Energy Minister Jebran Bassil stated on Monday that the prime minister cannot keep on covering up state employee errors over their sectarian affiliations.

He told MTV: “We have an opportunity to achieve issues we had never done before, but forgiving mistakes will not lead to the government’s success.”

Lebanese officials are holding closed-door talks as the deadline for Lebanon’s payment of its share of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon funds approaches, As Safir newspaper reported Tuesday.

Ministerial sources told the newspaper that the officials aim at finding an appropriate solution for the issue “to protect the government from any repercussions and Lebanon’s relations with the international community.”

Relations between Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat and Hizbullah seem to be reaching an all-time low after the Shiite party’s al-Manar TV station slammed the Druze leader for criticizing Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi.

Al-Manar said in reference to Jumblat in its newscast on Monday that some officials remain steadfast in their stances while others tend to swing to adjust to the “regional winds.”

Bkirki might host a meeting for Catholic church leaders to take a united stance from the developments in the region and their repercussions on Christians, involved sources told An Nahar daily published Tuesday.

The sources said that the seat of the Maronite church might host a meeting of Catholic patriarchs to garner support for Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi’s fears from the threat that the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria poses to Christians there.

Speaker Nabih Berri expressed discontent on Tuesday over the violent verbal attack against Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi by the March14-led opposition.

“His eminence realizes what’s happening in Syria and the region, and his only aim is to protect the Christians and all the Lebanese,” Berri told An Nahar newspaper.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea and Phalange party chief Amin Gemayel are mulling to suspend their participation in a meeting of top Maronite political leaders scheduled to be held in Bkirki later this month.

LF sources told An Nahar daily published Tuesday that the party’s leadership is considering Geagea’s boycott of the meeting on Sept. 23 over Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi’s latest remarks on Hizbullah and the Syrian crisis.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Monday held separate talks at the seat of the Maronite church in Bkirki with Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun and several March 14 camp officials.

“It is normal to visit His Eminence to wish him well after his safe return (from France), and of course it is not something unusual for us to back his stances, because he is the one entrusted with the Synod for Lebanon and the Synod for the Middle East,” said Aoun after the talks.

Fierce machinegun clashes between a Lebanese group and a Palestinian group are still ongoing since 7:00 pm in the “Kurds neighborhood” on the outskirts of the Beirut southern suburb of Borj al-Barajneh, state-run National News Agency reported.

“Security forces have not been able to reach the place due to the intensity of the clashes,” NNA added.

President Michel Suleiman on Monday voiced his “wish to see the Beirut declaration as a decisive milestone in the course” of the international Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Speaking at the Second Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Beirut, Suleiman said: “Our approach towards the issue of cluster bombs stems from humanitarian considerations, as we are aware of the repercussions of their use and it is a must to voice our political condemnation of those who use cluster munitions.”

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat on Monday noted that the latest “fear-inciting remarks on the rise of Salafist or fundamentalist (Islamist) movements … are being used as a ‘scarecrow’.”

“These remarks remind us of the old-new approach that calls for an alliance of minorities” in the region, Jumblat said, adding that such an approach “has destroyed Lebanon.”