BEIRUT (AFP) - Lebanon's pro-Syrian forces went on the counter-attack against the opposition with a demand that could delay elections due in May, as the country was shaken by another bomb attack.Prime minister-designate Omar Karameh, at a meeting late Friday with his pro-Syrian allies, decided to stay on, despite having failed over the past three weeks to form a new government to ease Lebanon's political crisis. Karameh, who said Tuesday he would resign, was tasked with forming a cabinet "to save the country", following the opposition's refusal to join a national unity government, said parliament speaker Nabih Berri. He said the new government would draw up an electoral law based on larger constituencies and proportional representation, changes favouring the pro-Syrian camp.

ألمطارنة وألأساقفة من آل ألخازن

المطران ميخائيل حرب الخازن

BEIRUT (AFP) - Five people were wounded in the latest bombing of a Christian area of Lebanon, police said, as prime minister-designate Omar Karameh reversed a decision to step down.  Against a backdrop of political crisis since the February 14 assassination of former premier Rafiq Hariri, the bombers carried out a fourth strike on a Christian area in less than two weeks. The latest attack came at 9:45 pm (1845 GMT) in an underground parking lot of the Rizk shopping and residential complex in the mountain resort of Brumana, an opposition stronghold 20 kilometres (13 miles) east of Beirut. About a dozen cars were destroyed in the blast, which caused heavy material damage, television pictures showed. The eight-storey centre contains a branch of the Mediterranean Bank, owned by the Hariri family.

By VICTOR L. SIMPSON, Associated Press Writer  VATICAN CITY - Pope John Paul II was near death Saturday, his breathing shallow and his heart and kidneys failing, the Vatican said. Millions of faithful around the world knelt, crawled on their knees, bowed their heads and lit candles to pray for the 84-year-old pontiff."This evening or this night, Christ opens the door to the pope," Angelo Comastri, the pope's vicar general for Vatican City, told a crowd at St. Peter's Square, where up to 70,000 people prayed and stood vigil in the chilly night. Wrapping themselves in blankets, many tearfully gazed at John Paul's third-floor windows, where the lights remained on early Saturday. The Vatican said Friday morning that John Paul was in "very grave" condition after suffering blood poisoning from a urinary tract infection the previous night, but that he was "fully conscious and extraordinarily serene" and declined to be hospitalized.