U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman arrived in Beirut on Thursday for talks with President Michel Suleiman, Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister-designate Najib Miqati.

He may also meet with caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who is currently abroad.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Thursday returned to Beirut from the Vatican after participating in meetings on the apostolic exhortation for the Middle East.

Al-Rahi reiterated his call for accelerating the cabinet formation process to enable the country of confronting its numerous social and economic crises.

Former Premier Omar Karami was on Thursday undergoing regular medical checkups at the American University Hospital in Beirut, said the state-run National News Agency.

NNA said Karami was hospitalized on Thursday morning.

President Michel Suleiman lauded on Thursday the agreement reached between the transportation unions and the Finance Ministry that ended the general strike the unions had planned for today.

He also emphasized the need to organize public transportation in Lebanon.

U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams called on Thursday for speeding up the formation of a government capable of overcoming all obstacles in Lebanon.

He made his statements after holding talks with caretaker Labor Minister Butros Harb on various developments in Lebanon and the Arab world.

Tawhid movement leader Wiam Wahhab has vowed to defend Syria against anti-regime protestors and expressed his confidence in the Syrian army’s capability to prevent a security shakeup.

During a visit to the Syrian town of al-Saboura, Wahhab slammed what he called a plot aimed at shaking the country’s security. Such a scheme would inflame the region from Iraq all the way to the Palestinian territories, he warned.

Anti-confessional regime activists protested the rise in fuel prices and bad living conditions outside the parliament building in downtown Beirut on Thursday.

The protestors blocked the road near Riad al-Solh square for 30 minutes before dispersing.

Hizbullah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is scheduled to make a speech on the occasion of the Liberation Day celebrations on May 25.

The celebration will take place at the town of Nabi Sheet at Baalbeck, where Nasrallah will make his appearance at 5:00 pm.

Caretaker Finance Minister Rayya al-Hasan said that the “temporary solution” reached on Wednesday to solve the crisis of taxi drivers will cost the treasury around LL24 billion monthly.

This solution remains more suitable than “cutting LL4,850 (taxes) that will cost the treasury around LL500 billion yearly,” al-Hasan told An Nahar newspaper Thursday.

The leadership of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon and several European countries that have contingents in the peacekeeping force are reportedly mulling ways to avoid confrontations similar to last Sunday’s clashes between Israel and demonstrators in the border town of Maroun al-Ras.

Western diplomatic sources told pan-Arab daily al-Hayat in remarks published Thursday that the UNIFIL leadership and the European countries were discussing with high-ranking Lebanese officials ways to keep the mission of the peacekeepers intact.