Prime Minister Najib Miqati has welcomed a feasibility study on the establishment of a nuclear reactor for peaceful scientific research in Lebanon, An Nahar newspaper reported Monday.

The daily said that Miqati welcomed the idea during a meeting he held with a delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency and Lebanese scientists.

Speaker Nabih Berri stressed on Monday that if the government re-implemented the 1960 electoral law for the upcoming 2013 elections then it would be a step backward, As Safir newspaper reported.

“Whoever is seeking to push this matter forward will be held responsible,” Berri said.

Senior Fatah commander Maj. Gen. Mounir Maqdah stressed on Monday that the trade of weapons in Lebanon flourished after the Syrian regime began cracking down on protestors in March last year.

“The trade of arms flourished after the events in Syria,” he said about the one-year-old uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime.

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.