Premier Najib Miqati warned on Wednesday that the path to democracy is not an easy task, saying Lebanon is still improving its democratic system despite being a harbinger of freedom in the Arab world.

At the opening of the 27th ministerial session of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), Miqati said: “The uprisings and the popular movements demanding democracy are part of the historic development in the Arab region.”

Special Tribunal for Lebanon Pre-Trial Judge Daniel Fransen has determined that 58 of the 73 victims of the February 14, 2005 attack who applied to do so can now participate in the Ayyash et al. proceedings, announced the STL in a statement on Wednesday.

“Fransen has reviewed the 73 victim applications he has received, 15 of which were deemed to be incomplete,” it added.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat will enter in an alliance with the March 14 forces in the upcoming 2013 elections, As Safir newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Sources told the daily that Jumblat’s meeting with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman during his latest visit to Beirut focused on the upcoming 2013 polls.

President Michel Suleiman is reportedly fed up with the pressure exerted on him to sign the controversial $5.9 billion extra-budgetary spending bill and the campaign launched against him by Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun.

Baabda palace visitors told An Nahar daily on Wednesday that Suleiman was “fed up” after Aoun reiterated his accusations that the president was causing a paralysis in state institutions by refusing to sign the bill.

Electricite du Liban's contract employees held a sit-in on Wednesday for the second day in a row near the company’s building in Beirut and the southern city of Tyre.

The employees blocked the highway near the Beirut port and Tyre’s entrance by burning tires to protest the cabinet’s failure to approve their full-time employment draft law.

Speaker Nabih Berri considered on Wednesday that some constitutional authorities have been given to the head of state to resolve financial issues, hinting that President Michel Suleiman is refusing to use his jurisdictions to resolve the dispute over the $5.9 billion spending of 2011.

“The executive power should resolve the extra-budgetary spending dispute,” Berri told As Safir newspaper.

Premier Najib Miqati sought on Tuesday to convince the government’s different parties of a new plan aimed at ending the bickering on the $5.9 billion extra-budgetary spending of 2011, An Nahar daily reported.

The newspaper said Wednesday that Miqati sought to avoid a clash during the cabinet session between the March 8 ministers and President Michel Suleiman who is rejecting to sign the bill under article 58 of the constitution that allows the head of state to approve a bill deemed urgent by the government after the failure of the legislature to approve it.

The United Nations has information that arms are being smuggled in both directions between Lebanon and Syria, a U.N. Middle East envoy said Tuesday.

The envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, said the Middle East is seeing a spiraling "dance of death" because of the conflict in Syria as President Bashar Assad confronts opponents.

Al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc on Tuesday accused Hizbullah of “protecting the spiteful, chaotic and militia-like practices, especially those practiced by its ally the Aounist movement.”

In a statement issued after its weekly meeting, the bloc said “the armed invasion of Beirut and several Lebanese areas by Hizbullah and its allies” on May 7, 2008 had “ended the national legitimacy” of Hizbullah’s arms, stressing that “the Lebanese will not regain their normal life without the return of the Lebanese state’s authority and decision over its territory.”

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun slammed on Tuesday Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat’s recent criticism against him, telling him to exercise some humility and accusing him of being disrespectful.

He said after the Change and Reform bloc’s weekly meeting: “You should remain silent. I have the right to put you on trial and strip you of your immunity.”