Introduction to the evening news 01-09-2012

President Michel Sleiman signed a decree to refer the electoral draft law to the Parliament. Prime Minister Najib Mikati visited Diman heading a ministerial delegation and played down the importance of the arguments and quarrels between Lebanon’s different political parties. LAF Commander Jean Kahwaji toured Tripoli inspecting the army units deployed in the city. These three events aimed to bring the country’s politics and security back to life, as if what happened in the past 2 weeks was a passing summer cloud. The country’s security is a priority, the government is staying and elections are near.      

These reassurances in Lebanon were faced by an explosive situation in Syria which was the bulk of the speech held by Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea at the annual “Memorial Mass for the Martyrs of the Lebanese Resistance” in Meerab. In his speech, Geagea attacked the minorities’ alliances theorists who turned into explosive transporters , refusing to transform the history of Christians into the history dictatorships in the Middle East.       

In Syria, the bloodshed continued and the problem of displacement worsened. At a time when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Syrian President Bashar Assad is “politically dead”, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that it would be naïve for outside powers to expect President Assad to halt fire first “for this would be a call for capitulation.”


For the full LBCI report, watch the video above.