A meeting is scheduled to be held next week between members of the Change and Reform and National Struggle Front blocs, lawmaker Ibrahim Kanaan told al-Joumhouria newspaper published Saturday.

It would be the fourth such meeting between MP Michel Aoun's Change and Reform and other blocs.

The Change and Reform bloc noted on Tuesday that the president of the republic should derive his strength from within himself, which will help him advance in Lebanon.

MP Ibrahim Kanaan said after the bloc's weekly meeting: “The president also derives his strength from his political representation.”

A delegation from the Free Patriotic Movement held talks on Saturday with Speaker Nabih Berri for the second time in less than a week.

“The meeting was to continue our dialogue that we launched recently at Nijmeh Square,” FPM's Change and Reform bloc MP Ibrahim Kanaan told reporters at Ain el-Tineh.

The Change and Reform parliamentary bloc on Tuesday condemned what it described as a “dangerous campaign” against caretaker Telecom Minister Nicolas Sehnaoui over the issue of telecom data, announcing that it will play a role in reactivating the work of parliament.

“There is a dangerous campaign against Sehnaoui and those behind it bear the responsibility. They are accusing him of crimes over the issue of telecom data, but we stress that security agencies have always received the data they want,” the bloc's secretary MP Ibrahim Kanaan said after Change and Reform's weekly meeting in Rabieh.

Electricite du Liban contract workers staged yet a protest for the second week in a row near the company's headquarters in Mar Mikhael ahead of a legislative session.

The workers are demanding lawmakers to an urgent-draft law on their employment put on the agenda of a parliamentary session.

The joint parliamentary committees convened on Thursday to discuss the new wage scale for public employees after President Michel Suleiman signed the decree mid-June.

The committees decided to task Change and Reform bloc MP Ibrahim Kanaan, who is loyal to Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun, with forming a committee to study the decree.

A delegation from the Free Patriotic Movement submitted on Monday before the Constitutional Council a challenge against the parliament''s term extension.

“We consider this moment crucial,” FPM lawmaker Ibrahim Kanaan told reporters, expressing hope that justice and the constitution would prevail.

Change and Reform parliamentary bloc MP Ibrahim Kanaan revealed on Thursday that the Free Patriotic Movement began drafting a request to challenge the extension of the parliament's mandate.

Kanaan, who is loyal to FPM leader MP Michel Aoun, pointed out in remarks published in As Safir newspaper that the challenge will be filed directly after the parliament endorses the extension.

Speaker Nabih Berri is holding consultations with political foes away from media spotlight as a last attempt for reaching common ground over a new electoral law before resorting to the extension of the parliament's mandate.

A proposal made by Zahle MP Nicolas Fattoush to extend the mandate of the parliament by two years was sent to lawmakers later on Wednesday to study it.

MP Ibrahim Kanaan from the Change and Reform bloc accused on Friday President Michel Suleiman and PM-designate Tammam Salam without naming them of seeking to form a government of “ghosts.”

In remarks to Voice of Lebanon radio (100.5), Kanaan said: “There are procedures to form the government in a parliamentary democratic system.”