Speaker Nabih Berri assured on Wednesday that the government formation is underway and “it will be formed sooner or later, but the timing has not been set yet.”

Addressing developments in Syria during his weekly parliamentary meeting, he said: “The situation in Syria was already stable and it will always stand as the fort of Arabism.”

The March 14 General Secretariat condemned on Wednesday attempts by some media outlets to involve Lebanon in Syria’s popular opposition movements, which claimed that some independence movements in Lebanon are inciting unrest in the Arab state.

It called on in a statement after its weekly meeting these outlets to cease their “rumors” which it believed are an attempt to employ the developments in the Arab world on the internal Lebanese political scene, demanding that legal action be taken against them.

President Michel Suleiman has telephoned his Syrian counterpart, Bashar Assad, several times to express Lebanon’s support for his regime, Baabda palace sources told As Safir daily.

The sources said in remarks published Wednesday that Suleiman stressed to Assad during several telephone conversations that “Lebanon stands by Syria against any plot that threatens its security, stability and patriotic choices.”

Speaker Nabih Berri has stressed that Lebanon’s security should not be linked to the political vacuum created by the deadlock on the formation of the new cabinet.

In remarks to several Beirut dailies published Wednesday, Berri said: “The effectiveness of security apparatuses should not be based on the formation of the government.” He stressed that security agencies have their own budgets.

U.N. Security Council members have expressed hope that Premier-designate Najib Miqati would overcome obstacles and form a cabinet as “soon as possible.”

An Nahar daily said Wednesday that the 15-member Council also hoped the new government would remain committed to Lebanon’s international obligations, mainly the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

The Mustaqbal bloc condemned on Tuesday the recent security developments in Lebanon, especially the kidnapping of seven Estonians in the Bekaa, which it said “are aimed at returning Lebanon to a dark period of its past.”

It added after its weekly meeting in Qoreitem headed by former Prime Minister Fouad Saniora: “Malicious powers are behind these incidents that are aimed at targeting mutual coexistence and destabilizing Lebanon.”

Two Reuters journalists who went missing at the weekend while covering the recent unrest in Syria have been released by authorities and have returned to Beirut, the news agency said Monday.

Reuters editor-in-chief Stephen Adler was quoted as saying that television producer Ayat Basma and cameraman Ezzat Baltaji were back in their home base in Beirut and were doing well.

Some 300 Syrian laborers demonstrated in front of their country's embassy in Beirut on Monday to express their support for the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"We are with Assad and against any change," said protester Mohammed Hilal, 18, one of tens of thousands of laborers employed in Lebanon, mainly in the construction sector.

For the nearly 40,000 followers of his Twitter feed, Andy Carvin is providing a unique window into the turmoil in the Middle East.

For a media industry facing its own ferment, Carvin, who works online for National Public Radio (NPR), is offering a glimpse into journalism's future, using the Web to report the historic events in a fresh and innovative way.

Two Reuters journalists reporting on the ongoing protests in Syria have gone missing, the news agency said Sunday.

Producer Ayat Basma and cameraman Ezzat Baltaji were expected to return to their Lebanon base on Saturday evening, but failed to meet up with a taxi which had been sent to pick them up from the border, an official with the agency said.