The parliament approved on Thursday on granting public transportation drivers’ fuel subsidy payments for a three month period.

Last week, Prime Minister Najib Miqati held talks with representatives from the land transportation syndicate and public drivers to implement an arrangement that was agreed upon.

Unknown assailants opened fire on Thursday at the Sweiqa police station in the northern city of Tripoli, resulting in material damage to the building.

The assailants attacked the building at 3:30 am using machine guns.

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour has said that instability in Syria affects negatively on the entire region’s security situation and called for assisting the Assad regime in carrying out reforms.

“The destabilization of the security (situation) in Syria will negatively affect the stability and security of the entire region and this can’t be compared to what happened in Libya when the international community was asking to topple its regime,” Mansour told his Portuguese counterpart on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meeting.

The March 14-led opposition hinted on Thursday to have scored a victory against MP Michel Aoun’s Change and Reform bloc after a meeting of joint parliamentary committees approved an electricity draft law with some amendments rejected by Aoun.

March 14 MP Jean Oghassabian told Voice of Lebanon radio (100.5) that the committees approved the cabinet’s initial draft law as called for the opposition and not as Energy Minister Jebran Bassil and his father-in-law Aoun wanted.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea stated on Thursday that his speech following Saturday’s mass commemorating the fallen members of the party will tackle regional developments and their effect on Christians.

He told Free Lebanon radio that it will also focus on internal Lebanese developments.

A unit from the Internal Security Forces Intelligence Branch raided a car repair shop in the town of Ghaza in the Western Bekaa arresting four people for suspected links to the kidnapping of seven Estonian tourists in March.

The National News Agency said Wednesday that three of the suspects are Lebanese while the other is Syrian.

Parliament endorsed on Thursday an electricity draft law that was approved a day earlier by the joint parliamentary committees based on a proposal made by Speaker Nabih Berri and rejected by MP Michel Aoun’s Change and Reform bloc.

Aoun expressed reservations on the bill during the session. He had met with Berri ahead of the legislature’s meeting.

A tense atmosphere from a meeting of joint parliamentary committees on the electricity project spilled into the cabinet on Wednesday amid reported verbal clashes between Change and Reform bloc ministers on one side and Health Minister Ali Hasan Khalil.

Media reports said that during a government session held at the Grand Serail an argument erupted between Labor Minister Charbel Nahhas and Khalil, who is Speaker Nabih Berri’s aide, after the Change and Reform bloc minister described a decision reached at the committees meeting as “dissent.”

Speaker Nabih Berri stressed that he will not back down on the consensus reached over the electricity bill that he suggested during Wednesday’s joint parliamentary committees meeting.

“The electricity plan will be subjected to vote during today’s (Thursday’s) parliamentary session,” Berri told As Safir newspaper on Thursday.

French Ambassador to Lebanon Denis Pietton on Wednesday told Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi that the French authorities were “pleased to host him” during his recent trip to Paris.

A statement issued by the French embassy following a visit by Pietton to the seat of the Maronite church in Bkirki said the ambassador told al-Rahi his visit to France “confirms the perpetuation of a tradition that reflects the steady, immune relations with the Maronite patriarchate, which represents … an important national authority in Lebanon.”