Lebanon’s Economic Committees, a grouping of the country’s businessmen and owners of major firms, on Thursday reiterated their rejection of the government’s recent decision to increase wages, describing the step as “illegal” and urging business owners to abstain from implementing the resolution.

The committees threatened to “resort to the Shoura Council to challenge the resolution should the State insist on implementing it,” in a closing statement issued following a meeting at the Beirut International Exhibition and Leisure Center (BIEL).

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri noted on Thursday that the death of former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi marked the end of a dark period in the Libyan people’s lives and the beginning of a new phase of freedom and democracy.

He said in a statement: “Gadhafi’s fate is the inevitable end of all dictators who reject their people’s will for freedom and democracy.”

President Michel Suleiman and PM Najib Miqati arrived at Jeita Grotto on Thursday in support of the national campaign to vote for the cave to become one of the new seven wonders of nature.

They were welcomed by the Minister of Tourism Fady Abboud and the chief of Jeita Municipality Samir Baroud, as well as the head of the Jeita Mayor Association.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon's Trial Chamber has issued a scheduling order, which requests written submissions relating to in absentia proceedings from the Office of the Prosecutor and each of the accused, said the STL in a statement.

“Since the accused have not yet appointed counsel the Trial Chamber has also asked the STL’s Defense Office to file submissions,” it added.

Two people have been injured in a shooting in the Tayyouneh area in Beirut on Thursday, reported the National News Agency.

It said that Dalal and Ahmed al-Hallaq were shot in the foot when a member of the Zoaiter family opened fire at a car dealership in Tayyouneh at around 1:30 pm.

The former chief of the General Security Department, Maj. Gen. Jamil Sayyed, described on Thursday Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat as a “sectarian dictator” who would have let the Lebanese suffer under his rule if he had controlled the country.

Jumblat “is a small sectarian dictator in Lebanon” who has terrorized his Druze and non-Druze foes, has been involved in corruption and has ordered massacres and assassinations, Sayyed said in a statement.

Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel rejected on Thursday that the Christians in the East would be the victims of the revolutions taking place in the Arab world.

He said during a press a conference: “It is time that we protect the Christians through the establishment of a new bill that protects their existence in order that they no longer remain victims.”

Iran's Ambassador to Lebanon Ghazanfar Roknabadi stressed that the U.S. “fabrications” against Iran reveal that Washington “failed” in all the other matters during this critical stage.

Roknabadi handed Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour a letter on Thursday concerning the U.S. accusations of an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington Adel al-Joubeir.

The United Nations is considering moving the offices of its headquarters in Beirut to the Coral Beach Hotel as it has previously done in 2007, al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Thursday.

“The offices will be relocated in a timeframe no longer than two weeks,” the daily said.

The March 14 forces are coordinating their stances ahead of a possible announcement by Premier Najib Miqati that his government would refuse to fund the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, opposition leadership sources said.

The sources told pan-Arab daily al-Hayat that former Premier Saad Hariri, who is currently aboard, is holding large-scale consultations in case Miqati announces that his negotiations with the March 8 forces on the STL funding have reached a dead-end.