March 14 camp MPs withdrew on Monday from the parliamentary Finance and Budget Committee meeting over accusations Change and Reform bloc MP Ibrahim Kanaan directed against the head of the Mustaqbal bloc MP Fouad Saniora, reported Voice of Lebanon radio.

It said that the MPs refuse to return to the committee before Kanaan issues an apology over his allegations.

Scores of relatives of prisoners asking for general amnesty stormed the Grand Serail’s outside courtyard on Monday to protest the government’s failure to reduce prison sentences of inmates in jails across the country .

MP Ghassan Mkhaiber told Voice of Lebanon radio station (93.3) that the families of prisoners stormed the courtyard before the formation of a delegation that was set to meet with Premier Najib Miqati.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi stressed on Monday on the importance of launching dialogue with the Muslims amid the developments in the region.

“We are looking forward to cooperate and launch dialogue with the Muslims … We are reaching for them to overcome challenges and difficulties in the East,” al-Rahi said at the opening of the Catholic Patriarchs and Bishops Council in its 45th annual meeting.

The President of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Judge Sir David Baragwanath, will be visiting Lebanon this week for the first time, the U.N.-backed court said Monday in a statement.

Baragwanath will be accompanied by the Vice-President of the Tribunal, Judge Ralph Riachy, the STL said.

Justice Minister Shakib Qortbawi hasn’t so far expressed his opinion on a letter sent to the cabinet by Finance Minister Mohammad Safadi demanding a loan from the treasury to pay Lebanon’s share of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s budget, sources said Monday.

The sources told several dailies that Qortbawi’s lack of response goes back to the need to hold consultations with Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun and to his belief that the cabinet should decide on the matter.

The March 8 forces said that the controversial issue of funding the Special Tribunal for Lebanon requires more discussions, expressing belief that the issue will not be on the cabinet’s agenda during Friday’s session.

The parliamentary majority and the government that is led by the March 8 forces didn’t object on putting the issue to vote at the cabinet, An Nahar newspaper reported on Monday.

Premier Najib Miqati is facing decisive 9 days during which he has to work hard to urge the cabinet into approving the funding of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

Miqati’s visitors quoted the prime minister as saying over the weekend that the cabinet should take the decision on the funding. “The time that we tried to gain is over.”

Former premier Saad Hariri on Sunday said that Prime Minister Najib Miqati would only resign when he “feels his boss is about to fall.”

Asked by a Twitter user on whether he would ally with Miqati in the 2013 polls if the premier resigned over possible inability to secure the funding of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon by his government, Hariri said: “No.”

The general assembly of the Beirut Bar Association on Sunday elected lawyer Nohad Jabr as the 48th chief of the association, after an electoral battle in which he competed with candidate Antonio al-Hashem, state-run National News Agency reported.

Jabr garnered 2,073 votes as al-Hashem received 1,623, after some 3,773 voters took part in the polls to choose a new chief for the association.

Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel on Sunday vowed that “Lebanon’s spring will go on,” noting that “the sacrifices of all the martyrs of the Cedar Revolution … had paved the way for the Arab Spring.”

Speaking after a mass held at the St. Antonios Church in Jdeideh to commemorate the 5th anniversary of the assassination of his son, ex-industry minister Pierre Gemayel, the Phalange Party leader said: “As much as the tragedy is big and the wound is deep, this anniversary is a motivation for each one of us to preserve the values for which Pierre was martyred.”