Rocket from Lebanon hits Israeli town

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A short-range rocket fired from Lebanon struck a town in northern Israel on Wednesday, damaging a building but causing no casualties, Israeli security sources said.

They said the 107 mm Katyusha rocket, with a range of 9 km (5.5 miles), struck a factory in the border town of Shlomi as residents celebrated Israel's Independence Day.

A Hizbollah spokesman in Beirut had no comment on the report and there was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Hariri's son enters Lebanon election race amid Christian warnings

BEIRUT (AFP) - Saadeddin Hariri, son of the slain former premier Rafiq Hariri, has thrown his hat into the ring for elections which Christian bishops warned could upset Lebanon's delicate religious coexistence.

Hariri, whose father was killed on February 14, planned to unveil his electoral list Tuesday night but delayed the move amid cracks within the anti-Syrian Lebanese opposition.

The government, under pressure from the international community, said elections for a 128-seat parliament will take place on four consecutive Sundays starting May 29, a month after Syria pulled its troops from Lebanon.

The polls will be based on a Syrian-tailored law used in the last polls in 2000 that breaks Lebanon into large constituencies, seen as unfavourable to the large Christian minority which is demanding smaller voting areas.

Lebanon bishops say elections to weaken Christians

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon's Maronite Christian bishops warned on Wednesday that elections starting this month would under-represent their community in favour of Muslim politicians and upset the country's delicate sectarian balance.

"Insisting on holding parliamentary elections under this unfair law will have detrimental consequences that we do not want or wish for," the Council of Maronite Bishops said in a statement after an emergency meeting.

"We call on all Christian and Muslim officials to look at this delicate situation and put national interests ahead, holding onto the coexistence that brings together Muslims and Christians on an equal footing," it said.

Lebanon's political system carefully distributes political offices among myriad religious minorities who fought a 15-year war that split the country into Christian and Muslim enclaves.

The Taif Accord that ended the 1975-1990 civil war grants half the seats in parliament to Christians and half to Muslims.