Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat said he agreed with Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah that social and economic affairs should be the cabinet’s top priorities.

Jumblat described his latest meeting with the Hizbullah chief as “excellent.”

A high-ranking U.S. official said that Premier Najib Miqati’s cabinet is “disappointing” warning that it would face “consequences” if it does not abide by Lebanon’s international commitments.

The official said in remarks published in several dailies on Thursday that the consequences “won’t be limited to U.S.-Lebanese ties but (would involve) Lebanon’s international relations particularly (issues) linked to the operation of the international tribunal.”

European police have arrested six suspected members of a multi-national drug trafficking and money laundering ring and confiscated millions in cash, two police agencies in Europe said.

“More than eight European arrest warrants were issued against German, Dutch, Colombian, Lebanese and Turkish nationals suspected of being active members of this large and highly complex network,” the Hague-based European police and judicial co-operation agencies Europol and Eurojust said on Wednesday.

A phone call about the presence of a bomb in the vicinity of Khouri Hospital in Zahle turned out to be a hoax after security forces thoroughly combed the area on Wednesday, state-run National News Agency reported.

“The emergency room doctor at Khouri Hospital in Zahle received a phone call about the presence of a bomb in the hospital’s vicinity,” NNA said.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat on Wednesday described the new government as a “broad national coalition,” stressing that “it was not imposed by outside forces as some have claimed” and that it is not “one-sided.”

Following talks with Prime Minister Najib Miqati in Beirut’s Verdun district, Jumblat added: “The atmospheres are excellent despite the delay in forming the cabinet … Each of us has made sacrifices, each in his own way.”

The Loyalty to the Resistance bloc praised on Wednesday Speaker Nabih Berri’s “bold national stand” that helped establish a new government.

It said in a statement after a meeting headed by MP Mohammed Raad: “With the formation of a new government, the country has entered a new phase rife with challenges that require different policies that would be able to revitalize all state institutions and fields.”

A Dutch diplomat was kidnapped in Lebanon some ten days ago in a development that has raised European fears of the return of the abduction of foreigners in Lebanon that was prevalent during the civil war years.

A European diplomatic source told the Central News Agency on Wednesday that the Dutch diplomat, who resides in Damascus, was abducted by tribes from the Baalbek region as he was passing through the area.

After almost five months of bickering a Lebanese government was born out of a miraculous idea from one of the king makers of the March 8 coalition.

Speaker Nabih Berri decided to switch one of the three ministerial seats allocated to him from three Shiite ministers to two Shiites and one Sunni, thereby removing one of the last remaining major hurdles from the government birth.

Lebanese authorities are searching for a Syrian opposition figure who went missing three weeks ago and who may have been kidnapped, his daughter said on Wednesday.

Shebli al-Aysami, 86, is a co-founder of Syria's ruling Baath Party but fled his native Syria in 1966 over political differences with the group.

The March 14 forces vowed on Wednesday to confront alleged attempts by the new Lebanese cabinet to take Lebanon back to the era of Syrian hegemony and integrate the country’s institutions into Hizbullah’s statelet.

The general-secretariat of the coalition said after its weekly meeting that it would prevent Premier Najib Miqati’s government to “return Lebanon to the dark stage that the Cedar Revolution liberated” after ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s assassination in February 2005.