Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour has said that instability in Syria affects negatively on the entire region’s security situation and called for assisting the Assad regime in carrying out reforms.

“The destabilization of the security (situation) in Syria will negatively affect the stability and security of the entire region and this can’t be compared to what happened in Libya when the international community was asking to topple its regime,” Mansour told his Portuguese counterpart on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meeting. The minister stressed the importance of providing assistance to the Syrian leadership rather than calling for the toppling of the regime to carry out the necessary reforms particularly that President Bashar Assad began implementing them.

The two ministers also discussed bilateral ties.

A smuggling operation attempting to bring in toxic pesticides into Lebanon was uncovered at Beirut port on Thursday. Minister of Agriculture Hussein al-Hajj Hassan, in collaboration with the customs directorate, intelligence bureau, and port security, uncovered the smuggling of Methyl Bromide.

The minister said: “An international decision was taken to limit the consumption of this substance and Lebanon should terminate its use of Methyl Bromide by 2015.” He noted that the substance is permitted to be used in Lebanon within certain restrictions and there are only two companies licensed to use it. Hassan revealed that the smuggling operation sought to import the pesticide through a nonexistent company.

An investigation has been launched to uncover the sides behind the operation. “There are several problems in this matter and cooperation is ongoing with all the security forces,” stressed Hassan. In addition, the minister revealed that another smuggling operation of a toxic pesticide was uncovered.

He said that nine containers of the substance were attempted to be smuggled through an unregistered company. “We consider this act an attempt to attack public health and safety,” Hassan declared.

The March 14-led opposition hinted on Thursday to have scored a victory against MP Michel Aoun’s Change and Reform bloc after a meeting of joint parliamentary committees approved an electricity draft law with some amendments rejected by Aoun.

March 14 MP Jean Oghassabian told Voice of Lebanon radio (100.5) that the committees approved the cabinet’s initial draft law as called for the opposition and not as Energy Minister Jebran Bassil and his father-in-law Aoun wanted. MP Ammar Houri told al-Liwaa daily that parliament should adopt the draft law referred to it from the committees. “It is strange that we as an opposition are calling for the adoption of the decision of the cabinet while the pro-cabinet parties are evading it.”

The dispute is not with the government itself but with Bassil who is rejecting to have transparency in the $1.2 billion project proposed by him to generate 700 megawatts of electricity, he said. Houri also accused Bassil of rejecting to form the Electricity Regulatory Authority and a board of directors for Electricite du Liban.

The two amendments introduced to the bill force Bassil to begin forming the ERA and EDL’s new board of directors as soon as parliament endorses the bill. Opposition sources told As Safir daily that the approval of the cabinet’s decision by the parliamentary committees with the two amendments was an adoption of the majority of amendments that the March 14 lawmakers were seeking to introduce to the electricity bill.