Press Digest for Monday November 26, 2012

The following are summaries of today's major stories published in the Arabic press. LBCI does not edit press digest articles for content, giving English-language readers insight into the various views expressed in newspapers across the Arab world.

• Houry: Our experience with Hezbollah is not encouraging                 

MP Ammar Houry stressed in an interview with Al-Seyassah al-Kuwaitia Daily, that the conditions for returning to dialogue are well known, adding that the resignation of the government still remains a main precondition. He noted that the previous experiences with other parties are "not encouraging."           

Houry said that "they" [March14] support President Michel Sleiman’s statement in Rome, pointing that they will never place any bet on the Syrian crisis. He accused other parties of clearly betting on the survival of the Syrian regime.                 

• Sleiman, Berri, Mikati welcome Jumblatt’s initiative               

Sources close to the Progressive Socialist Party told al-Hayat Newspaper that the party leader MP Walid Jumblatt’s initiative was welcomed by President Michel Sleiman, Speaker Nabih Berri and PM Najib Mikati, noting that Jumblatt will place the main headlines to pave the way for dialogue between all the Lebanese parties, in order to reach an exit for the crisis.                               

The sources stressed that, thanks to its contacts with all the parties in the country, the PSP is still considered the most capable of preparing the conditions for the formation of a new cabinet through the resumption of national talks, to prevent Lebanon from falling into a political void.                     

• New list of more than 150 forged certificates revealed
  

Political and national sources following up on the investigations conducted under the supervision of the General Prosecution in the case of forging laboratory results for a large quantity of medical products, revealed that the presidency of the School of Pharmacy in  the Beirut Arab University will hand over to the Central Criminal Investigation a new list of more than 150 forged certificates.                      

In this context, al-Hayat Daily reported that the Chemistry department in the School of Pharmacy reviewed the spreadsheets issued by the laboratory over the past few years and discovered that someone had been forging the results of a great number of medical products.                        

According to the newspaper, officials in the School of Pharmacy said that the forging process began late 2009 with a limited number of certificates, while the biggest number of forged certificates was registered in 2010, 2011 and 2012.                    

The same sources estimated that the number of forged certificates recorded between 2010 and 2011 reached more than 150 certificates.