Introduction to the evening news 25-03-2012

Signs in all issues make it easy to expect a very busy week full of surprises- from Moscow to the electricity issue in Lebanon.         

In Moscow, it seems that the mission of U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan did not reach its goals given Russia is still sticking to its original position positions. Annan will head to Beijing next Wednesday to continue his mission.         

The diplomatic developments occur at a time when violence escalated in Syria with no signs of easing. All indications point to a continuation of conflict on the ground until the Friends of Syria conference is held in Turkey on April 1st.         

The Syrian crisis was present at the spiritual summit that was held in Bkerke today. It seems that the statement issued at the end of the meeting chose its words with great care to avoid getting to any of the participants; it named the Syrian events “the Syrian scene” and the military operations “the prolonged violence”.         
Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood issued a statement in which they announced that they will make sure future Syria is a deliberative pluralistic civil state that enjoys the best relations with its neighbors, mainly Lebanon.          

In Lebanon, the issue of electricity remained open during the weekend and lawmakers settled on the following facts prior to Wednesday’s cabinet session:        

The prime minister replaced the electricity-generating ships with power plants, and Gibran Bassil who chose not respond publicly, hinted that this decision was not due to the fact that he discovered the positive aspects of power plants compared to ships, but based on a new factor related to a third ship. Sources close to minister Bassil said that there were not two teams; there was only one team and during the committee’s fourth and last meeting, Mikati called on Bassil to make a statement marking the end of the committee’s work; so what happened?