Al-Anwar: Professor Najjar looks into president’s order

The telecoms dispute returned to top priority Monday following the weekend attack on UNIFIL troops in Sidon. A heated parliamentary meeting to discuss the dispute between Telecoms Minister Charbel Nahhas and Abdel-Monem Youssef, the director general of Lebanon’s telecoms provider OGERO, further widened the sharp divide between lawmakers from the rival political camps – March 8 and March 14. The split also broadened when President Michel Sleiman ordered Justice Minister “Professor Ibrahim Najjar” to take legal action against Internal Security Forces chief Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi for defying Interior Minister Ziyad Baroud’s orders to withdraw a police unit Rifi had dispatched to the second floor of a Telecoms Ministry building in Adliyeh, east of Beirut.

An-Nahar: Parliament a showground for escalation

Berri attacks “Cedar Revolution” and revival of government [formation] talks

The crisis over the Telecoms Ministry went well beyond the legal, political and security boundaries to take a different tone – with signs of a serious escalation that has overshadowed the government formation crisis to some extent and pushed several concerned politicians to express fear of renewed splits within state institutions.

If the noisy events witnessed at a meeting of the parliamentary Media and Communications Committee Monday reflected the sharp split and most intense dispute between March 8 and March 14, high-ranking March 14 parliamentary sources warned Monday against stepped up rhetoric amid Speaker Nabih Berri’s unprecedented attack on the “Cedar Revolution,” hours after he called for a legislative session on June 8.

The sources told An-Nahar that Berri not only called on Parliament to meet, despite March 14 reservations over the legality of convening the assembly, but he acted to stir up a blatant confrontation between Parliament and the “Cedar Revolution.”

The sources also warned against attempts to incorporate topics, such as the issue of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, on the agenda of the parliamentary meeting called by Berri.

The other side of the crisis, however, emerged when President Sleiman ordered the Justice Ministry to take legal measures against Rifi, the police chief.

In response to a question, Rifi told An-Nahar that he had not come across Sleiman’s order.

“I don’t know what the order is based on,” Rifi said, adding that he believed Sleiman did not get the full story. “This is why I have said that there is no such thing as a rejection of the Interior Ministry decision or anything like that.”

Rifi said he had received a memo from Baroud Thursday afternoon and that three hours later he sent an explanatory message. “But he [Baroud] held a press conference without taking a look at my memo.”

Al-Akhbar: Parliamentary committee: Don’t despair, this is Lebanon

The dispute over what happened Thursday inside the telecoms ministry in Adliyeh made its way into a parliamentary meeting Monday which saw what looked like an endless argument without any settlement except for an acknowledgment by one Future Movement MP that the third cellular network does exist and is globally recognized!

Yelling reverberated throughout the hall that housed the parliamentary meeting Monday to discuss the row over the Telecoms Ministry. The cell network is operating while MPs argued for five hours over the formation of a parliamentary committee to investigate the dispute over the network.

As-Safir: Bkirki wants a new Taif … Doha not very reassuring to Jumblatt

When a political vacuum enters its fifth month and nothing on the horizon suggests the birth of a new government, Lebanese have the legitimate right to fear over the fate of their country.

And when the political vacuum enters its fifth month and security shakes under UNIFIL’s feet, the Blue Berets also have the legitimate right to fear as long as Lebanese have concerns over the future of their country with no one to answer.

And when political vacuum drags on too long, the Maronite Patriarchate comes out to call aloud for a new Taif agreement and for more amendments to give the president additional powers, while Druze leader Walid Jumblatt in his own way tries to protect those who have a say in the Lebanon-Arab equation.

For this reason, Jumblatt unexpectedly flew to Doha Monday for one-day talks with the Qatari emir before returning overnight, with signs of growing concerns from Doha about the need for resumption of dialogue with the Syrian leadership and given what it represents in the heart of the Arab equation.