Energy Minister Jebran Bassil stressed on Monday the need to “unify facts and figures” regarding the negotiations with companies over leasing power-generating vessels.

He said: “We have placed the scientific and logical rules upon which negotiations will be based.”

Finance Minister Mohammed al-Safadi denied on Monday that the ties between him and Prime Minister Najib Miqati had deteriorated after reported sharp difference in points of view between the two emerged to the surface on the leasing of the power-generating ships.

Other than our different points of view over the electricity plan “we have no dispute, and I hope our cooperation and partnership continues as long as we’re alive,” al-Safadi said in comments published in As Safir newspaper.

Two children died and two twin infants suffered from smoke inhalation when a house went on fire in the northern port city of Tripoli, As Safir daily reported Monday.

Five-year-old Rayan al-Asmar and his younger brother Walid al-Asmar, 3, died when their apartment that lies at Dar al-Shamal building at the entrance of the Zahriyeh district was engulfed in flames on Sunday night, the newspaper said.

Judge Sir David Baragwanath, President of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, arrived Sunday in Beirut from Frankfurt for talks with several officials, state-run National News Agency reported.

In March, sources told Al-Akhbar newspaper the STL president will ink a “memorandum of understanding” with the heads of the Bar Associations in Beirut and Tripoli.

Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn confirmed that smuggling operations are taking place along the border with Syria, admitting that it is “very difficult” to completely monitor the entire 330 kilometer-border, reported the daily An Nahar on Sunday.

He told the daily: “The army is performing all it can to curb the illegal activity.”

Prime Minister Najib Miqati’s sources questioned reports that the General Electric company had made a proposal over constructing a power plant in Lebanon, reported the daily An Nahar on Sunday.

They told the daily that the premier’s suggestion to build a plant to resolve the country’s power crisis did not include the name of a specific company.

President Michel Suleiman and Prime Minister Najib Miqati have voiced their support for Interior Minister Marwan Charbel’s proposal on the parliamentary electoral law, the minister told An Nahar in remarks published on Sunday.

Charbel made his statements after holding talks on Saturday afternoon with the president and premier on the various proposals on the electoral law.

Three soldiers were wounded when unknown assailants opened fire Saturday night at an army checkpoint in the northern city of Tripoli, reported Voice of Lebanon radio on Sunday.

A security official told Agence France Presse that the shooting took place at a checkpoint located between the rival neighborhoods of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen.

A Canadian potato farmer who was arrested in Lebanon a year ago has been released from prison in Beirut and is expected to arrive home on Saturday, officials said.

Henk Tepper, 44, one of Canada's largest potato growers, was arrested in Lebanon in March 2011 under an Interpol warrant for allegedly selling bad produce to Algeria.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan hailed the efforts exerted by Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi to Turkey to maintain stability in Lebanon, stressing that Turkey hasn’t witnessed a visit like this since the Ottoman empire.

Erdogan stressed on the importance of the visit of al-Rahi, saying “it comes at a time everyone needs to go back to dialogue and reconciliation.”