British Ambassador Frances Guy has said that although the government change was constitutional, it partly came out of fear from the use of Hizbullah’s weapons against its foes.

In an interview with As Safir daily published Friday, Guy confirmed that Britain would deal with the new government and expects it to respect Security Council resolutions on Lebanon mainly 1701 and 1757.

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat has warned that efforts by some Lebanese parties to resort to Chapter 7 of the U.N. charter would have dangerous consequences on Lebanon.

“This is a destructive calculation,” he said about Premier-designate Najib Miqati’s allegation that some Lebanese were seeking for a U.N. Security Council resolution on Lebanon under Chapter 7.

Caretaker Premier Saad Hariri reiterated that he rejects to become a partner with Hizbullah’s arms that have allegedly turned against the Lebanese.

“Former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and I preserved the resistance,” Saad Hariri told An Nahar daily in an interview published Friday but said he would no longer defend it “after it put arms in the face of the Lebanese.”

The Beirut office of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s Prosecutor has reportedly asked the interior ministry to provide it with the fingerprints of 4 million Lebanese.

As Safir daily said Thursday that after reviewing laws, the ministry provided Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare with only several hundred fingerprints.

China’s ambassador to the U.N., Li Baodong, has stressed that investigations carried out by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s Feb. 2005 assassination should be “objective and transparent.”

Li made the comment in response to a question by An Nahar daily during a press conference he held in New York on Wednesday.

Caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri is expected to make an important speech that would reflect the decisions reached at the March 14 lawmakers’ meeting scheduled for Sunday.

An Nahar newspaper said Hariri would make the speech on Monday afternoon.

Caretaker Premier Saad Hariri held talks with U.S. Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman at Center House on Monday, a statement from his press office said.

The meeting was attended by U.S. Ambassador Maura Connelly, Nader Hariri, and advisors Mohammed Shatah and Hani Hammoud.

Speaker Nabih Berri has brushed off criticism of the transfer of the parliamentary majority from the March 14 to the March 8 forces, saying there is no need for a tumult over the issue.

Berri’s visitors told An Nahar and As Safir dailies in remarks published Friday that it was not the first time power was transferred from one alliance to the other. It happened when Salim Hoss became premier instead of Rafik Hariri during ex-President Emile Lahoud’s term in office.

Hizbullah is greatly concerned about the prospect of public indictments in ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s assassination case, in large part because some of the group's senior members have already been named in the media as potential suspects, said the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The Hizbullah members include Qassem Suleiman, Hajj Salim, Abdul Majid Ghamloush, brothers Hussein and Mouin Khreis, and, most significantly, Mustafa Badreddine, the institute said in a report written by Matthew Levitt.

The March 14 general-secretariat said Wednesday that the new opposition’s main task was to protect public and private lives from Hizbullah’s weapons.

Following its weekly meeting, the general-secretariat stressed it would go ahead with its decisions to confront through democratic means the “coup” that was carried out by the March 8 forces when they toppled Caretaker Premier Saad Hariri’s government and nominated Najib Miqati as prime minister-designate.