Middle East: Less than 48 hours after he was formally sworn in, the Palestinian Authority's Prime Minister, Mr Ahmed Korei, asked Mr Yasser Arafat yesterday to "just relieve me of this job" - plunging the authority into a new crisis.
Meanwhile, a suicide bomber from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a faction affiliated to Mr Arafat's Fatah, injured two Israeli soldiers and a Palestinian when he blew himself up at an Israeli-Palestinian liaison office at Tulkarm.
Mr Korei's resignation request, which Mr Arafat rejected, came as he realised that his emergency eight-member government, which was to have been approved by the Palestinian parliament, would not receive majority support.
Many legislators from Mr Arafat's and Mr Korei's Fatah faction of the PLO do not back it, regarding it as having been over-hastily imposed by Mr Arafat, preferring that the ministerial team be expanded and that it include members of a wider range of Palestinian factions.
Moreover, one minister-designate, Mr Nasser Yousuf, refused to have Mr Arafat swear him in on Tuesday. Mr Yousuf was seeking assurances that as interior minister, he would have overall authority over the various PA security forces - a delegation of Mr Arafat's authority that the PA president refuses to concede.
Mr Arafat (74) is undeniably in poor health and apparently collapsed during an interview on Wednesday. An Egyptian medical team which examined him reportedly concluded that he recently suffered a heart attack, although his personal physician, Dr Ashraf al-Kurdi, continued to deny this.
He did concede that Mr Arafat had not been well. Nevertheless, Mr Arafat is plainly still attempting to fully oversee the Palestinian Authority. He told Mr Korei yesterday to dismiss the obdurate Mr Yousuf, but Mr Korei said he would not do so.
Palestinian legislators, who had all gathered in Ramallah to vote on accepting or rejecting the new government, are now tentatively scheduled to reconvene tomorrow - if Mr Korei is still interested in them doing so.
Had the cabinet been approved yesterday, it is understood that he and Mr Yousuf had intended to try and restore some degree of control over what Mr Korei has described as the "anarchy" in the Palestinian territories, with the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade a prime focus.
Israeli military officials say that apart from yesterday's suicide bombing by an 18-year-old student, they have thwarted two other attempted suicide bombings in Tulkarm this week and several more in the Jenin area.