Baabda Palace has reportedly snubbed visiting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman after the failure of President Michel Suleiman to meet with any U.S. official during his visit to New York in September.

An Nahar daily said Thursday that the presidential palace did not set a date for talks between Suleiman and Feltman as a retaliation to the failure to hold any meeting between the Lebanese head of a state and U.S. officials on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in September.

Free Patriotic Movement ministers have blasted Premier Najib Miqati for proposing an alternative to Labor Minister Charbel Nahhas’ decree on the wage boost for private and public sector employees.

“The formula approved by the council of ministers is not in favor of the workers,” Nahhas told As Safir newspaper on Thursday, a day after the cabinet approved Miqati’s proposal.

President of the General Labor Confederation Ghassan Ghosn slammed on Thursday the wage hike decree adopted by the cabinet, describing it as “humiliating.”

“We reject this humiliating wage boost because it doesn’t reach out to the hopes of the workers and their demands,” Ghosn told An Nahar newspaper.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati stressed that President Michel Suleiman is his constitutional partner and is keen on his relations with him in addition to his ties with Hizbullah.

In remarks to As Safir daily published Thursday, Miqati said: “We have ideal ties and I am keen on them.”

The cabinet on Wednesday approved a wage increase decree other than that proposed by Labor Minister Charbel Nahhas, amid the objection of Free Patriotic Movement ministers.

Briefing reporters after the cabinet session, Information Minister Walid al-Daouq said: “A wage increase decree other than that proposed by Minister Nahhas was discussed and it received the required majority of votes and this is the democratic game.”

The Registrar of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon Herman von Hebel stated on Wednesday that predicting the judicial process in the tribunal is “very difficult.”

He expected however that the trial in the case of the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri may begin in 2012.

Gunmen kidnapped a citizen in the Bekaa town of Hosh Sned on Wednesday, reported the National News Agency.

It said that the five kidnappers forced Ahmed Zeidan, the owner of Liban Lait, into a black SUV and drove off to an unknown location.

Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun announced on Wednesday that the ministers representing his Change and Reform bloc in the government would participate in a cabinet session later in the day.

“We decided to participate in today’s cabinet session because of the wage boost decree that has been submitted by the labor minister to the government,” Aoun said following talks with Marada chief Suleiman Franjieh, Tashnag Secretary-General Hovig Mekhitarian and Lebanese Democratic Party leader Talal Arslan in Rabieh.

The March 14 General Secretariat condemned on Wednesday Hizbullah and the AMAL movement’s shutdown of the Zahrani power plant, accusing them of committing militia practices aimed at harming the Lebanese state.

It said in a statement after its weekly meeting: “It was an attempt to increase their control over the legitimate state institutions and create more closed security and economic zones outside the state’s control similar to the zones that Hizbullah has created.”

The Maronite Bishops Council voiced its fears on Wednesday over the various security incidents that have taken place in Lebanon, stressing that the country’s sovereignty should not be undermined.

It expressed in a statement after its monthly meeting its concern of the possibility of the unrest in Syria spreading to Lebanon.