Speaker Nabih Berri said Tuesday he was “disgusted” by the delay in the formation of the government adding that he made everything possible to solve the deadlock.

In remarks to As Safir daily, Berri lamented that the government formation efforts reached a standstill over bickering between the parties involved in the process.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun on Monday blamed President Michel Suleiman and premier-designate Najib Miqati for the delay in forming the new cabinet.

In an interview with Hizbullah’s mouthpiece Al-Manar television, Aoun said parliamentary blocs have no “unreasonable” demands, noting that “the PM-designate’s demands are complicating the cabinet formation process, not the blocs’ demands.”

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat has noted that the demands of some parties concerning shares in the new cabinet “have become absurd and are apt to protract the vicious state of procrastination the country is going through, amid the growing political, financial, economic and social challenges.”

In his weekly column in his party’s mouthpiece Al-Anbaa newspaper to be published Tuesday, Jumblat described the illegal construction of houses on public property as “an infringement of the State, its image and its role,” stressing that “it cannot be tolerated under any circumstances.”

Caretaker premier Saad Hariri on Monday said Osama bin Laden was "a black mark" on Islam's history, putting the religion "in hostile situations" with other faiths and cultures.

"The damage he has done to Islam's image and Arab causes is not less than the damage done by enemies of Muslims and Arabs worldwide," he said in a statement.

Radical Islamist cleric Omar Bakri said on Monday that with the death of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden, the Arab world had "lost a leader," adding that he expected "revenge" attacks in Europe.

"The news of the death of Sheikh Osama has saddened and delighted us at the same time. It saddened us because we lost a leader in the Arab region and it is welcomed because he fell a martyr as he wanted," Bakri told Agence France Presse in Lebanon.

The Israeli army set off warning sirens in the Shebaa Farms and along the Lebanese border at around 10:00 am on Monday.

The sirens were heard for several minutes, reported the National News Agency.

Sources monitoring the contacts to form a new government stated that the efforts to ease the demands over the cabinet are still delaying its formation, adding however that caretaker Interior Minister Ziad Baroud’s announcement that he does not seek to be reappointed as minister will help restore dialogue among the disputed sides.

They told the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat in remarks published on Monday that Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun should be receptive of President Michel Suleiman’s refusal to enter in a dispute with him regarding the former’s insistence on acquiring the Interior Ministry portfolio.

Laborers in Lebanon celebrated Labor Day on Sunday through syndicate activity and statements warning of an escalation in their movement should their demands on living conditions continue to be unmet.

President Michel Suleiman congratulated them on the occasion, praising their “efforts and sacrifices for the sake of the nation.”

President Michel Suleiman’s visitors have stated that the concerned sides in the government formation process “don’t have a real initiative to reach a solution” to the governmental vacuum.

The daily An Nahar reported them as saying that the salvation government proposed by Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel “needs a Syrian green light, which is currently unavailable.”

Security sources in southern Lebanon reported that Israeli soldiers have set up surveillance cameras on the dividing fence between the villages of Ghajar and al-Abbassieh, said the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat Sunday.

Meanwhile, a number of other troops performed maintenance operations at the dividing fence at the border town of al-Adaisseh.