A deal struck with a Turkish company to provide power-generating vessels to Lebanon is under the threat of collapse over differences between members of a ministerial committee and the firm, As Safir daily reported Friday.

The negotiations with Karadeniz are ongoing but could lead to the end of the agreement that the ministerial committee led by Prime Minister Najib Miqati had struck with the firm, threatening the collapse of the entire process of leasing the vessels, As Safir quoted informed sources as saying.

President Michel Suleiman on Thursday stressed that “any solution must happen in coordination with Syria” instead of being imposed by outside forces, noting that Lebanon and Syria enjoy a state-to-state relation.

During talks with visiting Austrian President Heinz Fischer at the Baabda palace, Suleiman added: “We hope no foreign military intervention will occur in Syria.”

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat on Thursday firmly reiterated his rejection of an electoral law based on the proportional representation system.

“I don’t want any type of proportionality and that’s all,” Jumblat told al-Manar television, ahead of a meeting at his residence with Speaker Nabih Berri’s aide, Health Minister Ali Hassan Khalil, and Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s aide, Hussein Khalil.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati stated on Friday that Lebanon has long stood as an example of tolerance and democracy in the region, adding that the country is serious in implementing political, economic, and social reform.

He said: “Maintaining stability must not prevent us from implementing all forms of necessary reform, regardless how painful they may be.”

The hacktivist group Raise Your Voice hit again on Thursday, hacking around 10 Lebanese government websites, the second such attack in nine days.

“We are RYV, short for Raise Your Voice, and we are simply a group of people who could not bare (sic) sitting in silence, watching all the crimes and injustice going on in Lebanon. We will not be silenced and brainwashed by your media. We will not stop until the Lebanese people mobilize, demand their rights, and earn them,” said the group’s message posted on the hacked websites.

The military tribunal issued the death sentence on Thursday against 26 individuals for their involvement in the 2011 abduction of the seven Estonian cyclists.

The tribunal had charged 29 suspects for being involved in the crime, as well as a number of others committed in Lebanon over the past year.

A box containing explosives that were not rigged for detonation was found in the area of Jeitawi in the Beirut neighborhood of Ashrafiyeh on Thursday.

The National News Agency said the box that was found at the entrance of Zeidan building contained a rocket, a digital clock and TNT templates.

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri noted on Thursday that the living conditions in Lebanon have greatly deteriorated in the past year, blaming the current government for the poor situation in the country.

He said via Twitter: “The 2013 parliamentary elections will surely change” this reality.

Speaker Nabih Berri warned on Thursday against the ambush set for regional countries, saying that their economic and political powers are being scattered.

“Division is increasing (among the regional countries) and they’re turning into nations governed by the power of arms,” Berri said at the opening of the Languages Faculty at St. Joseph University (USJ).

Lebanon’s public transportation sector held a nationwide strike on Thursday with some drivers blocking streets with burning tires in the northern province of Akkar.

The sector decided to hold the strike between 5:00 am and 12:00 pm after the government failed to place ceilings on the price of gasoline sold to drivers.