The March 14 alliance refused on Monday to budge an inch on toppling the government, while the cabinet considered the attack launched by the supporters of the opposition only served its interests as Prime Minister Najib Miqati insists on carrying out his tasks.

Leadership sources in the March 14 camp told al-Joumhouria newspaper that the March 8 forces are exaggerating Sunday's incidents to divert the people's attention from the assassination of Internal Security Forces Intelligence Bureau head Brigadier General Wissam al-Hasan.

Thousands of mourners participated in Sunday's funeral of slain Major General Wissam al-Hasan, chief of the Internal Security Forces Intelligence Bureau, who was killed by a powerful car bombing on Friday blamed on the Damascus regime.

Anti-Syria opposition chief ex-premier Saad Hariri had called for a huge turnout for the funeral of the fallen general and thousands of people took part in the ceremony outside the Mohammed al-Amine Mosque in Beirut's Martyrs Square.

Intensive contacts were held overnight Friday-Saturday between Prime Minister Najib Miqati and Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat and his ministers, during which Jumblat rejected Miqati's suggestion that he would submit his resignation, official sources said.

“Jumblat rejected Miqati's resignation out of fear of a governmental vacuum and the inability of any caretaker cabinet to control security should the situations deteriorate,” sources close to the premiership told the pan-Arab al-Hayat newspaper in remarks published Sunday.

Iranian Vice President Mohammed Reza Rahimi voiced on Thursday his country’s readiness to establish cooperation agreements between the Islamic republic and Lebanon.

He said after holding talks with President Michel Suleiman: “Iran is completely committed to supporting Lebanon.”

A ministerial committee tasked with scrutinizing a plan to lease power-generating vessels on Thursday reached an agreement with a Turkish company after slashing the costs by nine percent.

“The ministerial panel tasked with following up on talks with the two ship leasing firms, the American Weller Marine and the Turkish Karadeniz, has successfully finished its negotiations,” Energy and Water Minister Jebran Bassil said after the committee’s meeting.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati formally received from the “Change and Reform” bloc the resignation of Labor Minister Charbel Nahhas.

Miqati’s media office stated that “After consultations between the Prime Minister and the President, the resignation of Labor Minister Charbel Nahhas has been accepted.”

A “political” meeting was held on Wednesday between Premier Najib Miqati and Energy and Water Minister Jebran Bassil, OTV reported.

The meeting was held on the sidelines of the periodic meeting of the ministerial committee tasked with scrutinizing tenders for leasing power generation ships.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat stressed that Lebanon can “overcome instability,” voicing his support to the cabinet that was able to prevent civil “strife and vacuum.”

“Maybe the developments need some time” to be resolved, Jumblat told al-Akhbar newspaper on Wednesday.

The Free Patriotic Movement on Tuesday slammed “what Premier Najib Miqati has been saying about an infringement of the premiership’s powers,” stressing that the prime minister has been “acting in excess of his jurisdiction and in fact infringing on the powers of others.”

“Every now and then, Prime Minister Najib Miqati voices stances in the media that carry a lot of fallacies and overbidding, through which he attacks who he claims are parties ‘infringing on the powers’ of the premiership, which represents an infringement of the Sunni sect’s rights -- as he claims,” the FPM’s press office said in a statement.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun on Monday denied a media report claiming he was unconvinced with the wage hike decree proposed by Labor Minister Charbel Nahhas, who was nominated by him for the ministerial post.

“Every now and then, some media reports attribute stances to him (Aoun) or to FPM sources and they (media outlets) claim to read his intentions in order to come up with the conclusions they see fit,” Aoun’s press office said in a statement.