Lebanon unions halt protests, Hezbollah plans more

BEIRUT, Jan 11 (Reuters) Lebanon's opposition-backed labour unions took a break today from two days of protests against government economic reform plans, while Hezbollah said it would soon intensify its own campaign to topple the cabinet.

''We just want to take a rest today,'' union chief Ghassan Ghosn told Reuters, adding that the unions were meeting to decide their next move.

Only a few hundred Lebanese responded to the union confederation's call for protests at government buildings on Tuesday and yesterday and a Hezbollah official said that was why they had been halted.

Mahmoud Qomati, a member of Hezbollah's politburo, told Reuters the Shi'ite party would step up its own struggle to topple Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's government.

''Within the next two weeks, there will be several important and different movements ... we will have movements that will include all the Lebanese lands,'' he said.

The labour union protests, a far cry from the vast gatherings organised by Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah and its allies in December, were backed by the opposition as part of its 42-day-old drive to oust the government.

The labour union, which rejects the tax hikes and privatisation plans proposed in the government reform programme, had originally pledged daily protests until Siniora gives way.

Protesters have camped outside Siniora's offices in central Beirut since December 1 to try to force him to cede veto power to the opposition in a unity government or call early elections.

Siniora announced the economic reforms last week ahead of an international donors conference to be held in Paris on January 25.

The prime minister, whose backers include the United States, France and Saudi Arabia, will begin a tour of Egypt and Gulf Arab states on Sunday to discuss Arab contributions to the conference, a government source said.

The Beirut government hopes the conference, which US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to attend, will bring billions of dollars of aid to an economy reeling from Hezbollah's July-August war with Israel.

Reuters BDP GC2108