An increase in the public transportation tariffs created controversy in Lebanon on Wednesday, as the Public Works and Transport Ministry confirmed there was no official decision to boost the prices.

Some drivers of “service taxis” and vans decided to boost the transportation fees by LL500 or LL1,000, causing a tumult.

The cabinet remained deadlock on Wednesday as Prime Minister Najib Miqati and Labor Minister Charbel Nahhas seem to hold onto their stances over controversial issues.

“The issue is at a standstill as the premier’s stances are clear and he won’t back down, rumors on his resignation are untrue,” Miqati’s sources told An Nahar newspaper.

The major reaction to the March 14 forces’ call on Hizbullah to hand over its arms to the Lebanese army will likely come through the party’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, during a televised speech on Thursday.

During a gathering organized on Tuesday by the March 14 coalition in BIEL on ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s Feb. 14, 2005 assassination anniversary, the main speakers slammed Hizbullah and its arms.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi postponed his visit to the northern port city of Tripoli over last week’s bloody clashes between two rival neighborhoods.

The Tripoli bishopric said Tuesday that the postponement of the visit that was scheduled to take place on Saturday and Sunday came to allow “the city to lick its wounds after the latest confrontations that it witnessed.”

The U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon will issue a new indictment in the case of the 2005 assassination of ex-PM Rafik Hariri by the end of this month, Prime Minister Najib Miqati said on Tuesday.

"Daniel Bellemare, the chief prosecutor of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, informed me on his recent visit to Beirut that he would submit a new revised indictment before leaving office end of February," Miqati told Agence France Presse.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun on Tuesday hit back at Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea and Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel, who both earlier in the day called on the government to step down.

“As long as they have called on the government (to step down), its term will be extended,” Aoun said, in response to a question from a reporter after the weekly meeting of the Change and Reform parliamentary bloc in Rabiyeh.

Former Prime Minsiter Saad Hairi stressed on Tuesday that the Syrian revolution will triumph.

He declared: “I will bear the responsibility of my solidarity with the Syrian people.”

The Syrian National Council pledged on Tuesday that it will establish proper ties with Lebanon once the Syrian regime is overthrown.

It said in an address to the Lebanese people that it will back the Lebanese “in an independent Lebanon, not as people who are part of Syria.”

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Tuesday called on Hizbullah not to be “mistaken in its calculations,” stressing that “there is no future for any illegal arms and no future for any mini-state.”

Speaking at a rally held by the March 14 forces at the BIEL hall in Beirut to mark ex-PM Rafik Hariri’s seventh murder anniversary, Geagea said: “The moment of freedom, democracy and real statehood has come in the region, so do not be mistaken in your calculations.”

Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel stated on Tuesday that the spirit of slain former Premier Rafik Hariri has returned with the wave of Arab revolts and with the release of the indictment in the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

He asked: “Is it logical for us to back Arabs revolting against their regimes and accept that the Lebanese remain captive to the illegitimate arms?”