Four men have assaulted Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani’s son at a restaurant in Beirut’s seafront of Raouche, the Dar al-Fatwa’s press office said.

The statement said that Sheikh Ragheb Qabbani was “beaten by “provocateurs while having lunch at a Beirut restaurant” on Wednesday. The men also cursed him and his father, it said.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati will receive on Thursday a copy of a new indictment in the attacks on the three officials that have been linked to ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s murder, al-Joumhouria newspaper reported.

Media reports had said that Pre-Trial Judge Daniel Fransen made a progress in preparing the indictments in the assassination attempts of MP Marwan Hamadeh and ex-Defense Minister Elias Murr, and the murder of former Communist party leader George Hawi.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon expressed concern over the repercussions of the Syrian crisis on the implementation of Security Council resolution 1701 but hailed the Lebanese government’s efforts to ward off the impact of the upheaval in the neighboring country.

In his latest report on the implementation of resolution 1701, Ban said the Syrian regime’s crackdown on protestors has continued to affect Lebanon, and raised concerns that the unrest could have negative ramifications for the country’s stability.

The cabinet is keen to maintain its unity despite the disputes among its members on vital issues, March 8 sources told al-Liwaa newspaper published Thursday.

“The government will not collapse despite the bickering and disputes among its members as it’s achieving the minimum amount of security and stability” in Lebanon, the sources said.

The head of the parliamentary energy committee, MP Mohammed Qabbani, vowed on Thursday to question Energy Minister Jebran Bassil after he lamented that an Audit Bureau report on the red diesel scandal didn’t hold him accountable.

Qabbani told An Nahar daily that the Bureau’s representatives had informed members of the committee that they can’t hold Bassil accountable.

Al-Mustaqbal MPs Jamal al-Jarrah and Ghazi Youssef will propose an urgent draft-law to parliament on Thursday in an attempt to find a comprehensive solution to the extra-budgetary spending made by different governments since 2006 and end any excuse to reject their proposal.

An Nahar daily said that the lawmakers will push for a parliamentary approval of the $22 billion spending made by the governments of ex-PMs Fouad Saniora and Saad Hariri and the current cabinet of Premier Najib Miqati.

Hizbullah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah held a meeting with an Iranian delegation headed by deputy head of the Iranian Islamic Council Mohammed Rida Bahunar.

The two sides tackled the latest developments in the region and the bilateral ties, according to As Safir newspaper published on Thursday.

Spanish journalist Javier Espinosa has arrived in Lebanon from Syria, his employer the El Mundo newspaper said Wednesday.

The correspondent, who survived a bombardment in Homs that killed American journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik had "left Syria and was in Lebanon in perfect health", the newspaper wrote on its website.

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday named Norman Farrell of Canada as the new prosecutor of the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which is probing the 2005 assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Farrell takes over as chief STL prosecutor from another Canadian, Daniel Bellemare, whose three year mandate ended Wednesday. The court has charged four Hizbullah members over the assassination.

Speaker Nabih Berri on Wednesday said Lebanon had concerns Israel might deny it “its right to more than 850 nautical square kilometers” in maritime resources, stressing that “the problem is not between Lebanon and Cyprus, but rather between Lebanon and Israel.”

During a joint press conference with his Cypriot counterpart Yiannakis Omirou in Cyprus, where he arrived Wednesday on an official visit, Berri said “the U.N. has recently become convinced that it has to intervene in order to resolve this issue,” referring to the disputed oil and gas resources.