Speaker Nabih Berri said on Monday that he supports President Michel Suleiman’s announcement that he would re-launch the national dialogue, stressing the importance of all-party talks to “avoid all kinds of problems and disputes.”

“I am ready to participate again in the national dialogue… it plays a major role in calming people down and renders communication (between different parties easy),” Berri told As Safir newspaper.

Police Intelligence chief Col. Wissam al-Hassan could be appointed ambassador to Saudi Arabia to replace Maj. Gen. Marwan Zein, whose mission ends next December, an informed ministerial source told al-Liwaa daily Monday.

The source expected the head of the Internal Security Forces Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi to remain in his post.

Baabda palace issued a decree on the appointment of Marwan Khaireddine as minister of state to replace Lebanese Democratic Party chief Talal Arslan on Monday.

The 30-member cabinet of Premier Najib Miqati is now complete with the new appointment.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea denied that he had received a phone call from Baabda palace admonishing him for a stance that he had made lately.

In remarks to An Nahar daily from southern France, where he is vacationing with his wife, Geagea said that such a phone conversation did not take place.

Francois Roux, the head of the Defense Office of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, noted Sunday that those indicted by the court in the 2005 assassination of ex-PM Rafik Hariri can participate in the trials in absentia by dispatching their lawyers to court’s headquarters in The Hague.

In an interview with Al-Jadeed television, Roux said the Defense Office will not be directly in charge of defending the suspects, noting that he will rather name defense teams that will choose their own strategy and that the office will only aid them in their mission.

Social Affairs Minister Wael Abu Faour stressed Sunday that “no party can practice hegemony or eliminate the other parties in this country.”

He noted that “governments, elections and alliances … come and go and only this country remains,” calling for preserving Lebanon through “national unity, coexistence, understanding and the spirit of reconciliation.”

Civil defense firefighters managed to extinguish a huge blaze that broke out Sunday at a large plastics depot in the Beirut southern suburb of Ouzai, near the Beirut Rafik Hariri International Airport, state-run National News Agency reported.

“The fire caused material damage only and the office of the state prosecutor has asked sworn experts to inspect the accident’s site on Monday and provide it with a report in order to take the relevant measures,” NNA added.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi celebrated mass in the presence of President Michel Suleiman at the St. Charbel monastery in Annaya on Sunday.

Al-Rahi thanked Suleiman for attending the mass, saying the president’s presence was a confirmation that he was holding onto with the tradition that he started in the first year of his term.

Hizbullah’s deputy Executive Council leader, Sheikh Nabil Qaouq, said Sunday that “luring international pressure on the Lebanese cabinet is more than a national sin.”

“It is unfortunate to see that at a time when the cabinet is seeking to confront the Israeli danger, the March 14 forces are luring international pressure to weaken, blackmail and topple the government,” Qaouq said.

A French general specialized in anti-terror operations headed the team that won the release of the seven Estonian tourists in the Bekaa valley on Wednesday, Ad-Diyar daily reported.

The newspaper said that the general is a member of the French intelligence and expert in Lebanese affairs.