Public sector appointments came back to the spotlight after the government approved a much awaited wage hike but differences between President Michel Suleiman and Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun on the Maronite shares in state institutions will most likely delay the process.

“There is no strain with MP Michel Aoun or anyone else,” Suleiman said Thursday. “I have invited him to dinner.”

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel denied on Friday that he is aware of cooperation between the French corporation that runs the database of the fingerprint records of the Lebanese citizens and a military Israeli company.

“I will take the necessary measures concerning the matter,” Charbel told As Safir newspaper.

The Israeli army has changed its operational assessment “regarding the threat from Lebanon and is currently working under the assumption that Hizbullah has obtained sophisticated long-range surface-to-air missile systems from Syria,” the Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post reported Thursday.

“According to Western intelligence assessments, Hizbullah is believed to have taken advantage of the ongoing upheaval in Syria to obtain advanced weapons systems, such as additional long-range rockets as well as Russian-made air-defense systems,” TJP said.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat on Thursday held talks in Doha with Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani on the latest developments in the region.

During his visit to Qatar, Jumblat told the Doha-based satellite broadcaster Al-Jazeera that “violence will only breed violence in Syria,” reiterating his warning that the revolt-hit country might descend into a “civil war.”

A Mustaqbal Movement delegation on Thursday held talks with Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea in Maarab on the general situations in the country, “especially the issue of the electoral law,” MP Ahmed Fatfat said after the meeting.

The delegation also comprised MPs Hadi Hbeish and Ziad al-Qaderi. The meeting was attended by LF bloc MPs Georges Adwan and Antoine Zahra.

Protests erupted on Thursday at Roumieh prison's ward B after security forces arrested a lady who was trying to smuggle mobile phones into the prison.

“Prisoners have reportedly took a number of guards hostage seeking to swap them for the held lady,” Voice of Lebanon radio station (93.3) reported.

Ashrafiyeh MPs put a telephone hotline in the service of the Beirut neighborhood’s citizens on Thursday, a few days after a building collapsed in the area killing 27 people and injuring 12 others.

“We put the 03000019 hotline for Ashrafiyeh residents to help them resolve their problems through Beirut Municipality,” said MP Michel Pharaon during a press conference of the Free Decision Bloc.

Firefighters doused on Thursday a blaze that erupted at a two-storey carpet factory in the town of Adma, north of Beirut, media reports said.

The state-run National News Agency said five firefighting vehicles rushed to the area and controlled the fire that caused only limited material damage because the factory is empty.

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel denied on Thursday that the investigators of the U.N.-backed court probing the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri requested the fingerprint records of some Lebanese citizens.

“What some media reported that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon investigators requested the fingerprints of some Lebanese, is not true,” Charbel told al-Manar television.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea called on Hizbullah to negotiate with political parties in Lebanon to reach a “historical settlement” over its arms and all the controversial issues amid the developments in the region.

“It may seem a hard step but it’s courageous and necessary… The sooner the better because changes (in the region) will decrease the value of its (Hizbullah’s) weapons… Until it becomes a burden on it,” Geagea said in remarks published in As Safir newspaper on Thursday.