President Michel Suleiman and Speaker Nabih Berri are exerting efforts to make Beirut a permanent base for dialogue among religions and different confessions, al-Liwaa newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The two tackled the measures to be taken concerning the matter during a meeting on Monday at the Baabda Palace.

Premier Najib Miqati is making progress in the drafting of the plan aimed at finding a final solution to the extra-budgetary spending made by the governments of ex-PMs Fouad Saniora and Saad Hariri in 2006-2010, Economy Minister Nicolas Nahhas said.

In remarks to An Nahar daily published Tuesday, Nahhas said: “We are making progress and seeking to come up with a draft acceptable by everyone.”

Former Special Tribunal for Lebanon Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare expressed optimism that the perpetrators of ex-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s assassination in 2005 will be brought to justice.

“I never despair…Look at the Balkans. Some of them took 12 or 15 years before they were found,” Bellemare, a Canadian, said in his first interview after he resigned his post at the end of his tenure on Feb. 25 for health reasons.

An extremist network arrested by the Lebanese army intelligence was planning to carry out terrorist attacks on the military school in al-Fayyadiyeh and the army barracks in Hamat, highly informed sources told As Safir daily on Tuesday.

The sources spoke a day after Prime Minister Najib Miqati confirmed that the army had uncovered the subversive cell following a detailed report by al-Akhbar newspaper on the arrest of the network.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Monday slammed Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi’s stances on the Syrian crisis, saying his remarks “put all the Christians in the region in danger.”

“I can’t hide the fact that his statements had infuriated me, as they support the regime and contradict with our entire history and I cannot be proud of this rhetoric,” Geagea said in an interview on MTV.

Scores of Syrians arrived on Monday in northern Lebanon, fleeing the central city of Homs following reports of women and children being massacred in the protest hub.

"We ran away after we heard of the massacre in Karm el-Zaytoun and after families from the neighborhood told us what happened there," Um Mohammed told an Agence France Presse reporter after arriving in the coastal Lebanese city of Tripoli with her husband and daughter.

The new Prosecutor of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Norman Farrell, and the new Appeals Chamber Judge, Daniel Nsereko, have been sworn in Monday afternoon, announced the STL in a statement.

“It is my devout hope and expectation that, with both Prosecution and Defense teams in place and the Chambers now back to full strength, we can together deliver justice in accordance with the law,” said Judge Sir David Baragwanath, the Tribunal’s president, in remarks delivered during the swearing in ceremony.

The Phalange Party condemned on Monday the security forces’ “spiteful” actions against the Phalange Party and National Liberal Party student rally on Saturday, saying that the demonstrators were expressing their opinions peacefully and under the rule of law.

It said in a statement after its weekly politburo meeting: “The security forces’ practices are reminiscent of the actions of the security apparatus the ruled Lebanon in the past.”

Prime Minister Najib Miqati confirmed on Monday that the Lebanese army had busted a cell within its ranks planning attacks on military barracks.

In remarks to reporters at the Grand Serail, Miqati said: “The Lebanese army uncovered a terrorist cell that was planning an attack on its barracks and is carrying out the necessary investigation.”

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat urged on Monday Syria’s Druze population to abandon the ruling regime, warning them against “getting their hands covered with the blood of the Syrian people.”

He told France 24 television: “I caution the Druze against getting embroiled in any sectarian strife with the Sunnis because that will spell their end.”