Following are summaries of some of the main stories in a selection of Lebanese newspapers Tuesday. The Daily Star cannot vouch for the accuracy of these reports.

An-Nahar

Data, budget, electricity on Cabinet table

Efforts to overcome Aoun’s rejection of appointments

Political, security and financial issues will be discussed during the Cabinet’s extraordinary session Tuesday and an ordinary meeting Wednesday.

Preparations were under way for today's session, which is devoted to debating the draft budget and a proposal put forward by Prime Minister Najib Mikati.

Also on the Cabinet’s agenda is Energy Minister Jibran Bassil’s electricity proposal.

Ministerial sources said the electricity issue will be the subject of a wide-ranging debate.

On the political level, the telecoms data, an issue outside the agenda, will be discussed during the Cabinet’s meeting.

Al-Anwar

ISF, Army boost coordination to confront mounting threats

A series of accumulated crises faces Cabinet today and will be a true test of the government’s cohesion. These crises include electricity, fuel oil, public appointments, the state budget, and finally, and perhaps most explosively, the Telecoms Minister’s move to deny security forces access to telecoms data, even after reports of plots targeting security and political figures.

The security issue was discussed at Baabda Palace Monday during a meeting between President Michel Sleiman and Lebanese Army commander Gen. Jean Kahwaji. The issue was also raised in a meeting Monday between Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Internal Security Forces (ISF) chief Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi at the Grand Serail.

Kahwaji and Rifi also discussed, during a meeting at the Defense Ministry in suburban Yarze, the security situation and ways to enhance cooperation and coordination between the army and security forces so as to maintain the country’s stability.

Sources said last night that politicians and lawmakers were advised to take precautionary security measures.

Al-Joumhouria

Al-Joumhouria publishes nominations for appointments to regulatory bodies ... [Cabinet] likely to renew contracts with mobile operators

On Monday, the Cabinet will once again tackle several weighty and controversial issues, including electricity, telecommunications and the state budget. The meeting is likely to be one filled with intense political bickering, after Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun launched an attack that did not exclude President Michel Sleiman.  

Aoun’s attack drew the ire of many politicians, especially Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt, who described Aoun’s latest comments as "very cheap."

Defending the "martyrs of the Cedar Revolution," Jumblatt said: “Had it not been for the blood [the martyrs' shed], Aoun would not have returned from his luxurious Parisian exile."

Al-Mustaqbal

Jumblatt reminds: martyrs' blood contributed to the return of the exile from Paris

Tufaili warns Hezbollah against alignment with Israel

Former Hezbollah chief Sheikh Sobhi Tufaili launched a series of attacks starting with Hezbollah, passing through Iran all the way to Syria, stressing that the Syrian regime’s fall was inevitable.

Tufaili, during an interview with MTV television channel late Monday, stressed that Hezbollah’s “invasion” of Beirut on May 7, 2008 paved the way for Sunni-Shiite strife “for which we will pay today."

He said Iran and Hezbollah, through their support of the Syrian regime, also incited Sunni-Shiite discord.

Tufaili said Hezbollah gave up resistance with the April 1996 Understanding. He also accused the Syrian regime of preventing an Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon until 2000 under an Israeli-Iranian agreement.

He said there were talks within the Shiite community in Lebanon, including sources close to Hezbollah, about a likely alliance between Hezbollah and Israel in the event of the fall of the Syrian regime, warning against such an alignment.