Less than a week before a Sept. 7 cabinet session, reports do not indicate that officials have reached consensus on the controversial electricity project that calls for allocating $1.2 billion to the energy minister to generate 700 Megawatts of electricity.

Al-Liwaa daily said that Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun, who has proposed the electricity draft law, told mediators that any mechanism in the implementation of the electricity plan should not limit Energy Minister Jebran Bassil’s decisive powers.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati stressed on Friday the importance of separating the Lebanese situation from the developments in Syria.

“We shouldn’t interfere in anyone’s (internal) affairs so that no one meddles in ours,” Miqati told the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat.

A Lebanese man who blamed a fraud scheme on his addiction to day trading in stocks has been sentenced to four years in prison in the United States.

Hussein Ali Mehdi asked a judge to spare him from prison, the Eugene Register-Guard of the State of Oregon (http://bit.ly/q5PvvC) reported.

Lebanon took over the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council for this month, the second time since its council membership in January 2010.

Ambassador Nawwaf Salam told An Nahar daily published Friday that he was seeking to introduce “preventive diplomacy” to the agenda of the council. “This concept includes means and diplomatic measures taken in advance to prevent the eruption of conflicts or stop them from spreading.”

A disfigured Ethiopian nanny on Thursday recounted being beaten and severely burnt while working for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's son Hannibal and his wife.

Lying prone in her bed at Tripoli's only burns unit, Shweyga Mullah, 30, said wife Aline Skaff, a Lebanese lingerie model previously accused of abuse, twice poured scalding water on her, causing third degree burns which doctors said would take years to treat.

A dispute between Mohammad Hassan Zoaiter and others from Al- Zoaiter in Zoaitriyeh neighborhood North Metn caused by generator subscriptions in the area erupted into gunfire on Thursday evening, National News Agency reported.

Seven people were wounded by the dispute, five of whom are seriously injured, the agency stated.

MP Sami Gemayel hinted on Thursday that Hizbullah is aware of the whereabouts of the four suspects in ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s assassination case but is not helping Lebanese authorities in finding them.

In a press conference he held at the Phalange party headquarters in Saifi, Gemayel said: “Hizbullah said that the TIME magazine interview didn’t take place meaning it called the suspects and asked if they gave the interview.”

Premier Najib Miqati has reiterated his “strong willingness that France keeps its forces” as part of the UNIFIL mission and vowed to work on preventing further attacks on peacekeepers.

In a letter to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Miqati said that Lebanon is keen on implementing U.N. Security Council resolution 1701 and consolidating the ties between the Lebanese army and foreign troops.

Special Tribunal for Lebanon spokesman Marten Youssef stressed on Thursday that the indictment has a supplement that wasn’t released to keep the identity of witnesses and the investigation confidential.

“There is a part of the indictment that the pre-trial judge (Daniel Fransen) decided to keep confidential, especially in the matters that would affect the witnesses, investigations and the victims,” Youssef told al-Okaz Saudi newspaper.

Security forces managed Wednesday to locate Syrian nationals Mohammed Ayman Bashir Ammar and Nour Jamil al-Hajj Qaddoura in the northern Bekaa town of Hawrtaala, after they were kidnapped five days ago on the Barelias-Bekaa highway.

A statement issued by the General Directorate of General Security said that “after search and investigations, a General Security unit managed to locate the two abductees, who were handed over to the relevant judicial authorities in order to unveil the case’s circumstances.”