News Brief

(IsraelNN.com) The Lebanese parliament voted Monday to postpone the appointment of the country’s next president until the 22 of April.  The postponement will be the seventeenth since former President Emil Lahoud stepped down last November.

Parties from the coalition and opposition have agreed to appoint General Michel Suleiman as the next president, but pro-Syrian opposition groups have refused to confirm the appointment unless they are granted veto power in parliamentary votes.  Speaker of the parliament Nabih Berri said Sunday that he would call for talks between pro- and anti-Syrian parties if the rival parties could not agree to appoint a president this week.