A leading Lebanese figure close to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon said STL Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare will submit a draft indictment to pre-trial Judge Daniel Fransen on December 18.

The source told Al-Liwaa newspaper in remarks published Tuesday that there is an understanding between Fransen and STL President Antonio Cassese

Speaker Nabih Berri has unleashed a last-minute effort to reach a compromise on the false witnesses' issue, his political aide Ali Hasan Khalil announced.

Khalil, in remarks published Tuesday by the daily An-Nahar, said Berri was working in his capacity as a political leader in the Opposition camp.

A North Carolina man who has spent a decade in prison for allegedly aiding Hizbullah is trying to get his 155-year sentence cut, The Charlotte Observer reported.

Mohammed Hammoud, who was convicted in 2002 of conspiring to provide material support to a “terrorist organization” and 13 other crimes, will ask a U.S. judge at a hearing Wednesday to reduce his sentence to time served, or at least no more than 15 years.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates that Hizbullah and Syria must not gain weapons supremacy over Israel, The Israeli daily Haaretz said on its website.

His remarks came during talks with Gates at the Pentagon. The two men discussed an array of security issues pertaining to the United States' support of Israel.

Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir expressed surprise at threats unleashed by Hizbullah, particularly by head of Hizbullah’s parliamentary bloc MP Mohammed Raad, without naming him.

“The country cannot carry on under this escalating climate where one (political) camp threatens the other,” Sfeir told al-Mustaqbal newspaper in remarks published Tuesday.

The Phalange Party questioned on Monday “Hizbullah’s excessive escalation against the Special Tribunal for Lebanon and all other Lebanese sides seeking justice.”

It warned after its weekly politburo meeting: “This escalation will endanger internal stability without even affecting the STL.”

Minister of Economy and Trade Mohammad al-Safadi condemned on Monday statements issued from Tripoli on Sunday on the occasion of the Muslim New Year, describing them as defiant rhetoric.

He stressed that he opposes any challenge that may drag the country into a cycle of challenges and retaliations, adding that the residents of Tripoli support moderation and dialogue.

The head of the Loyalty to the Resistance bloc MP Mohammad Raad stated on Sunday that the other camp “should reconsider its calculations and review its choices because the country will be shaken up.”

He said: “I am warning them, we are not issuing threats, but the way things are, matters will develop in a negative manner that would threaten the country’s stability.”

House Speaker Nabih Berri hoped on Monday that the United Nations Security Council would devise a resolution that would ban the use of cluster bombs, adding that the decision should be binding to all nations, starting with Israel.

He said after holding talks with an international delegation that Israel dropped more than a million cluster bombs over southern Lebanon after the release of U.N. Security Council resolution 1701, which has caused some 400 injuries and deaths.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat noted on Monday that fiery statements do not help resolve pending issues and accumulating problems in Lebanon.

Addressing the recent storm that hit Lebanon, he said in his weekly editorial in the PSP-affiliated al-Anbaa magazine that the lack of planning and management to execute necessary water projects is “unjustified.”