Hizbullah in that case,” Geagea added during an interview on MTV.

A Lebanese blogger who was apparently linked to jailed Egyptian blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad has been denied entry to Egypt on Monday, a Cairo airport official and a media watchdog said.

Imad Bazzi's name "was on a list of people banned from entering at the request of a security apparatus," said the official, adding that the blogger who arrived at 0800 GMT was put on a plane back to Lebanon at 1500 GMT.

Energy and Water Minister Jebran Bassil on Monday noted that his proposed electricity plan would benefit all Lebanese and stressed that the issue “cannot be subject to a compromise.”

“Until this day, I still don’t understand what the problem is over the electricity file. On the political level, everyone is a winner and legally and financially there are no problems,” Bassil said during a press conference he held at the ministry to discuss the plan.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat praised on Monday Turkey’s expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador to Ankara, saying that this step reasserts Turkey’s support for the Palestinian cause.

He said in his weekly editorial in the PSP-affiliated al-Anbaa magazine: “This is a positive step that will help the regional balance of power and the changes being made to it.”

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi stressed on Monday the church’s opposition to war and violence, saying that it supports regimes that respect human rights that ensure that citizens can live in peace.

He made his statements after holding talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysee Palace as part of his ongoing trip to France that he began on Saturday.

The Scotland Yard accused an Algerian man with the murder of Lebanese imam Sheikh Maymun Zarzur who was killed on Saturday after leading early morning Muslim (Fajr) prayers at the Muslim Welfare House in London.

The pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat reported on Monday that the Algerian national, Ziani Issa, 24, will be tried north London.