Speaker Nabih Berri has denied that any foreign meddling was delaying the cabinet formation process saying the obstacles were purely local.

In remarks to As Safir daily published Friday, Berri refused to set a date for the formation of the government saying that the actual process began after the March 14 alliance’s rally at the Martyrs Square last Sunday.

A meeting between Premier-designate Najib Miqati and representatives of the March 8 alliance’s leaders did not make major progress on resolving the cabinet formation deadlock, media reports said Friday.

Miqati met on Thursday with the Free Patriotic Movement leader’s envoy, Caretaker Minister Jebran Bassil, and the assistants of the Hizbullah leader and the speaker, respectively Hussein Khalil and MP Ali Hassan Khalil.

A high-ranking Republican legislator has said that the U.S. Congress should cut off funding for the Lebanese army if Hizbullah plays “even a minor role” in Premier-designate Najib Miqati’s government.

Representative Steve Chabot of Ohio, chairman of the House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, told The Daily Star in an interview published Friday that Congress should not donate U.S. taxpayer money to Lebanon if the assistance winds up under Hizbullah’s control.

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat has urged all Lebanese political parties to use a calmer political rhetoric to prevent any clashes between foes.

He addressed caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri in remarks to As Safir daily on Friday, asking him if he sees any solution to the issue of Hizbullah’s arms except for “calm and rational dialogue.”

Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah will make a speech during a ceremony scheduled to be held on Saturday in support for uprisings in Arab countries, the party’s media office announced.

The statement said late Thursday that Nasrallah will address supporters during the ceremony aimed at sending a message of support for the people of Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya and Yemen.

Around 90 Lebanese arrived at Beirut airport on Thursday night escaping violence in Bahrain where the government is cracking down on anti-government protesters.

An Nahar daily said Friday that a Middle East Airlines plane landed at Rafik Hariri international airport with 132 people on board. Among them were the 90 Lebanese nationals and several Bahrainis and Syrians.

More than twenty members of non-governmental organizations from Lebanon have visited the Special Tribunal for Lebanon for briefings on the work of the court.

The representatives, who traveled to The Hague for a seminar on the development of international justice, met officials from all the organs in the tribunal.

Israeli President Shimon Peres revealed on Thursday that former Syrian President Hafez Assad agreed to personally meet him in 1996 to negotiate a peace deal between the two countries, adding that both Syria and Lebanon must choose between Iranian ambitions and a peaceful Middle East, reported Haaretz on Thursday.

Peres said that in 1996, "following the assassination of [former Prime Minister] Yitzhak Rabin, the Americans communicated a message from Assad senior, in which he expressed his desire to renew peace efforts."

The army command announced on Thursday that it has dismantled an Israeli spy and surveillance system in the southern town of Shamaa near Tyre.

It said in a statement that the system was placed in a camouflaged rock and that it consisted of a surveillance device, another for sending photographs, a power source, and a cooling system.

Change and Reform bloc MP Ibrahim Kanaan described the memorandum of understanding between Hizbullah and the Free Patriotic Movement as a “mistake”, according to a leaked U.S. Embassy cable published exclusively in Al-Akhbar on Thursday.

He instead suggested that a partnership was necessary between FPM leader MP Michel Aoun and then Prime Minister Fouad Saniora in order to end Lebanon’s political crisis, said the Wikileaks report dated July 14, 2006.