January 21, 2007	Sunday	Muharram 01, 1428

BEIRUT, Jan 20: The Lebanese opposition called on Saturday for a one-day general strike, stepping up a protest campaign to bring down the Western-backed government that has paralysed the nation's leadership for weeks.

The stoppage called for Tuesday marked the first escalation by the opposition since its supporters began an open-ended sit-in around government offices in central Beirut on Dec 1 to demand a national unity cabinet.

“In the face of the obstinacy of the government barricaded behind the walls of the Grand Serail, the opposition calls on its supporters to step up their peaceful and democratic protests and on all Lebanese to observe a general strike on Tuesday,” an opposition statement said.

The action was announced the day after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed that the opposition would be taking more action to see that its demands are met.

The immediate target of the industrial action, which was first announced by a pro-opposition trade union confederation, was an austerity package unveiled by the government earlier this month ahead of a major donors' conference in Paris on Thursday.

“In accordance with its peaceful plan of action against the reforms proposed by the prime minister, the General Conference of Workers of Lebanon is calling a general strike for Tuesday... to put an end to the savage cuts being put forward,” a statement said.

“Stability will return to Lebanon only with the formation of a new government that can lay the basis for a new era with a just electoral law and early elections,” it said.

The opposition charges that Siniora's government has been illegal ever since the departure of six pro-Syrian ministers in November on the grounds that the power-sharing arrangements established after Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war require the representation of all the country's confessional groups.—AFP