Introduction to the evening news 30-04-2012

Tomorrow is the Labor Day, but is it really the Lebanese workers day? As a gift, they have a 40,000 LBP fuel tank and a lighter bread bundle resulting from the reduction of the standard bundle of bread loaves by 100 grams. On the eve of the Labor Day, social security patients are standing outside hospital doors; they will become the scapegoat in the conflict between the Social Security Fund and private hospitals with no solution looming on the horizon.           

Politics are no better than livelihood issues as the Baabda - Rabiyeh rivalry is ongoing. Following his bloc’s weekly meeting held today instead of tomorrow, General Michel Aoun announced that the president is now morally bound to sign the $8.9 trillion decree, adding that the failure to sign it disrupts the administration.         

MP Walid Jumblatt said Aoun’s positions on President Sleiman are “daily bidding fairs that do not spare the president and taxes him with having reached his position by consensus.” In his weekly statement to Al Anbaa newspaper, Jumblatt rejected proportionality categorically, adding that it emanates from a strong desire to exclude the other.        

In light of this debate, U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton called President Michel Sleiman expressing her desire to send her assistant Jeffrey Feltman to Lebanon. Lebanon had visited Lebanon on December 8 and voiced his desire to visit the president. When the latter did not give him an appointment, he left before having the chance to meet with him.         

Before moving to the Syrian issue, Lebanese skiers were shot at by Syrians while skiing in Jabal el-Sheikh, on the Lebanese side. The incident occurred after Syrians mistaken the skiers for arms smugglers.         

As for Syria, it seems that the Iraqi situation started to rock Syria with blasts.