U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon and western nations expressed growing alarm on Tuesday at the deadly clampdown in Syria, but the U.N. Security Council made little headway in efforts to agree to condemn the violence.

Syria's U.N. envoy pleaded for international understanding for President Bashar Assad, but the U.S. ambassador accused Assad of "disingenuously blaming outsiders" while seeking Iran's help to put down protests.

More than 100 Lebanese activists, journalists and intellectuals signed a petition on Tuesday in solidarity with protesters in Syria, Beirut's former military and political power broker.

"We the undersigned... condemn the oppression of the Syrian people... and declare our solidarity with them in their battle to regain their freedom and dignity," read the petition, a copy of which was obtained by Agence France Presse.

The Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc on Tuesday noted that "there are no real indications" that the new cabinet will see light anytime soon.

In a statement issued after its weekly meeting under ex-PM Fouad Saniora, the bloc derided the "promises" made in that regard "by those who are saying that they are part of the cabinet formation process."

Speaker Nabih Berri demanded on Tuesday that the investigation into alleged Lebanese meddling in Syrian affairs should be conducted in a legal framework.

He said during a ceremony commemorating poet Najib Jamaledddine: ““All Lebanese should be keener on Syria’s security and stability than the Syrians themselves.”

Sources from the Progressive Socialist Party revealed to the Central News Agency that PSP leader MP Walid Jumblat headed to Damascus on Tuesday but the reasons for the visit have not been disclosed.

They said that he will return to Beirut on Wednesday.

Caretaker Foreign Minister Ali Shami called on Lebanon’s ambassador to the United Nations Nawwaf Salam to reject the Security Council’s expected draft statement on the developments on Syria.

The U.N. will discuss Syria later Tuesday.

Hizbullah doesn’t mind cooperating with Saad Hariri because he views him as “naïve and easily deceived” said Najib Miqati at the end of the July 2006 war, revealed a leaked U.S. Embassy cable published exclusively in al-Rai News on Tuesday.

Miqati, who was then a former prime minister, stated that the absence of a real leader among Lebanon’s Sunnis will empower the “unified and armed Shiite sect,” said the WikiLeaks cable dated August 8, 2006, a few days before the ceasefire in the war was put into effect.

Al-Mustaqbal MP Jamal al-Jarrah said Tuesday that he would file a complaint against Tawhid movement leader Wiam Wahhab for revealing “fake” checks addressed to him and signed by Saudi Prince Turki bin Abdul Aziz.

Al-Jarrah told Voice of Lebanon radio station that Wahhab’s “silly” actions are punishable by law. Former minister Mohammed Abdul Hamid Baydoun has announced he would file a complaint and “I will do the same,” the lawmaker said.

The United States late Monday ordered embassy family members and some non-emergency personnel to leave Syria, citing the "uncertainty and volatility" of a crackdown on protesters there.

The State Department's ordered departure, along with a travel warning telling U.S. citizens to leave the country, followed another day of violent attacks on protesters by Syrian security forces.

Oil was up in Asian trade as escalating tensions in Libya, Syria, and Yemen heightened fears of supply disruption in the Middle East and North African region Agence France Presse reported on Monday.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in June, rose 36 cents to $112.65 a barrel, while Brent North Sea crude for June gained 24 cents to $124.23 in the afternoon.