Spotlight
Speaker Nabih Berri warned on Monday that he will call for a parliamentary session to inquire the cabinet about Lebanon’s offshore oil wealth project.
“After the Special Tribunal for Lebanon crisis was resolved, the cabinet should turn to the oil (exploration project) … I will not accept any delay,” Berri told al-Joumhouria newspaper.

A cabinet session is scheduled to be held on Wednesday, a week after Premier Najib Miqati announced the postponement of the meeting and the transfer of funds to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.
Miqati’s sources confirmed to An Nahar daily that the council of ministers will convene on time at Baabda palace. But they rejected to discuss the details of the contacts aimed at convincing the ministers of Michel Aoun’s Change and Reform bloc to end their boycott.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman has said Washington has evidence that Tehran and its Lebanese ally Hizbullah are bolstering Syria’s Assad regime.
Speaking in Amman, Feltman told reporters that Syrian President Bashar Assad is pegging his ruling Alawite minority against other sects and implementing his "own prophesy, which is moving Syria into more chaos and a civil war."

Two people were shot and wounded on Sunday in two separate incidents in the Mount Lebanon regions of Shoueifat and Ain al-Rummaneh, state-run National News Agency reported.
“At 4:00 pm, an unidentified gunman opened fire at young man Ali Nabil Sheet, 19, wounding him in the head, in the Shoueifat area of Kouh al-Blata,” NNA said.

Middle East Airlines chairman Mohammed al-Hout on Sunday said that the pilots had suspended their 5-day strike “without preconditions or promises and commitments from the company’s administrative board.”
“We welcome the decision of the pilots’ union to suspend their strike, which was unjustified and illegal,” Hout said in an interview with state-run National News Agency.

Lebanese Democratic Party leader MP Talal Arslan stressed Sunday that “preserving the Resistance’s weapons is the key to general stability in the country,” noting that Premier Najib Miqati “has favored the financing of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon over obstruction, for the sake of stability.”
“Preserving the Resistance’s weapons is the key to general stability in the country, especially that it is twinned with the army and the people in a tripartite epic,” Arslan said in a speech at an inauguration ceremony in the southern district of Hasbaya.

Operations have resumed at the Zahrani electricity plant, which will return to its full capacity starting Monday morning, Electricite du Liban announced Sunday, after media reports said contacts between Premier Najib Miqati and Speaker Nabih Berri had managed to resolve the crisis.
“Today, Starting 1:00 pm … work began to gradually reconnect the Zahrani plant to the grid, which will become fully functional Monday morning … should no technical problems arise due to the forced and sudden suspension of production units for around 48 hours,” EDL said in a statement.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi rejected on Sunday the political choices of officials stressing his commitment to national unity through the diversity of the Lebanese society.
“When we announce that we are with everybody and we reject being tinted with the color of anyone at the level of political choices, that’s because we are committed to building unity through diversity,” al-Rahi said in his sermon.

Progressive Socialist Party chief Walid Jumblat brushed off the bickering between the March 8 and 14 forces on the international tribunal, saying they should instead avert a possible Lebanese civil war over the crisis in Syria.
“What’s happening in Lebanon, around us and in Syria could turn the tribunal into a minor issue if there was strife in Lebanon,” Jumblat said as he laid a wreath on the grave of his slain father Kamal Jumblat on the occasion of his birthday.

Residents of a neighborhood in Mina in the northern city of Tripoli blocked a road with burning tires at dawn Sunday to protest power cuts, Voice of Lebanon radio station reported.
VDL (93.3) said that “party members” sought to interfere to prevent the angry Hawsh al-Abid residents from blocking the road.
