Speaker Nabih Berri has stressed that National Struggle Front leader Walid Jumblat was still part of the March 8 parliamentary majority despite accusations that he had joined the March 14 opposition.

In remarks to several newspapers published Wednesday, Berri said: “The March 14 team should be comforted. Walid Jumblat is still in the majority … and still one of its leaders.”

Speaker Nabih Berri announced on Wednesday that he agreed with Premier Najib Miqati and Finance Minister Mohammed Safadi for the government to prepare a detailed draft-law on an $11 billion spending made between 2006 and 2009 similar to a $5.9 billion bill referred to parliament by the cabinet.

“I decided to go ahead with the proposal of (al-Mustaqbal bloc leader) Fouad Saniora and the March 14 team to correlate the two draft laws,” Berri said in remarks to An Nahar and As Safir dailies.

Marada Movement leader MP Suleiman Franjieh on Tuesday voiced concerns over a possible “dangerous thing being plotted against Lebanon under the slogans of humanitarian corridors and support for the (Syrian) opposition.”

“Security-wise, some places in Lebanon are calm and other places are tense. The atmosphere is being prepared day after day and it is heading towards negativity, not positivity. Who sensed the presence of (the extremist group) Fatah al-Islam before the eruption of its conflict with the army?” Franjieh said in an interview on OTV.

MP Akram Shehayyeb, a member of Druze leader Walid Jumblat’s National Struggle Front, on Tuesday called for unveiling the fate of Syrian dissident Shebli al-Aysami who was last seen in May in the Mount Lebanon town of Aley.

Aysami, 86, is a co-founder of Syria's ruling Baath party who fled his native country in 1966 over political differences.

The Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc on Tuesday stressed that “transparency governs the work of the Mustaqbal Movement, its parliamentary bloc and the March 14 coalition,” noting that the Saniora and Hariri governments had to resort to extra-budgetary spending between 2006-2011 after “five state budgets referred by the governments of Fouad Saniora and Saad Hariri to parliament were not approved.”

“Some people’s insistence on stirring an uproar is aimed at distorting the facts and demonizing a previous era in Lebanon’s history,” the bloc said in a statement issued after its weekly meeting.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun slammed on Tuesday the National Struggle Front’s boycott of Monday’s parliamentary session, accusing its leader MP Walid Jumblat of only seeking to ensure his own interests.

He said after the Change and Reform bloc’s weekly meeting: “It seems that the MP was never part of the parliamentary majority.”

Premier Najib Miqati expressed his keenness on controlling the border with Syria and preventing the smuggling of gunmen and weapons, Syrian Ambassador Ali Abdul Karim Ali said Monday.

“Discussions with the PM focused on the situation on the border and the premier expressed his keenness on the necessity for the army and security forces to carry out their duties in controlling the border and preventing the smuggling of gunmen and arms,” Ali told reporters following talks with Miqati at the Grand Serail.

President Michel Suleiman held talks on Tuesday with Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani on the sidelines of his visit to the emirate to attend the Arab Connect Summit 2012.

The talks focused on bilateral relations and ways to improve them, as well as the latest regional and Arab developments.

U.S. Ambassador Maura Connelly encouraged Lebanese authorities on Tuesday to provide the humanitarian needs of all Syrian refugees, including dissenters and deserters.

An embassy statement said that following talks with Interior Minister Marwan Charbel at his office in Hamra, Connelly “recognized Lebanon’s efforts to provide assistance to Syrians fleeing the violence in their country.”

Change and Reform bloc MP Ibrahim Kanaan noted on Tuesday that the problem on government spending does not lie in the spending itself, but in the fact that parliament is being undermined.

He also reiterated his bloc’s demand that Mustaqbal bloc MP Fouad Saniora present the government’s accounting records from 2006 until 2010.