Energy Minister Jebran Bassil accused the March 14-led opposition of suffering from “political schizophrenia” for criticizing an electricity draft law that allegedly lacks details about the implementation phases of the $1.2 billion project.

The electricity "farce" should end at the meeting of joint parliamentary committees on Monday either through consensus or voting, Bassil, who is a Free Patriotic Movement official, told As Safir daily.

A mother and her six children were found dead Sunday evening inside their house at Omar bin al-Khattab Street in the Beirut neighborhood of Basta, state-run National News Agency reported.

Nawal Younes 55, Hadi 25, Ameen 23, Maha 20, Manal 18, Zahraa and Zahra 15 were all shot dead at their home while the father was away.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat held a series of meetings in Paris with a number of French officials on the situation in Lebanon and the region, reported the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat on Sunday.

His held talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s diplomatic advisor, Jean-David Levitte, his advisor for Middle East affairs, Nicolas Gallet, and ambassador Patrice Paoli.

The head of the Phalange Party Amin Gemayel traveled to Saudi Arabia on Saturday, in a first visit of its kind by a Lebanese official since the failure of the Saudi-Syrian initiative that was aimed at ending Lebanon’s political crisis in 2010, reported the daily An Nahar on Sunday.

Gemayel, who is accompanied by his son MP Sami Gemayel, was invited to the Kingdom by Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Awadh Asiri.

Joint parliamentary committees are expected to convene on Monday in order to discuss the electricity draft law that was approved by the government on September 7, reported the daily An Nahar on Sunday.

The draft law however was handed over to the committees on Thursday without the amendments that were introduced to it by the cabinet.

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour revealed on Saturday that a team has succeeded in devising a draft law on granting expatriates the right to vote in parliamentary elections.

He told Sawt al-Mada radio: “The file has been finalized and we will refer it to cabinet in the next few days.”

President Michel Suleiman is expected to hold talks next week with his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy during his trip to New York, revealed western diplomatic sources to the daily al-Mustaqbal Sunday.

They said that the talks will tackle Lebanon’s obligation to fund the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

The dispute over the funding of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon will not lead the government to propose its dissolution, prominent government sources told the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat in remarks published on Sunday.

Furthermore, they added that this issue would not lead to the toppling of the government either seeing as it was able to overcome other contentious matters, such as the electricity file.

Syrian state television broadcast on Saturday the confessions of an alleged Israeli spy who conspired to assassinate top Hizbullah commander Imad Mughniyeh.

He confessed that Mughniyeh was murdered a day after he gave Israel his car plate number.

President Michel Suleiman stressed on Saturday that the popular uprising that the region is witnessing toward democracy strengthens the relations between the countries, the National News Agency reported.

“The democratic transformation… allows the countries to deal with each other on the basis of equality,” he said.