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.

MP Fadi al-Aawar, who is a member of Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun’s bloc, said Thursday that the Change and Reform bloc was nearing a decision to withdraw the nomination of Premier-designate Najib Miqati.

Al-Aawar told Voice of Lebanon radio station (93.3) that the major reason behind the delay in the formation of the cabinet was that politicians were waiting for messages from abroad.

The General Labor Confederation (GLC) is planning on staging a comprehensive strike in Lebanon that would encompass all fields of society “to protest the deteriorating economic situation in Lebanon,” reported As Safir on Thursday.

The head of the GLC, Ghassan Ghosn, told the newspaper that a national conference that will include the syndicates of various professions, including the labor and education sectors, will be held in order to prepare for the strike.

Premier-designate Najib Miqati held talks with Speaker Nabih Berri in Ain el-Tineh on Tuesday night amid reports about efforts to launch a new initiative to solve the cabinet deadlock.

Al-Liwaa and An Nahar dailies said new efforts have been made to end the government impasse and speed up its formation.

Premier-designate Najib Miqati’s circles have snapped back at Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun expressing “surprise” at his demands and accusing him of turning against an alleged deal reached on the new cabinet more than a month ago.

In remarks to several Beirut newspapers, the circles denied that Miqati was behind the delay in the formation of the government, saying the prime minister-designate was rejecting Aoun’s new demands after the FPM chief turned against an agreement reached between the different parties.

Lebanon’s land transportation unions on Wednesday decided to call off a strike scheduled for Thursday, following talks with caretaker Finance Minister Rayya al-Hasan.

Under the agreement reached between al-Hasan and the unions, every taxi or truck driver will be granted monthly free 12 and a half jerry cans of gasoline for a 3-month period, which would be extended for another three months should the cabinet formation impasse drag on or in case gasoline prices were not lowered below LBP 25,000 per jerry can (20 liters).