Arafat may appoint prime minister to ease president's workload

YASSER ARAFAT is considering appointing a prime minister to share the running of day-to-day government affairs once a Palestinian State is declared after a planned January election.

"He says in an independent State there needs to be a prime minister," said Palestinian cabinet minister Nabil Shaath. "The prime minister solves a lot of daily problems that the president should not address."

Shaath said the beleaguered Palestinian leader, who for months has been largely confined by Israel to his battered compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah, signed a decree asking him to convene a team of legal experts to come up with proposals on this and other constitutional issues.