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| 10/07/2008 Once again, the security situation imposes itself on the Lebanese arena with clashes erupting in the North, diverting attention from the political deadlock and obstruction of solutions.
Indeed, while the loyalty bloc was unable to reach an agreement over the distribution of cabinet portfolios between its different constituents, fierce clashes erupted in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, killing four and wounding more than fifty people.
LEBANESE ARMY BOLSTERS TROOPS IN TRIPOLI
More than twenty-hours after the clashes broke out, the Lebanese army bolstered its troops in Tripoli and deployed in the districts of Baal Mohsen and Bab Tabbaneh with orders to "firmly confront" whoever sparks clashes.
A statement issued by the army command also urged all factions to practice "self restraint and refrain from responding to the sources of fire." It said tackling such violations as opening fire would be handled by "the military forces."
The deployment plan, according to the statement, followed an agreement between Tripoli's spiritual and political leaders to "immediately halt violations that target security and safety of the population."
BERRI INTENDS TO CALL FOR GENERAL PARLIAMENTARY SESSION IF CABINET NOT FORMED
So, the security situation is again deteriorating in the absence of a government that could take the initiative and handle the problem.
However, Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri announced that he will call for a general parliamentary session if President Michel Sleiman returns from France without a national unity government formula.
The meeting would formally discuss the situation resulting from the delay in forming a government, Berri told the Kuwaiti daily Al-Kabas.
Berri’s interview, which is to be published later, indicated that the speaker would not convene a session in parliament in the absence of President Michel Sleiman. "But I will invite the parliament to convene as soon as he returns to Beirut," he stated.
"I know that the Constitution does not set a deadline for the prime minister-designate, but this does not mean that Lebanon can forever remain in its current form and return to resorting to the street," Berri added, noting that he had informed the president as much during their weekly meeting last Wednesday.
Berri said the potential session would consist of a "general discussion of the topic of the government and whether they intend on agreeing or not."
SANIORA CLAIMS OPPOSITION CANDIDATE IS PROVOCATIVE
Nevertheless, Prime Minister Designate Fouad Saniora, appointed only forty-three days ago, didn't seem to be in a haste to form the cabinet. Saniora even failed to issue a statement over security developments in the north. Saniora was engaged in finding problems to obstruct the formations of the government through claiming some opposition candidates, namely former minister and former head of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party Ali Qanso, were "provocative."
OPPOSITION: SANIORA ON TOP OF PROVOCATIVE NAMES
Such argument was quickly rejected by some opposition sources that asked if there was a name more provocative than Fouad Saniora himself after all what happened during the two past years, when he was the head of an unconstitutional government.
"Saniora was the head of the unconstitutional government that took the black decisions against the resistance, he's also the PM whose performance was, for three years, full of provocations to a large faction of the Lebanese population," the sources said, stressing that "nevertheless, the opposition rose above all these offenses and accepted his nomination as PM-Designate, on the basis of an honest decision to abide by all clauses of the Doha Agreement."
"The Doha agreement was obvious in handling the national-unity government formation. It didn't set any condition concerning the identity of ministers," the sources noted, adding that it only determined their number in each large bloc (11 for the opposition, 16 for the loyalty and 3 for the President."
SHEIKH KASSEM: TO BOOST MEETINGS AND COOPERATION WITH ALL PARTIES
Meanwhile, Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Kassem said the new stage that started in Lebanon after the Doha agreement and the swap deal between Hezbollah and Israel that would be executed soon, both urge all political groups to boost meetings and cooperation for the sake of Lebanon
Speaking to news website Lebanon Files, Sheikh Kassem stressed that the transfer of the Shebaa Farms to the United Nations' sovereignty and then to Lebanese sovereignty was an achievement and victory for the resistance and Lebanon. "The resistance weapons can be discussed in the framework of a national dialogue that would take place under the auspices of President Michel Suleiman, and under the title of a defensive strategy," his eminence said. | 
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